Egle Oddo: Five Short Stories
Egle Oddo: Five Short Stories
Apr
04
Thu
08:38 – 08:38
-4–-2°C
broken clouds
4.4. – 28.4.2024
Exhibition curated by Lýdia Pribišová / Näyttelyn on kuratoinut Lýdia Pribišová
Opening / Avajaiset 4.4.2024 18-20:00
Driven by their insatiable thirst for egomaniacal occupation, the likes of Bezos and Musk look at extraterrestrial space as the next natural step for expansionism, colonialism and militarization. Opposing this trend, and aware that running into space will not prevent the ecocide at the base of social injustice, a different sensitivity is presented by numerous contemporary art projects, advocating for de-growth, saving energy, resources, and lives. Leaving the sky alone, Egle Oddo looks underground, and turns her questions towards inside, towards the deep soil.
Since the 1990’s all of Egle Oddo’s solo exhibitions have been called Five Short Stories. The present one is curated by Lýdia Pribišová, who has been collaborating with Egle since 2022. It places the debate about future into the soil. Egle is best known for her long term projects that are open to participation. She draws on interdisciplinary research and collaboration with scholars from different fields, rooting the work to the natural-social locality. She connects the relationships between personal and collective forms of interaction, and the transformative potential of sharing a common experience, suggesting the need to discuss the ethics of care.
Five Short Stories in Myymälä2 envisions the principles of hidden driving forces: beneath the ground there is a web of interwoven relationships important to social, biological and spiritual life. The tradition of landscape representation places the gaze onto the surface of Earth with its mountains, rivers, horizons of layers, light, and perspective. In her work Egle immerses the gaze underground. Her landscape representation is based on a direct study of light and perception while being inside the soil. Through a non-hierarchical lens, the stories in her exhibition move inside the intertwining plant roots, and the roots grow through the exhibition much like they do in soil, traversing the rooms of the gallery.
Egle’s consideration of soil is a poetic exploration of the darker aspects of symbiotic life: the relationship of death, decay, putrefaction, and the re-entry of nutrients into the constant cycle, metabolizing and nourishing the events of life. Decay and decomposition here are ways of imagining life beyond linear time and progress, and the passing of life force from one organism to another. Decomposition is a vital force for the constant regeneration of the soil and its biological communities. Forming new ways of being takes time. The soil has its own wisdom, its own regulation, its own pace. Storytelling takes time.
The focus on soil has a clear political dimension. Underground is where most of the action happens, where foundations are created and where everything returns. Underground is where political movements, activism, resistance, authentic culture start, which nourish even those on the higher floors. It is no coincidence that the word ‘radical’ etymologically comes from the ‘root’ (lat. radix). Roots are radical.
The artist and the curator will be present at the opening. The exhibition is kindly supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Slovak Art Council, and the Italian Institute of Culture in Helsinki. Senior advicer: Krista Mikkola. Texts exhibited in gallery: Lýdia Pribišová and Suvi Vepsä. Poster graphic design: Soko Hwang.
BIOGRAPHIES
Egle Oddo b. 1975 in Italy. She received her MFA from the Fine Art Academy of Palermo. Her work focuses on linear and non-linear narration as an art form. Interested in operational realism, meant as the presentation of the functional sphere in an aesthetic arrangement and its inter-relations, she combines photography, moving image, installation, sculpture, environmental art, and experimental live art. In her pieces industrial production morphs towards delicate handcraft, life forms appear and emerge out of sculptures and objects, film photography appropriate digital images, selected trash mix with fashion, precious edible minerals and ancestral recipes are served as part of ritual meals. She is an active member in several collectives, and she serves in many artists-run associations such as Pixelache Helsinki, Catalysti, Bioart Society. She is a member of the board of Myymälä2 cooperative.
Her work is present at international biennials, Museums and relevant institutions, as well as cutting edge and independent alternative spaces and events, to mention few Manifesta 12, 3me Biennale Internationale de Casablanca, 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, MAXXI Museum of 21st Century Art, Finnish National Museum of Photography, Zilberman gallery, Triennial Agrikultura, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, gallery Bikini Wax, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Club Solo, Kunsthalle Exnergasse Vienna, Transmediale, Pace Digital gallery New York, Loop Barcelona. She has recently been invited by curators Abir Boukhari and Anneli Bäckman for a long term commitment with Botkyrka Konsthall in Stockholm. Her work has been supported by private and public institutions. She lives and works in Helsinki.
Curator Lýdia Pribišová b. 1980 in Slovakia, is based in Bratislava. In 2013 she defended her Doctoral degree at the University La Sapienza in Rome. In her current practice as a publicist and curator, she focuses on the development of international artistic cooperation in the wider Central European region. As a curator, she is interested in the boundaries of art, participatory projects, and ecological themes. Since 2006 she has been working as an editor of Flash Art Czech & Slovak Edition magazine, since 2015 she has been its editor-in-chief. In 2012 she founded the civic association PILOT. In 2010-2023 she co-curated the exhibition series She Devil at Studio Stefania Miscetti in Rome. In 2019 she was one of the curators of Kaunas Biennale in Lithuania, and she curated the whole year program of Hit Gallery in Bratislava, including shows by Taus Makhacheva, Ming Wong, Loukia Alavanou a Nikolay Karabinovych. From 2020 to 2024 she was the President of the Slovak section of AICA. Since 2020 she has worked as a curator at Kunsthalle Bratislava, where she curated the programme A Plant in 2022-2023, which included a rendition in public space. In 2022-2023 she was part of the curatorial board of The Others art fair in Turin.
In 2024 she is curator of The Slovak Participation at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia Czech and Slovak Pavilion with the project by Oto Hudec Floating Arboretum. Selected curated shows: 2023 Egle Oddo: Evolutionary Garden and Performative Habitat, Kunsthalle Bratislava; 2022 Eglė Budvytytė: Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies, Imploding Stars, Jozef Kollár Gallery, Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia; 2020 Roman Ondak: SK Parking, Kunsthalle Bratislava; 2020 Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas: Swamp Intelligence, tranzit.sk, Bratislava; 2018 Shubigi Rao, Jaro Varga: About Books, AlbumArte, Rome Italy; 2017 Autostop, Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, Germany.
What's on
Thu 04 Apr 2024 – 28 Apr 2024 Closed today

-4–-2°C
broken clouds
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