Marta Margnetti dedicates a “Serenata” (Italian for serenade) to the women in her family and explores domesticity, memory and generational trajectories with different media. In her search for the worldviews and self-perceptions of the women in her family, Margnetti collects memories, sounds and atmospheres, weaving them into various materials. Her largest institutional exhibition in German-speaking Switzerland to date assembles ceramics, traditional construction techniques, delicate bronzes, sound installations and found objects.
At the core of her solo exhibition is a personal sound piece based on an exchange with her mother. In Autoritratto con mamma (credenza), engl. Self-portrait with mum (cupboard), Margnetti records a conversation with her mother, recalling memories of her grandmother. By editing out the words, only the sounds of the two women listening, thinking, and remembering remain. They give life to a simple 1960s kitchen cupboard, stripped of its layers of paint and restored to its original appearance by the artist.
Another work is dedicated to Margnetti’s paternal grandmother, who used to pinch her cheeks as a child. She recreates this key memory with her mother in the video work Autoritratto con mamma (pizzicotti), engl. Self-portrait with mum (pinching). The artist emphasizes the firm yet tender nature of the gesture, which assumes the image of rosy cheeks. The close-up is shot on video 8, whose camcorder aesthetic is typical of the 1990s and thus of the artist’s childhood.
The pixelated skin tones captured in the digitised video connect to the wall works crafted from clay. To Margnetti, the material properties of clay bear a kinship with human skin. While her self-portraits explore domesticity through family memories, here she turns her attention to the architectural elements of the home. She is particularly interested in the close relationship between architecture and social norms: to what extent do spatial divisions inform values and pre-define stereotypical roles? How (and why) do we draw the line between what is inside and what is outside?
Gelosie (parete), engl. Jealousy (wall), was originally part of an outdoor installation. Exhibited in the Vaud Alps, the clay panels formed the wall of a small cabin with a slanted roof. Working in sgraffito technique, Margnetti carved lines into the dried clay, initially rigid and fence-like, which quickly dissolve into undisciplined curls. They point to the permeability of boundaries—be it fences, walls, or skin. Beetles, seeds, and even a bat couple came to inhabit the clay-walled shelter during its installation in the forest, as if to prove its porosity.
The group of works titled … fa formicolare la stanza, engl. … makes the room tingle, extends Margnetti’s investigation into clay wall panels. Following a traditional construction technique, the panels are made by layering clay with straw, coarse sand, and then fine sand. Here and there, the artist’s own hair emerges within the clay mixtures. To Margnetti, architecture, the body, home, family histories, and memory are closely intertwined. The grid pattern, also present in Homeplace Placeholder, becomes a signifier for a faded recollection of her mother’s childhood home.
On the other side of the room, a blue glow lures us into a nocturnal scenario. 130 cicadas cast in bronze sit leisurely on the wall, typical beings of the outdoors, taunting us within an indoor space. This is the serenade’s choir (Coro per serenata). In the rise of climate change, cicadas are moving further north, now filling the Ticino with their distinct calls. In response to this, Margnetti incorporates a sound element: if you remain still, you can hear soft clicking noises. It is once again the conversation with her mother, distilled into the subtle and unconscious clicking sounds we make while speaking.
Margnetti’s piece Oasi (batticuore), engl. Oasis (heartbeat), marks the transition to the exhibition “New HEADS: JPP & Alexandra Sheherazade Salem.” Consisting of found illuminated letters from a highway gas station, Oasi (batticuore) is a meditation on border regions and idealised places of longing, like the Ticino. Emulating the artist’s heartbeat, the letters illuminate themes such as home, foreignness, origin, migration and family, which also play a role for the artists JPP and Alexandra Sheherazade Salem.
at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen
until May 12, 2024