Different kinds of wants

Costanza Candeloro’s works, informed by intellectual, poetic and literary references, develop like stages in a thought process in motion. Between life and work, body and image, production and reproduction, this movement deconstructs the internal hierarchies of signs and identifications. Rather than focusing on a single technique or medium, the artist’s practice involves the circulation, dissemination and transition from one medium to another. Playing on these shifts, the work creates the conditions for an active and open reception which runs counter to the trends of the cultural industry and property. *** For her first solo exhibition in a Swiss institution, the artist presents a coherent collection of new works produced for the occasion, as well as an edition of five printed ceramics. In Different kinds of wants, she alters seemingly innocuous objects and picks apart the illusory anchoring of value in things. Through her reworking of shoes, jumpers, scratch cards and cosmetics, the artist condemns the mechanisms of seduction of supposedly unique products. The corrections conflate the techniques of art with those of commerce. In their passion for form, both rely on appearance. The magic of light, whose mystery remains intact: “At first glance, a commodity appears to be something trivial and self-explanatory. But for the artist, it is a very complex thing, full of metaphysical subtleties and theological nuances.” Far removed from any contemporary sophistication, with a ancient presence, the works open up to time and the necessity of production.