Marta Margnetti / New HEADS: JPP & Alexandra Sheherazade Salem
17 Feb - 12 May 2024
Marta Margnetti, «Serenata», exhibition view, 2024. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, «Serenata», exhibition view, 2024. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, «Serenata», exhibition view, 2024. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, Pugni chiusi, Non ho più speranze, In me c’è la notte più nera, Occhi spenti, Nel buio del mondo, Per chi è di pietra come me, 2024. Courtesy: the artist. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, ... fa formicolare la stanza, 2023-2024. Courtesy: the artist.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, ... fa formicolare la stanza, detail, 2023-2024. Courtesy: the artist. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, Wisteria Drops, 2024. Courtesy: the artist. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, Autoritratto con mamma (pizzicotti), 2024. Courtesy: the artist.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti,Formicolio I, Formicolio II, Formicolio III, 2023 (left); Gelosie (parete), 2023 (right). Courtesy: the artist.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Marta Margnetti, Coro per Serenata, 2020-2024. Collection of the Swiss Confederation,
Federal Office of Culture, Berne.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
Federal Office of Culture, Berne.
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, E. Sommer.
The Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen is pleased to show new works of three young artists. In the solo presentation «Serenata», Marta Margnetti’s intricate works fill the exhibition space with bronze cicadas, pottery serigraphs and sound installations. At the same time, the New HEADS prize for HEAD – Genève graduates takes the artists JPP (from j'en peux plus, French for I can’t take it anymore) and Alexandra Sheherazade Salem to St.Gallen.
While the three artists each work in their own aesthetic, they share a common starting point: a personal enquiry into their own family history. What roles does our family model for us? How much do we take on from our parents? What does it mean to outgrow internalised ideas – and which values do we hold on to? The artists pursue these questions with very different means, touching on such major themes as domesticity, generations, love, collective memory, womanhood and language.
Marta Margnetti (*1989 in Mendrisio/CH) works in numerous materials and textures. Glazed ceramics, traditional construction techniques, delicate bronzes, sound installations and found objects run through the practice of the Ticino artist. In her largest institutional exhibition in German-speaking Switzerland to date, Margnetti develops existing works while also presenting new installations created for the Kunst Halle. At the centre of her solo show is a very personal sound piece based on a conversation with her mother. 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. In the process, the visual environment of the family becomes as tangible as the invisible space of memory and imagination.
JPP (*1997 in Geneva/CH) and Alexandra Sheherazade Salem (*1996 in La Gruyère/CH) are graduates of HEAD – Genève Master's programme in Fine Arts and winners of the New HEADS prize for young artists. They share an artistic practice interested in questions related to identity and language. The encounter, confrontation and collaboration with their parents plays a decisive role in both their work: while the Albanian artist JPP translates her mother's handwriting into a repetitive wall pattern, Salem videographically re-enacts a backgammon game with her father. The artists trace the complex experiences of migration, familiarity, alienation and belonging that have shaped both their parents’ life stories as well as their own.
While the three artists each work in their own aesthetic, they share a common starting point: a personal enquiry into their own family history. What roles does our family model for us? How much do we take on from our parents? What does it mean to outgrow internalised ideas – and which values do we hold on to? The artists pursue these questions with very different means, touching on such major themes as domesticity, generations, love, collective memory, womanhood and language.
Marta Margnetti (*1989 in Mendrisio/CH) works in numerous materials and textures. Glazed ceramics, traditional construction techniques, delicate bronzes, sound installations and found objects run through the practice of the Ticino artist. In her largest institutional exhibition in German-speaking Switzerland to date, Margnetti develops existing works while also presenting new installations created for the Kunst Halle. At the centre of her solo show is a very personal sound piece based on a conversation with her mother. 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. In the process, the visual environment of the family becomes as tangible as the invisible space of memory and imagination.
JPP (*1997 in Geneva/CH) and Alexandra Sheherazade Salem (*1996 in La Gruyère/CH) are graduates of HEAD – Genève Master's programme in Fine Arts and winners of the New HEADS prize for young artists. They share an artistic practice interested in questions related to identity and language. The encounter, confrontation and collaboration with their parents plays a decisive role in both their work: while the Albanian artist JPP translates her mother's handwriting into a repetitive wall pattern, Salem videographically re-enacts a backgammon game with her father. The artists trace the complex experiences of migration, familiarity, alienation and belonging that have shaped both their parents’ life stories as well as their own.