The exhibition is set up on the first floor of the Fondazione and presents a selection of newly produced works. The exhibition constructs a delicate reflection focused on the idea of the home, explored as a physical space and as a complex set of human relationships and themes linked to personal identity and collective memory.
The title of the exhibition refers to an introspective vision of the domestic environment, where psychological and emotional nuances intersect. Starting from memories of their own childhood homes, populated by decorative elements and handmade objects, Formafantasma sets up a critical reading of the ideological dogmas inherited from Modernism, which identified rationality and sobriety as components to be promoted, as opposed to ornamental tensions. Drawing inspiration from their own education, Formafantasma challenges the concept of canon which, in its masculine vision as an extension of rationality, tends to erase from living space the sentimental elements and decorative features that can create a dimension of domesticity.
Formafantasma explains in a dense conversation with curator Alberto Salvadori: “We wanted to depart from this staple of modern design and to stress its implicit ideologies by pairing it with decorative patterns either painted or embroidered. This isn’t a postmodern pastiche, neither an ode to campness nor to kitsch. It is a romantic attempt to dignify personal memories and what is often culturally vilified, the decorative, the cute and, by extension of meaning, the feminine.”
“La Casa Dentro” populates the spaces of Fondazione ICA Milano with works where a founding element of the modernist tradition, the metal tube, intersects with purely ornamental objects and motifs. The rationality of curved steel is enriched with wooden planks decorated with handmade embroidery, painted floral motifs and silk ruffles, defining a hybrid environment that combines personal memories and the intellectual heritage of architecture and design.
In a particularly intimate and personal approach, Formafantasma manipulates the codes of modernist design to construct an original reflection on memory. “La Casa Dentro” gives back the visitor a narrative dedicated to what has been lost, erased and at risk of extinction, punctuated at times with disturbing muses linked to the immobility of objects and the unconscious certainty that they will outlive the human beings who created them.
at ICA Milano
until July 19, 2024