LABYRINTH - REALE MUTUA

Year: 2023

Place: Museo Storico Reale Mutua - Palazzo Biandrate, Turin, Italy

Curator: di Paola Stroppiana

Works:
Labyrinth

Created specifically for the Art Site Fest, under the artistic direction of Domenico Papa, for the courtyard of the Palazzo Biandrate Aldobrandino di San Giorgio, Elizabeth Aro has created a large velvet installation suspended from the arches of the colonnade. The project addresses some of the fundamental questions of existence, including the relationship between Man and his inner self, the search for balance with Nature, and the tension towards the Cosmos as a universal order. Aro expresses a particular preference for a form of "totalizing" sculpture in her work, made, as in this case, from precious fabrics that she carefully selects, sews, shapes, and embroiders, ultimately expanding them to environmental dimensions that engage in a fruitful dialogue with the architecture that hosts them. Weaving, sewing, and embroidery are all artisanal activities that carry a non-verbal language imbued with expressive and ritual strength: embroidery has been one of humanity's earliest expressive codes, and Elizabeth considers it as such, reinterpreting it through contemporary visions that have shaped her cultural background, from the iconicity of pre-Columbian cultures to the impermanence of gestural art.

The labyrinth is an archetypal figure with multiple aspects (symbolic, iconographic, literary, mythical, ritual), present in prehistoric cultures as well as in ancient, medieval, and modern ones; it is a beloved subject of study and literary topic: varying in forms and materials, it can take on multiple structures. It represents the complex and branched path that Man must traverse to reach the deepest layers of his being and attempt to find the "exit," the harmonious placement of himself within the Universe.

As the artist states: “In my inverted labyrinth, which I decided to place in the vaults of the baroque courtyard of Palazzo Biandrate and which I made with precious brocade, I aimed to create a new galaxy made of leaves arranged in concentric circles: this labyrinth of sky and not of earth, simultaneously arboreal and sidereal, recalls the cosmic tree or tree of life, which presents a symbolic circular form in its branching arrangement. I chose, among numerous varieties of labyrinths, the classic unicursal form—specifically that of a spiral—which outlines a single convoluted path leading from the outside to its center and vice versa. In this installation, I enjoy bringing the vast dome of Heaven to Earth to induce meditation: for this reason, I also thought about creating poufs shaped like leaves, the Leaf Bags, in various shades of green to invite people to sit and gaze at the labyrinth as one looks at the Sky, meditating on Space, on Infinity, on the desire to know it and uncover its mystery: to lose oneself in it to find oneself again.”

As Hungarian scholar Károly Kerényi writes in his collection of essays Studies on the Labyrinth: “[...] to awaken the mythological reality of the labyrinth we must imagine it within ourselves and transfer ourselves into it.”