Buysse Gallery is pleased to open on Saturday, 22nd of June, the exhibition “Moon Walk”, a duo show with works by artists Leo Orta (b. 1993) and Silvia Giordani (b. 1992) curated by Domenico de Chirico to be seen together for the first time on the Belgian art scene.
Domenico de Chirico proposes 'Moon Walk’ as an exploration of the moon, a satellite planet and one of the most mysterious and captivating symbols in cultural history. The moon has fascinated thinkers for thousands of years, becoming an object of wander in mythology, sciences, philosophy and art. It often introduces introspective themes such as loneliness, mystery, and the cycle of life.
In art history, the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte used the moon to create a sense of wonder and question reality. He showed how the moon can transform everyday objects into something profound and mysterious.
The moon, with its changing and silent presence, helps us explore the complexities of reality. Art, like the moon, can reveal hidden truths and challenge our perceptions of the world.
'Moon Walk' brings together artworks by Leo Orta and Silvia Giordani, inviting us to look with new eyes to the moon’s symbolism. Orta's sculptures focus on the evolution and hybridization of life, inspired by nature and environmental concerns. Giordani's paintings explore altered landscapes and the idea of a "first sight," blending science fiction and reality. Together, their works encourage us to look beyond the mundane reality of our daily lives and engage with the cosmos in an ethereal, intense way.
Curatorial Statement
What are you doing, moon, in the sky? Tell me, what are you doing,
Silent moon? You rise in the evening, and you go,
Contemplating the deserts; then you set […]
Giacomo Leopardi, Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia (poem composed in Recanati, Italy between 1829 and 1830 - 1st original edition 1831)
The moon, among the most mysterious and evocative symbols in the history of humanity, has fascinated philosophers and thinkers for millennia and still today continues to play a significant role in various mythologies, philosophical and cultural traditions. Its influence spans from mythology to metaphysics, from science to transcendence, and even to the purest and most intoxicating aesthetic experience with its strong ashen glow. Starting from Greek philosophers like Anaxagoras, this celestial body made of rock and illuminated by the sun is often used as a metaphor to explore themes such as loneliness, mystery, the sublime, the cyclicality of time, and more generally, the cycle of life.
More specifically, in the historical-artistic context, the famous Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte – thanks to his ability to instill doubts about the real through the representation of the real itself, driven by the impulse to reveal even its most indefinable mystery – used the reigning presence of the moon to outline a certain antagonism between the familiar hemisphere and the sphinx-like one, yet highlighting its undeniable ability to transform everyday objects into elements of profound contemplation and astonishing wonder.
Therefore, the moon – intact, sculptural, diaphanous, mute, and precious confidant – with its enigmatic and mutable presence becomes one of the most effective means to explore the limits of the perception of a particularly restless and tremendously intricate reality.
Hence, considering that art must and can contribute to revealing the truth, sometimes subverting our perception of the world, we can calmly assert that it itself serves as a portal to the experience of mystery, the unconscious, and the sublime.
And so, allegorically speaking, through its creative and symbolic use, 'Moon Walk', by the hands of Leo Orta and Silvia Giordani, generating an imaginative and dual stage yet respectively very personal, invites us to gently traverse this opalescent natural satellite of the earth, respectfully following even its motion, in the hope of capturing at least some of its refractions. It is, ultimately, an invitation to abandon the entrenched anthropocentric vision in favor of an ethereal and intense confrontation with the inexplicable.
Thus, 'Moon Walk', singing its eternal charm and its ability to represent change and eternity, the visible and the invisible, the rational and the mystical, is composed as follows:
On one side, there is the sculptural manifestation of Leo Orta who, through his artistic research, addresses the notion of metamorphosis within a biosphere tirelessly evolving. Through the awareness of the importance of preserving biodiversity and the consequent respect for the Earth, Orta masterfully expresses himself through the careful choice of materiality and the energy it releases to trace the peculiar phases of human, animal, and plant hybridization processes. Drawing inspiration from the writings of the German biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber – generally focused on the environmental crisis, man's relationship with nature, the necessity of an economy serving the planet and man, the role of science, and so on – Orta denounces our society intoxicated by productive industries in favor of a necessary and now inevitable reconciliation with the Earth. Drawing from psychoanalysis, through which he traces the connection between the subconscious and the deliberate, using techniques borrowed from the surrealists and intertwining the visual boundaries of art and design – thus shaping his imagination – he intends to question the role of the human being, without ever disconnecting it from its existential nature, within current economic, social, and environmental issues. Striving to formulate a new way of thinking, recycling instead of discarding, and reusing rather than destroying, he creates a true hymn to nature, to its organic aesthetics, and to the sophisticated beauty of biodiversity;
On the other hand, using mass to tell us about absence, the landscape positions itself at the center of Silvia Giordani's current research, becoming undeniably the forefront of her hidden pictorial investigation. Considering that human activity has significantly redesigned the surface of our world, wherever we look, we soon realize that everything has transformed and there is almost nothing completely natural left. Her painting acts similarly: it constructs, deconstructs, and alters. The landscape assumes its objective autonomy, thus becoming an occasion for experimentation and manipulation. The places created through her painting draw from various references, ranging from geological sections to landscape illustrations of the past, from satellite images of other planets to purely digital settings. Furthermore, the fascination for the archaic mingles with that for science fiction narratives, tying into the debated question of the concept of reality, a topic so dear to science fiction literature, leading us to question what the true nature of human experience is. In this new body of works, Giordani is interested in investigating the “first sight”, that disorienting moment of revelation of an unexplored land, where the nature of what jumps to our eyes is not yet fully defined. What follows is the presence of polymorphic monoliths, perfectly set in aseptic environments free from spatial-temporal coordinates, caressed by luminous openings given to us by clear skies, whose color variations appear particularly intense, or by digital environments, whose boundary line is very impalpable.
By Domenico de Chirico,
June 2024
