Isabelle Cornaro
dal 6/2/2009 al 9/5/2009
Segnalato da
6/2/2009
Isabelle Cornaro
Kunstverein fur die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf
Cornaro's sculptures, drawings and installations revolve around the organisation of perspectives, distance and proximity, as well as the interplay between figurative, symbolic and real space. The way in which landscape is perceived coupled with the cultural over-accentuation of nature play a central role here. In particular, French landscape gardens from the 18th Century and their treatment in painting provide the starting point for her consideration of fundamental questions of representation and perception.
Cornaro's sculptures, drawings and installations revolve around the organisation of perspectives, distance and proximity, as well as the interplay between figurative, symbolic and real space. The way in which landscape is perceived coupled with the cultural over-accentuation of nature play a central role here. In particular French landscape gardens from the 18th Century and their treatment in painting provide the starting point for her consideration of fundamental questions of representation and perception, the constructive over-accentuation of our world and the relationship between the representational and the abstract.
The installation "Paysage avec poussin et témoins oculaires" (2008) has great presence and recreates a painting by Nicholas Poussin in abstract formations of objects. Vases with floral patterns are in the foreground, pedestals with porcelain in the form of animals make up the middle ground, chipboard and oriental carpets constituting the background. Cornaro adopts the organisation of perspective in the painting, as well as the essential thematic components and motifs. By integrating optical and metrical measuring instruments into the installation, she is also alluding to the idealistic composition of classical landscape painting, which to this day determines our idea of nature as a cultural construct.
The video installation "Songs of Opposites" (2007) comprises five short video sequences, in which people can be seen walking across a park. At first glance nothing out of the ordinary-yet they are moving in a very special way along geometric lines, which, on the one hand correspond to the geometric lines of the camera, but are simultaneously reminiscent of the viewing axes that played a crucial role in the layout of landscaped parks. In this way complex relational systems between sculptures, fountains and vegetation are able to arise in the architecture of the landscape that embodied and transported cultural codes and representational approaches. The artificial design of nature as a park corresponds to the movement in space along prescribed routes and structures. The project "Black Maria (Phenomena overwhelming consciousness)" (2008) on the other hand, that combines drawings with a slide projection, places the framing of the camera at the centre of the proceedings as a dispositive of perception.
Kunstverein fur die Rheinlande und Westfalen
Grabbeplatz 4 - Dusseldorf
Opening times: Tue-Sat 12 am – 7 pm Sun- and holidays 11 am – 6 pm