Island/ish
with / avec / met :
Marta COLOMBO, Joachim COUCKE, Aurore DAL MAS, Peter de CUPERE, João FREITAS, Alice PEDROLETTI, EÌ lise PEROI, Richard VENLET, Pietro WEBER
The Isola Comacina, the one and only island on Lake Como, has a special connection with Belgium. The King decided to hand it back to the Italian State in 1920, under the condition to establish a place of encounter between Belgian and Italian artists. The project led in 1940 to the inauguration of residency pavillions by modernist architect Pietro Lingeri and to the institution of the Isola Comacina Foundation, whose management was entrusted to Brera Academy of Milan. Since 2011, after a necessary renovation of the premises, the residency programme has been resumed with a new impulse, open to all disciplines, from visual arts to dance, letters, theatre or music.
Island/ish, curated by Emmanuel Lambion, somehow commemorates in Brussels the centenary of this special connection between our two countries. Nine former residents on Comacina (three from Flanders, three from Wallonie-Brussels, three Italian), whose works are essentially linked to visual arts, have been selected for the show, with a special attention to the complementarity and the diversity of their practices, and to immaterial or hetero-sensorial approaches. The singularity of the projects realized or imagined during the stay on Comacina Island is surely related to the specific character of this insular residency experience, somehow isolated and secluded from daily routine, in a an environment full of archeological remains, in the midst of the luxurious nature so typical of this region of Lake Como.
Opening : Wed. 28/11/18 7 pm
Exhibition open from Mo-Fri 28/11/18 > 8/1/19
Istituto Italiano di Cultura
38 rue de Livourne
1000 Brussels