ANIMA(E) (SOUL(S)) is Cuore Verde tra due Laghi (Green Heart between Two Lakes)’s first exhibit-event, born between the banks of Lago Maggiore (Great Lake) and Lago d’Orta (Lake Orta) and supported by the Piedmont region and the province of Novara. This support comes with a clear desire to revive tourism and culture in the many places and trails that are not well-known, allowing them to rise up on the shoulders of the renowned, crowded areas of Stresa, Orta, and Arona.

ANIMA(E) (SOUL(S)) was born with the objective of promoting and diversifying the cultural exchange between Italy and Sweden, two countries that have always collaborated well in the artistic and cultural fields. ‘Fatto in Svezia (Made in Sweden)’, the first collective of Italian artists in Göteborg in 2007, is a prime example of this collaboration. Even today ANIMA(E) is part of a broad initiative that has been preparing to present a Swedish design exhibition in the Torino World Design Capital since July 2008.

“I speak for the Swedish population when I say that we are especially happy to see an art- and contemporary design-based collaboration growing between the two countries. With this collaboration, we can see that the many initiatives born in these fields last year alone are only the beginning,” affirms Anders Bjurner, the Swedish ambassador to Italy.

The contemporary therefore plays a prominent role in the collections, thanks to the curators (including the recently-appointed Daniel Birnbaum, director of the Turin Triennale (T2)) and well-known artists, but also to a generation of emerging young talent that is making a strong entrance onto the international artistic scene. Oscar Aschan, already the curator of the collective ‘Fatto in Svezia (Made in Sweden)’, called upon 15 artists from Stockholm, Goteborg, and Malmo for ANIMA(E) to reveal the Swedish strength and creativity in working with expressive shapes and diverse materials (from sculpture to installation, painting to embroidery, light to sound), to tell of the places within the soul, with its daily range of phobias, anxieties, and obsessions.

For the first time in Italy, the multimedia duo Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström present ‘Inverted Space Molecules’ (2007), an installation of images that proves an alarming denouncement of climate change, a theme that makes up a large part of their recent work. The images are mounted on suspended globes that resemble molecular structures, allowing for an unexpected, unique perspective.

The now eighty year-old Gustav Kraitz and his wife Ulla are known for their monumental sculptures in parks and other public places, but have chosen to exhibit here one of the more intimate statues, the white marble ‘White Torso’ (1980), a tribute to motherhood.

Mandana Moghaddam returns once again with the work of art that accompanied her in 2003, which has now reached its fourth version: Chel Gis (Fourty Braids), inspired by an ancient Iranian myth, tells us how the female face manages to conceal unexpected power behind apparent fragility. Helen Dahlman’s ‘The Bear and the Girl’ (2006) meshes well with the Cuore Verde (Green Heart) region, where the narrated fairy tale has become the main method of describing the sense of fear and vulnerability that accompany being human, and the human necessity to form a bond with nature. Björn Perborg, with her 2002 ‘Krucifix’, scoffs at religion in much the same way as Mikael Richter with his 2005 haloed chair ‘Gloriestol’: both artists question exhibition visitors on an open-ended theme, leaving no room for irony. Jenny Magnusson’s work of art (title pending), communicates silently, because the artist doesn’t believe in the necessity for artists to scream out their messages. She gives new life to trivial everyday objects, inserting them in new contexts and bestowing them with new significance. Two artists were called upon to create the in situ (site-specific) sculptures: you can see Roland Borén’s heavy, overpowering work on one side and Pecka Söderberg’s light, ironic piece on the other. Nils Ramhöj was given room for the occasion to give vent to his eternal obsession, the relationship between father and son, demonstrated in his 2007 series ‘Portrait of a Son’. There is also space dedicated to Jan Cardell, where he operates his ‘Rytmobile’, combining mechanical, sometimes electronic sounds with the poetry of floral sculptures/orchestras.

Artists on display:
Bigert & Bergström
Jan Cardell
Helen Dahlman
Torsten Jurell
Ulla & Gustav Kraitz
Ingbritt Irene Lagerberg
Jenny Magnusson
Mandana Moghaddam
Stina Östberg
Björn Perborg
Nils Ramhöj
Mikael Richter
Pecka Söderberg