Jan De Vylder e Inge Vinck (1968 and 1973) live and work in Ghent, Belgium. Together, they founded architectural firm Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck (AJDVIV). In 2016 AJDVIV co-curated the Belgian pavilion at the 15h International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Italy. They have participated in exhibitions in Venice, Italy 2010, 2014, 2016, 2018; Chicago, USA 2014, 2016; Lisbon, Portugal 2019 and S. Paolo, Brazil 2019. Their projects, for public and private clients, won numerous awards and nominations including Schelling Architektur Preise 2016, Germany; Leone d’Argento, 15h International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Italy; Henry van de Velde 2018, Belgium; Mies Award 2019 (shortlisted).

Jan De Vylder taught at Sint-Lucas School for Architecture, Brussels, Belgium; TU Delft, Netherlands; EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland; Accademia di Architettura USI, Mendrisio, Switzerland; ETH, Zurich, Switzerland (current). Inge Vinck taught at Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage, Lille, France; TU, Delft, Netherlands; Accademia di Architettura USI, Mendrisio, Switzerland; Kunstacademie, Düsseldorf, Germany (current).

www.architectenjdviv.com

Claudia Losi (Piacenza, 1971) explores social interactions, twists of human sensibility and complexity of natural phenomena with a multidisciplinary approach where philosophy and literature are combined with science, sociology and anthropology. Losi’s practice includes participatory objects and performances as well as drawing, photography and sculpture. After her studies at Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, Italy and at University of Bologna, school of Foreign Language and Literature, Losi showed in Italian and international institutions.

Recent shows include: MAMbo Bologna, Italy; Museo Carlo Zauli, Faenza, Italy; IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Museo Marino Marini, Florence, Italy; Stenersen Museum of Oslo, Norway; Le Magasin, Grenoble, France; MAXXI Roma, Italy. Her work has been included in international shows such as Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, China (2016); Wayne State University, Detroit, USA (2014); Sharjah Biennale 8, United Arab Emirates (2007). Losi participated in residencies at Studio Orta-Les Moulins, Paris, France; JCVA, Israel; Art Omi International, New York, USA; NTU CCA, Singapore. Since 2019 she’s co-director of festival Sette giorni per paesaggi, Piacenza, Italy. Her work is represented by Monica De Cardenas Milan-Zuoz.

www.claudialosi.com

Andrea Caretto (Turin, 1970) and Raffaella Spagna (Rivoli, Turin, 1967) have been working together since 2002. Their artistic activity stems from the desire to investigate multiple dimensions of reality through the exploration of the complex web of relationships from which things emerge, establishing and re-establishing a relationship with the ‘the other’ in an exercise of attention and care. Caretto/Spagna’s practice is based on an attitude of “presence” and experience in the world, in the attempt to reposition ourselves, as human beings, by moving away from the centre to listen to other subjects, living and non-living. Caretto/Spagna are among the founding members of the associations Progetto Diogene, Turin, Italy and Pianpicollo Selvativo – research centre for arts and sciences, Levice, Turin, Italy. They regularly collaborate with IRIS – Interuniversity Research Institute of the Universities of Turin, Brescia and Aosta and Faculty of the Education Science of the University of Turin, Italy. They are also artistic consultants for Munlab, Ecomuseo dell’argilla, Cambiano, Turin, where their studio is located as well.

Recent solo and group exhibitions include: PAV – Parco Arte Vivente, Turin, Italy; Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella; GAM – Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, Italy; CAIRN (Centre d’Arte Informel de Recherce sur la Nature), Digne-les-Bains, France; Benetton Foundation, Treviso; Fondazione MERZ, Turin, Italy; Bozar Brussels, Belgium; Khoi International Artists, New Dehli, India; Mudam Luxembourg Musée d’Arte Moderne Gran-Duc Jean.

www.esculenta.org

Federica Sala is an independent curator and design advisor. She has been formed in the design department of Centre Pompidou. While back in Milan in 2008 she started to collaborate with Fabrica, miart, 5VIE Art+Design, Airbnb, Vogue Italia, Cassina,… In 2018 she curated, with Patricia Urquiola, the exhibition ACastiglioni at Triennale di Milano. Is now on show the exhibition about Giulio Castelli for the new ADI Design Museum. She is a contributor for various magazines and she has a montlhy colum on Interni. Soon will be released a publication for Rizzoli International.

www.federica-sala.com

Elena Quarestani, editor and journalist in a previous life, has conceived, developed and edited magazines, encyclopaedias and limited edition works. It was only after her first exhibition in 2002 – considered a one-off event, a rite of passage for a former printing press establishment – that she decided to merge her passion for art and the building that hosted the family business.

This year’s edition of 1+1+1 continues under the emblem of dialogue between the three authors, called once again to share the space but above all to consider the macro thought on what it means to create today. In fact, there is a tendency to always look towards the new. We often hear the question :”Are you working on something new?”. What if for once the new is not the centre of our attention? Instead, why not the old? Or the day-to-day? What if we realised that what was lacking was our ability to observe things (both near and far)? To understand them after observation and then to arrive at their acceptance? What if we were to practice the difficult art of simplicity, and hidden within was a form of happiness?

On tiptoe, without a clear desire to become a manifesto, the exhibition took shape thanks to three contributions, by making a similar point that emphasises our relationship  with the surrounding world and its inhabitants (humans, animals and plants), but also with its natural elements, such as water and light.

Reading the texts by the three authors, one cannot fail to notice recurring terms and how they outline, with the tip of a pencil, the strongly silent message of the exhibition that can perhaps be enclosed in a few words, whose meaning become the protagonist: Present, Lightness, Relationship, Movement.

As if they were animated characters, these elements of our daily life become the fulcrum of the three works. It is no coincidence that the significant speech made by Jan De Vylder and Inge Vinck bears the title onlY. simplY. happY. Three words, one message. Their architectural practice therefore becomes an instrument of visual education, and of thought, in which the visitor is invited to exercise their ability to observe, not to ridicule rather to appreciate that which already exists and already contains all the beauty we need. With its symmetrical repetition in space, the installation opens up a world of infinite details, the discovery of which is an invitation to embrace a change: of perception, of life. It is no coincidence that the value of simplicity is traced with a pencil drawing, within whose lightness lies all the power of the message.

In a completely different way yet at the same time with many similarities, the work of the botanist artists Caretto/Spagna demonstrates a new possibility of creating a relationship with surrounding world, starting from our gaze, and from exercising our ability, a skill which today often lays dormant, to look beyond. Their work therefore brings the importance of water to the forefront, creating a closed chain rendering visible the connection between the outside and the inside. By channelling rainwater to feed a deliberately transparent closed circuit, the artists reveal the flows that are ever present yet hidden within our daily life. And they do this with the precise desire to make us understand the importance of the submerged as a basic factor of growth. The project, not surprisingly called fflux_radici di luce (roots of light), introduces us to the Chinese plant, Discorea batatos, known by anthrophosophist as the “root of light” for its natural properties and its vigorous growth, and this will be the plant – in whose roots its exceptional strength is contained – to bring back the connection between the inside and the outside symbolising a life cycle of which we are a very small cog. Learning to look beyond the surface, to imagine the earth that creates a hill, to respect what cannot be seen. Claudia Losi’s double intervention, gathered under the title Eppure si manifesta la relazione, includes themes of growth, lightness and interactions. The work continues from one of her historical embroidery pieces in which she summarises the importance of lichens: their primordial natural community, but above all how they are a symbol of movement and growth, ever present yet so slow that they become imperceptible to an impatient eye.
In addition to the embroidery, there are tables of plants and small transparent curtains, almost like shells of fog, which guarantee a partial intimacy and at the same time keep us in contact with the outside. Milky-white shelters in which to stay, not to leave, and in which we give importance to the shadows, the mists, the imperceptible movements.

The three authors delicately show us (without imposition) a path that emphasises the hidden, the underground, the everyday and the importance not so much of creation as of the gaze.

An exhibition therefore that speaks of care and attention and of another way of living in the world.

prologue

Maybe we should just accept. Not only that, . But accept after we observe. Observe it one more time. Observe it more closely. Observe it from afar. And then understand. What accepting is. What accepting feels. Accepting is free. Accepting is happiness. Accepting is the end. Simple.

This is the world today. Yet there is so much ‘in’ this world today. Do we understand enough how much the world ‘is’ today? Do we still see enough what ‘this’ world is today? Do we still even feel that there is ‘a’ world today?

A world is available. A world presents itself. It is Present // A presence to be celebrated. Even when we did not imagine that we ought to celebrate it anymore.

six + one

We have been Invited in this marvellous space. This marvellous gallery space. Invited to present more ‘next to come’. An invitation that comes with being invited in this space on one of the most exciting moments of the year in Milan. Where everyone is always ‘full of expectations’ for what might be the next: The next invention. The next concept. The next basics. The next ‘next’.

This space. This time. This next. Is the next really the next? Or is the next maybe only good enough as the previous. And can the previous be the next. All previous this can be the next.

Six columns – and one solitary and different around the corner – give this space order and rhythm. These columns support the heaviness of what architecture in se is. At the same time with their position and appearance they turn this heaviness into the lightness this space can have.

At the same time the columns are much more. The columns are there to stay but also to embrace change. The columns are there to guide not only the space but they are also a background to all kind of auxiliary stuff. Technical tubes and ducks and heating components or fire extinguishers and safety signs are repeated and do lead from one column onto the next. Slightly different every time. Slightly the same every time. Different colours. surfaces. Each time the same but adapted differently.

Do we still see this today? These columns are always present but do we still remark their presence? These columns are collecting all kind of things – being structural but also supporting stuff – and in the daily presence just present. Without notice. Without appreciation.

Only from when one is pointing at them and starts to reflect and then comments on them, others start to follow that alternative way of observing.

Arriving for the first time at Assab One in a minute the beauty came to the eye. One minute later it was clear what the idea for this participation would be. Just creating a background to better frame the presence of these columns. Six small white rooms around the columns. For people To be invited in. And to be together with. And to discover the known as the unknown. And by that also learning to understand that what we have – but we might not be aware of anymore– is worth having and by that maybe good enough. Good enough to not need anything else. Anymore.

This might be another take on the most urgent question the world and in extended sense case architecture is confronted with and challenged to today: how to move on. Maybe how to move on might be also about how to live with. With what there is yet.

These columns and the way they are brought back on show stands as an image for that question. It is what is asked to architecture today but no less this image might be question on human condition today. This without any pretence added to the idea of the presentation. One should dare.

The seventh column in the space – we talked about six plus one – is a particular one. It is not in the grid of the others being just around the corner. And it was – the moment of the first visit – just simply white.

After a close observation and not without imagination, this white column becomes a drawing collecting all ideas that can be found on the other columns. How we are changing an attitude in accepting can become inspiring, to not only see the unseen different but also adapt other unimportant actualities into something just slightly differently. Not by an extensive intervention. But by a simple gesture. Maybe like a drawing.

Like a drawing is often no more no less, just an idea. And idea on how to move on with things.

colour

The six columns and in extension the whole space of Assab One share colour. At first these colours seem to be just there. And they are just there. The origin might be just choice – personal and sign of the time, sometimes just a colour as a sign -. And by that without meaning in between each other.

But with a certain eye helping to abstract the colours from their surfaces and possible meaning, colours one next to the other reveal a beauty that makes them like a foreseen and conceived palette of taste.

On the only long wall of the space with rhythm by half columns embedded in it, the seven distinguished colours are celebrated as they are. In between and partly on these half columns just as coloured surfaces. Coloured surfaces as such.

cracks

Later on, the building where Assab One is situated was visited. Rooms and spaces. Corridors and staircases. A wonderful world.

On more than one wall traces of the history of the whole complex could be found. One type of trace stayed in the eye. Tiny almost invisible cracks in the plasterwork might point to some ‘movements’ going on or that were once going on. At least it reveals the age of everything at all. But also. As it comes with age. Beauty. Ever beauty.

Here and there in this marvellous realm this gallery space is imbedded in some extra cracks will be added next to the real crack. Tiny pencil lines will find position in between the others.

After a while we will not know anymore which was the real and which the beauty only.

epilogue

The columns and the column. The colours just the colours. The crack also beauty. Three interventions. Maybe even not interventions. But only introductions. Simple introductions with the only ambition to change the way we are used to approach the things we are surrounded by. A matter of shift. At first, a mental shift. But second maybe not needing a physical shift.

Conceptual thinking leads always from idea to materiality. Contextual thinking fro m reality to change. Maybe accepting what is available to adoration. Adoration of what we forgot to adore.

And by adoring what was not adored anymore just or only becoming simply happy with what we have. Yet.

Available. Accept. Adore.

onlY. simplY. happY.

AAA

YYY