Milan Design Week is most certainly one of those occasions in the art world that you don’t want to miss. One of the most interesting exhibitions present there was “ill at ease” Dysfunctional art: Beyond labels , curated by Studio Leggero, which challenges the conventions of artistic categorization. Whether art, design, or augmented reality (AR), the pieces exhibited here break free from labels, seamlessly integrating into both the exhibition context and everyday life.
This year’s Milan Design Week included a group show with artist Marta Alexandra Abbott, a Czech-American artist based in Rome with her studio at Portuense 201. Her fascination with the natural world and our relationship with it today as well as throughout history, has always informed her artistic practice and her artworks.
Currently working primarily on paper, her materials include handmade inks and organic, often botanical materials , both expressing the intention of the artist as well as their own inherent characteristics.
KETOPHYLLUM, STONEWARE, 2023
Camilla Boemio: Can you give us a glimpse into your aesthetic practice?
Martha Abbott: My aesthetic practice is very much rooted in intuition and a careful consideration of trying to find an organic balance between chaos and control, between informed, intentional experimentation and structured execution of an idea. I try to evoke the characteristics of the beauty I find in nature and communicate them in a way that is true, but without eliminating evidence of the human hand, of the artist’s eye, because the practice of making art is about a great many things but must always be, in some way, a conduit for the human spirit.
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW / SUCH THE SUN, SUCH THE MOON Natural inks, (myrtle, rust) and collage on paper 56 x 76cm 2020
CB: In what way are nature, the seasons, flowers important in your poetic experimentation?
MA: Nature is the foundation of my research, together with our human relationship with it and the way it manifests in our various acts of creation. The seasons influence the materials I have available to make color with and the ways in which I connect with natural world, and they serve as a source of inspiration. In 2020 I created an artwork in the form of a calendar called Time,Framed, for example, and I used color extracted from natural sources to communicate the way it feels to experience each month of the year. And so the seasons helped establish the narrative and the palette of this piece. Flowers provide color, but even more so they provide a gentle but effective reminder of the way beauty can evolve instead of fading, and of the strength in fragility. Flowers are powered by light, they announce the change of seasons and are always trying to tell us something. They have long been used as symbols, as tools of communication, and so they are also in my own work.
CB: Can you introduce to us your group show ill at ease” Dysfunctional art: Beyond labels, at Fuorisalone – Milan Design Week 2024?
MA: “ill at ease” has been put together by Studio Leggero, which was founded by Luisa Ausenda, who is also the curator. The show will be held with Mosca Partners at Design Variations in Navigli. We are a group of five artists/designers/ design studios and we will exhibit work which blurs the border between functional art and collectible design. The work which makes up the show challenges the conventions of artistic categorization. Whether art, design, or augmented reality (AR), the pieces exhibited here break free from labels, seamlessly integrating into both the exhibition context and everyday life. “ill at ease” is a condition of the body and the mind and it means to be uncomfortable, inhibited, and restless. Our “ill at ease” is therefore a restless soul that cannot remain still because it is always thirsty for something – and wishes to influence the audience accordingly. To achieve this, we encourage them to momentarily step out of their comfort zone through works, performances, projections, VR, AR, etc., that are not immediately understandable from a conceptual and/or sensory point of view, nor integrable into a defined category.
- BLUE CLOUD – MOON CLOUD, 50 X 70 CM, CYANOTYPE ON PAPER, 2023 )
- THE SILVER LIGHT: VIEW FROM THE MOON,15 X 23 CM, TONED CYANOTYPE ON PAPER
- The Moon and Venus, natural ink, oil colors, and graphite on paper, 140 x 110 cm, 2022.
CB: Can you describe your artworks presented in this exhibition?
MA: Time, Framed is a subversion of an established, scientific definition for an instrument of measure. In this case a calendar created to mark each month through the juxtaposition of a structured system against immeasurable, intuitive elements that reflect the poetry of time as well as its alchemical nature. Each translucent page of the calendar corresponds to a month of the year, and is painted with natural inks whose colors were carefully chosen to evoke the time of year each page corresponds with. As the paper allows for the passage of light, it creates a new juxtaposition of form and color with the turning of each page through the ink applied and the graphic elements present. Twelve months, hanging one in front of the other, creating layers of time and color, display not only the present, but also shadowy traces of past and future. Time, Framed gives dimension to that which cannot be measured and frames that which has no true form. This piece is a good example of what I mentioned above in regards to striking balance between order and chaos, both thematically and in aesthetic execution. The concept of time is one we take for granted, its sets our rhythms and rules our lives in many ways, but we often forget it is a human construct and that it is born from ephemeral things like light and life cycles and transformation. I wanted to find a way to show people the poetry and the layers that we don’t often have a chance to stop and examine, and which are actually a part of us as well.
Moon Garden, Toned Cyanotype on paper, 136 x 85 cm, 2023.
CB: What is the relationship between art and design?
MA: I come very much more from the world of art than of design, so my point of orientation is that one. Both are born of our curiosity and our constant search to find, create and define beauty and to understand. For that reason, I think they can complement and elevate one another. They are both major elements that make up our visual landscape and reference points, so it’s natural that they seep into each other’s realms. At the same time, there are, of course, very big differences between the two in approach and philosophy and creative process. Design calls for rationality while art demands that you set it aside. As such, I think there is a lot for them to say to one another, they can have and active and engaged dialogue that continues and evolves as the trajectory of each field does the same.
Camilla Boemio is an internationally published author, curator, and member of the AICA (International Arts Critics) and IKT (International), based in Rome. In 2013, Boemio was the co-associate curator of PORTABLE NATION: Disappearance as Work in Progress – Approaches to Ecological Romanticism, the Maldives Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. In 2016, Boemio curated Diminished Capacity, the first Nigerian Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia.
Boemio’s recent curatorial projects include her role as co-associate curator at Pera + Flora + Fauna. The Story of Indigenousness and The Ownership of History, an official collateral event at the 59th International art exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, which is commissioned by PORT and the state government of Perak, Malaysia 2022; Zoè Gruni: Matherwood curated at Galleria Il Ponte, 2023; and Stefano Cagol: The Bouvet Island co-curated at ETRU Museo Nazionale Etrusco in Roma, 2024 .
