Claudia Losi
Claudia Losi has made the idea of storytelling central to her research. Entering her recent exhibition in Milan, one came across two pieces from her ongoing “Landscapes” series. Three more works from the same series were located in the fourth room. They had the same form and dimensions as the first two, but depict different subjects. All the compositions in the series are made using the same technique: layering reproductions of landscapes from vintage scientific publications and images taken by the artist. Each work is created by distributing nine images between ten overlapping sheets of glass, held together by an aluminum frame and displayed on a birch base, resembling the shelving of Haim Steinbach. Losi has said she conceives these concretions of images as a reflection on the coexistence of different temporalities. Indeed, one of the subjects she depicts is a man dressed in typical mid-twentieth-century clothes, intently observing a group of mysteriously sinuous rocks. Speaking with the artist, I learned that the rocks in question are in New York’s Central Park, and that they are continuously studied because of their great geological significance.
The second room contained a sphere, about nineteen inches in diameter, that Losi made by rolling up threads of wool and silk to form a ball that represents the moon, on the surface of which she embroidered a series of craters—including those that exist on the far side of the satellite that we do not see. This object, Sfera di Rivoluzione (Sphere of Revolution), 2010–, is a work in progress, meant to be completed within a year. In the same room, hanging on the wall, was a drawing, again taken from a scientific publication, depicting a man conducting an experiment within a glass sphere, which is itself contained within a cylindrical metal cage.
The third room featured an installation created from eight chairs of the type found in country inns, specially sanded using an industrial technique and arranged in a tight circle. This work, titled Dialogo tondo (Circular Dialogue), 2010, evokes the gatherings of women busy at work familiar from the rural landscape in many Mediterranean villages. The exhibition concluded with a spectacular collage in the last room, measuring about ten by four feet, titled Guardiano dentro (Guardian Within), 2010. Hung from the ceiling, it is made up of images in gaudy colors, all taken from articles published in the 1980s about astronomy, sewn together with red cotton thread. The narrative strands that characterize Losi’s work here take on a darker turn: I SUOI OCCHI ARRETRANO NELLE ORBITE GUARDANDO DIETRO SI SFORZANO IN AVANTI DOVE NON VEDO: “His eyes pull back into the sockets looking back they force themselves forward where I do not see.”
—Marco Tagliaferro
Translated from Italian by Marguerite Shore.