Lorenza Boisi | Maybe there is a Beast... Maybe it's only us.

About

RIBOT is pleased to present a solo show by Lorenza Boisi (Milan, 1972): a selection of recent works, oils on canvas and ceramic sculptures, made by the artist specifically for the exhibition.

The title, “Maybe there is a beast… Maybe it’s only us” alludes to a crucial moment in the famous novel by William Golding The Lord of the Flies. In Simon’s remark, the prophecy of Shim’on (he who listens), the shy, inspired, soothsaying boy tries to give both a logical explanation and an interpretation of the possible existence of the “beast” that menaces the survival of the group.

A beast that might exist or not… that could be within the boys themselves: the projection of their dark side, a physical or imaginary embodiment of their fears, their ancestral need to reify the Unknown, and their Loneliness. Times being what they are, Lorenza Boisi hints at a world that is the very home and body of Apprehension. A personal, extensive, social and historical apprehension that is metaphorically close to Golding’s novel. 

The paintings on show tell of the almost sociological possibilities of one or more existential figures, the artist’s alter egos, and narrate, through the use of synecdoche, her universe and its incurable partiality, its subjectivity and, by extension, much more.

The ceramics, sculptures, and installations contain an aesthetic reference to her questioning of the media, of known techniques that the artist keeps her distance from, and the works generate a small segment of life, an indistinct place, by attributing a historical meaning to that vague territory that is tale-spinning memory.

A place of abandonment and desertions, of transits as adolescence. A place of mystification and of undecipherable moral qualities in face of the arrival of irrationality. A generic and/or highly personal place/time where there remains the mystery of the precise nature of narrative aims and dynamics.

Precisely here where the Beast is to be found or not to be found or We, above all, are the Beast...

Lorenza Boisi (Milan, 1972) lives and works in Milan and Lake Maggiore. She studied in Italy and at the Royal Dutch Academy, the Hague, Villa Arson, Nice, and CERCCO, Geneva. She has held solo and group shows at international galleries and museums, among which: MIDeC, Laveno Mombello, 2016; Musée Ariana, Geneva, 2015; Musei di Villa Torlonia, Rome, 2015; Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania Pallanza, 2014; Espace Sicli, Geneva, 2014; Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice, 2014; Villa Necchi Campiglio, Milan, 2013; Museo del Novecento, Milan, 2013; Triangle Arts Association, New York, 2012; MARCA, Catanzaro, 2011; Italian Embassy, NYC, 2011; CIAC, Genazzano, Rome, 2010; Ca’ Pesaro, Venice, 2009; the Prague Biennale, Prague, 2009; Museo di Storia Naturale di Rovereto, Rovereto, 2008; National Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi, 2007; MUSEION, Bolzano, 2007. She has also taken part in residencies in Civitella Ranieri, Umbertite, 2016, Triangle Arts Association, New York, 2012 and M4Gastatelier, Amsterdam, 2008.