Guillermo Kuitca presents a personal selection of 120 works from the collection of the Parisian institution Cartier. The painter combines installations, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, videos and drawings to create a cosmogony made up of works, artists, animals and objects in which the human figure is often represented, seen in its relationship with others and with the world.
“The exhibition presents nothing homogeneous: it is a real melting pot, a polyphony of elements and voices. It has to do with the broader sense of 'community', with the uncentered democratic aspect of all the works and with the relationship that links them to each other.” Guillermo Kuitca. The Citizens it is a total creation, an exhibition-work in which Guillermo Kuitca signs not only the selection of the works themselves, but also their insertion in the space, in harmony with the architecture of the Triennale and his own pictorial universe. The exhibition, elaborated by the artist, becomes a creation in itself.
“It is interesting that this exhibition is presented in the spaces of the Triennale Milano: a place that has paved the way for design. While I was working on the project and trying to organize these spaces and give an identity to the exhibition, I also thought that being in Milan – a city that has such a close relationship with design – could be a source of inspiration and a challenge it almost makes one feel in awe. I like to think that The Citizens both an act of design and an act of love.” Guillermo Kuitca
Second project presented within the partnership between Triennale Milano and Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, the exhibition represents an opportunity for the two institutions to recall the central role of art and design collections and the importance of preserving memory in order to think about the future.
Through an artist's gaze on his contemporaries, The Citizens proposes a path in which the ideas of ensembles and constellations, groups and communities unfold in a symmetrical way. Cosmogony of works, artists, animals, objects, the exhibition appears like a "solar system without the sun", according to Guillermo Kuitca, who conceives a path without a theme, center or hierarchy, while making connections that "weave a texture of senses and sensations”. In this way, he approaches the monumental design of Falls Guo Qiang the film by Artavazd Peleshyan, which evokes a communion of animals whose vulnerability echoes the abstract presence of man in the photographs of Fernell franc or in the miniature society of sculptures by Véio. Other works also propose this ubiquitous idea of constellations. Thanks to its spatial device, the work of Agnès Varda it echoes the voices of a community of women of all ages, on the one hand; and on the other, sessions invite visitors to gather in turn, in a fortuitous group of observers.
The look is also present in the installation of Tony Oursler, where the visitor finds himself immersed in a forest of shamanic spirits. Or in the photographer's eye Daidomoriyama, which proposes a journey through his studio through an installation made up of a series of Polaroids. And then another immersion in the three-dimensional universe of the film Moebius, which transports the human community to another planet.
Although it is an almost constant presence in the works selected by Guillermo Kuitca, as well as in the groups painted by Moke o George Rust or modeled from Isabel Mendes from Cunha, the human figure takes on a silent character, a sort of presence-absence that resonates with more abstract ensembles, such as the works of Richard Artschwager, Absalom, Jose Vera equipment o Thomas Demand. We find again the abstraction and dissolution of the body in the photographs of Francesca woodman, in the nudes of David Lynch, and even in the drawings of the Yanomami artist Taniki.
The works Rinko Kawauchi e Virxilius Vieitez instead they evoke the universal idea of the family nucleus and of the community of multiple personalities and temporalities that constitute it. With David Hammons, Junya Ishigami, Allan McCollum, line celmins, Hu Liu, Guillermo Kuitca plays with the idea of combining elements, entities, unities, with repetition and singularity, with the whole and fragmentation.
Choral work, which brings together the universes of Bill Kuitca, David Lynch e Patti Smith, the installation David's Living Room Revisited (2014-2020) is emblematic of the idea of community, the leitmotif of the exhibition The Citizens. As well as photographs of Claudia Andujar which conclude the itinerary, recalling the exhibition previously presented in the same spaces; there David's Living Room Revisited embodies the spirit of the Fondation Cartier and the ceaseless conversation it has been carrying on for almost 40 years with artists.
