From Memorial Day Weekend until September 14, 2021, visitors were invited to see a new installation by artist Bruna Esposito at Magazzino Italian Art. The artwork built on the artist's four-decade commitment to sustainability. Her most recent installation Alrti Venti – Ostro (2020) questioned the ubiquitous use of air conditioners to manipulate our environment. For Esposito, the air conditioner, considered a consumer good across the world, with its excessive energy consumption and release of pollutions into the environment, was a fertile point to posit the question: What will our world look like if we as a culture refuse to live without personal comforts? Ostro was the first of several variations on a theme designed to evoke the winds of the Mediterranean, such as the libeccio, sirocco, and gregale.
Altri Venti – Ostro was selected among the winners of the 9th edition of the Italian Council 2020 — a program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture. The participation in the program was promoted by the Cultural Association Mantellate – STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI, and realized in collaboration with several partners in addition to Magazzino Italian Art, including Bienalsur, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Italian Institute of Culture of Lisboa, Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci; and with the support of Tools for Culture. International promotion followed an itinerary of exhibitions and talks ending in Spring 2022 with the acquisition of the artwork by Museo Pecci.
The installation consisted of a gazebo made of natural materials, bamboo and rope, and features two ship propellers–a recurring motif in Esposito's work. A bench welcomed visitors to sit and soak in the breezes created by a solar power fan. Presented as a device that constructs new, possible relationships, the artist offered us a space to rest and reflect on the impact of our actions on a global scale.
Ostro was an ode to ancient, frugal methods of life, to simple solutions using only the elements of light and air. Esposito hoped that the solar powered fans, a low-tech and affordable solution to high temperatures, could offer a possible alternative to higher energy consumption.
The project aimed to generate connections between cultural realities, and to introduce new possibilities for the contemporary era: its cultural short-circuits, its sophisticated intellectual and energetic evolutions.
About Bruna Esposito
Bruna Esposito (b. 1960, Rome) lives and works in Rome. Her works are multi-material and sensorial, engaging the senses of smell, sound, and touch: sculptures, site-specific projects, installations, performances, drawings, video, photographs, and collages. Allusive and at times lyrical, Esposito’s works are realized with simple and ordinary materials and techniques and evoke the strength found in fragility. She received her diploma in fine arts in 1979 and studied mosaic at CISIM in Carrara in 1990. She studied aerial dance with Batya Zamir and minimal dance with Sally Gross from 1982 to1986 in New York. Esposito participated in the Whitney Museum’s ISP in New York in 1985.
In 1999 she was awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, for the Italian Pavillion dAPPERTutto, with other Italian female artists, as well as the Italian Studio Program PS1 Award in New York. In 2000 she was awarded the Premio per la giovane arte italiana, (the Young Italian Artist Prize) by the Centro nazionale per le Arti Contemporanee (National Centre for Contemporary Art) in Rome. In 2011 she was shortlisted for the Italian Chamber of Deputies Award for the 150th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy at the Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome.
Exhibitions include Fuori, Quadriennial of Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2021); Io dico io, GNAM Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (2021); Rome, Altri Venti - Ostro, Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome (2020); ¿Qué puede el humo hacerle al hierro?, MUNTREF, Buenos Aires (2020); Perle Rare, Fondazione San Fedele, Milan (2019); inconveniente, Fondazione Raccolta Cardinale Lercaro, Bologna (2018); Classic Reloaded Mediterranea, Villa Audi Mosaic Museum, Beirut, Lebanon; Musee National du Bardo, Tunis Tunisia; Villa des Artes, Rabat, Morocco (2018-2019); The Raft, Art is (not) lonely, mu.Zee, Ostend, Belgium (2018); Allegro non troppo, Studio Stefania Miscetti, Roma (2017); Bruna Esposito. e così sia…, MAXXI, Roma (2017); Intuition, Palazzo Fortuny Venice (2017); Au rendez-vous des Amis, Alberto Burri birth Centenary celebration, Città di Castello, Perugia (2015); davvero, FL Gallery, Milan (2016); inconveniente, FL Gallery, Milan (2014); Out of the Blue, Olnick Spanu Art Program, Garrison, USA (2013); Alla turca, FL Gallery, Milan (2006); Madre Patria, Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples (2002); Bruna Esposito, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea del Castello di Rivoli (2002).