- Caroline Achaintre
Achaintre Après Achaintre
SECCI, located in Milan in Via Olmetto 1, is pleased to announce the exhibition “Achaintre Après Achaintre,” the first Italian solo show by CAROLINE ACHAINTRE, curated by Chiara Guidi, which will open on Thursday, September 19th at 6:00 p.m.
Caroline Achaintre presents a carefully selected body of her recent works, reflecting her extensive and multifaceted research. Here, the multiple techniques she employs and her unusual subjects converge to form the distinctive visual language for which she is known.
Like in a suite, her woven wool works are represented in expansive tapestries with anthropomorphic hints, resembling purifying masks. Her watercolors, with their intense and pulsating colors, and her sculptures, modeled in an exotic skin of scales, like the armor of alligators, or made from natural materials such as bark, terracotta, and porcelain, open up a unique liminal panorama in each piece.
Caroline Achaintre has been described as embodying a world where the power of tribal primitivism is ignited by an expressionism that leads her towards a futuristic science fiction drift.
The title of this exhibition pays tribute to the recent essay by Philippe Descola, “L’art avant l’art,” in which the renowned anthropologist theorizes an inventory of the most diverse forms of “incarnation” through which humans have represented and continue to represent the “supersensible” — no longer solely through monotheistic beliefs, but also through the profiles of spirits. Similarly, Achaintre, even before the codification of her artistic practice, engages with plural deities through the use of masks that evoke hybrid creatures oscillating between abomination and the rapture of the phenomenal, a fragment of the divine in the rituality of her artistic process.
Her use of craftsmanship shapes a fusion of the real and the fantastic, and through her theatrical ability, she evokes a world of spirits that actively emerge as presences in our contemporary world.
SECCI, located in Milan in Via Olmetto 1, is pleased to announce the exhibition “Achaintre Après Achaintre,” the first Italian solo show by CAROLINE ACHAINTRE, curated by Chiara Guidi, which will open on Thursday, September 19th at 6:00 p.m.
Caroline Achaintre presents a carefully selected body of her recent works, reflecting her extensive and multifaceted research. Here, the multiple techniques she employs and her unusual subjects converge to form the distinctive visual language for which she is known.
Like in a suite, her woven wool works are represented in expansive tapestries with anthropomorphic hints, resembling purifying masks. Her watercolors, with their intense and pulsating colors, and her sculptures, modeled in an exotic skin of scales, like the armor of alligators, or made from natural materials such as bark, terracotta, and porcelain, open up a unique liminal panorama in each piece.
Caroline Achaintre has been described as embodying a world where the power of tribal primitivism is ignited by an expressionism that leads her towards a futuristic science fiction drift.
The title of this exhibition pays tribute to the recent essay by Philippe Descola, “L’art avant l’art,” in which the renowned anthropologist theorizes an inventory of the most diverse forms of “incarnation” through which humans have represented and continue to represent the “supersensible” — no longer solely through monotheistic beliefs, but also through the profiles of spirits. Similarly, Achaintre, even before the codification of her artistic practice, engages with plural deities through the use of masks that evoke hybrid creatures oscillating between abomination and the rapture of the phenomenal, a fragment of the divine in the rituality of her artistic process.
Her use of craftsmanship shapes a fusion of the real and the fantastic, and through her theatrical ability, she evokes a world of spirits that actively emerge as presences in our contemporary world.
Born in France in 1969, raised in Germany and based in England, Caroline Achaintre attended the Kuns- thochschule in Halle, then the Chelsea College of Art and Design, and the Goldsmiths University of London. The artist is nourished by multiple and radically different cultural references that influence her approach. With her sculptures made of wool, Céramique / Ceramic and with her watercolours, the artist appro- priates each space to install her hybrid creatures, transforming the exhibition space into a theater where a dialogue between different characters half-fantastic, half-ghostly can take place. Inspired at once by European carnivals, primitivism, German Expressionism and science fiction, Caroline Achaintre’s work on the one hand evokes the possible coexistence of several characters within a same being as well as the tensions generated by duality. No precise indication is given as to how to approach the work of Achaintre. We see in turn a mask, a garment, an animal… Her works have the particular feature of being difficult to define. At once abstract and figurative, they reveal anthropomorphic forms and indicate a particular inte- rest for animism. The mutation of forms and the plurality of possible interpretations engage the mind and the whim of the viewer. This is the strength of Caroline Achaintre’s work: to question our own capacity to be in the world as individuals defined by complex and multiple identities.
Her work is part of numerous public collections among which: Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Britain, Londres/UK; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; Frac-Artothèque Nouvelle Aquitaine, Limoges; FRAC Aquitaine, Bordeaux et FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims.
Selected solo exhibitions: Visual, Carlow/IR, Museum Lothar Fischer, Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz/DE, Neues Museum, Nürnberg/DE (2023); Centre d’art Pasquart/CH (2022); Kunstmuseum Ravensburg/DE (2021); CAPC, Bordeaux/FR (2020), MO.CO., Montpellier/FR (2019); Belvedere 21, Vienna/AU (2019); De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-sea/UK (2018); FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims/FR (2017); BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead/UK (2016); Tate Britain, London/UK (2015); Castello di Rivoli, Turin/IT (2013).
Born in France in 1969, raised in Germany and based in England, Caroline Achaintre attended the Kuns- thochschule in Halle, then the Chelsea College of Art and Design, and the Goldsmiths University of London. The artist is nourished by multiple and radically different cultural references that influence her approach. With her sculptures made of wool, Céramique / Ceramic and with her watercolours, the artist appro- priates each space to install her hybrid creatures, transforming the exhibition space into a theater where a dialogue between different characters half-fantastic, half-ghostly can take place. Inspired at once by European carnivals, primitivism, German Expressionism and science fiction, Caroline Achaintre’s work on the one hand evokes the possible coexistence of several characters within a same being as well as the tensions generated by duality. No precise indication is given as to how to approach the work of Achaintre. We see in turn a mask, a garment, an animal… Her works have the particular feature of being difficult to define. At once abstract and figurative, they reveal anthropomorphic forms and indicate a particular inte- rest for animism. The mutation of forms and the plurality of possible interpretations engage the mind and the whim of the viewer. This is the strength of Caroline Achaintre’s work: to question our own capacity to be in the world as individuals defined by complex and multiple identities.
Her work is part of numerous public collections among which: Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Britain, Londres/UK; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; Frac-Artothèque Nouvelle Aquitaine, Limoges; FRAC Aquitaine, Bordeaux et FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims.
Selected solo exhibitions: Visual, Carlow/IR, Museum Lothar Fischer, Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz/DE, Neues Museum, Nürnberg/DE (2023); Centre d’art Pasquart/CH (2022); Kunstmuseum Ravensburg/DE (2021); CAPC, Bordeaux/FR (2020), MO.CO., Montpellier/FR (2019); Belvedere 21, Vienna/AU (2019); De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-sea/UK (2018); FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims/FR (2017); BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead/UK (2016); Tate Britain, London/UK (2015); Castello di Rivoli, Turin/IT (2013).
- Daria Dmytrenko
