{"id":101787,"date":"2015-10-12T14:50:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T12:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.castellodirivoli.org\/mostra\/paloma-varga-weisz-root-of-a-dream\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T12:47:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T11:47:33","slug":"paloma-varga-weisz-root-of-a-dream","status":"publish","type":"mostra","link":"https:\/\/www.castellodirivoli.org\/en\/mostra\/paloma-varga-weisz-root-of-a-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Paloma Varga Weisz. Root of a Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

curated by Marianna Vecellio<\/p>\n

Castello di Rivoli is delighted to present Root of a Dream<\/i>, the first solo exhibition in an Italian museum by German artist Paloma Varga Weisz (Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Germany, 1966, Lives and works in D\u00fcsseldorf). By means of a distinctive iconography that combines references to Italian and German Renaissance and Gothic art, psychoanalysis, private recollections, and an underlying fascination with the – human (especially female) – body, this artist creates complex and poetic installations that lead the spectator into a contemplative mode of viewing, poised between dream and reality. Her particular use of archaic techniques \u2013 including wood inlay, polychromy, and ceramics \u2013 acquires an autobiographical component, through the intertwining of generic symbolism and personal narrative. While they are rooted in allusions to personal episodes, Varga Weisz\u2019s works \u2013 imbued with references to Renaissance painting and sculpture, as well as artisanal and folk traditions \u2013 also bear the memory of a shared and collective European sensibility that can narrate the most intimate levels of existence.<\/p>\n

Based on a poem by Paul Celan, Root of a Dream<\/i> reveals Varga Weisz\u2019s constant attention to the relationship between memory, erasure, and the re-surfacing of recollections. In her works, these elements combine into an expression of painful and fragmented being, where the body is parceled, identity becomes disguise, and memory becomes intermittent. In the exhibition, we find a reference to the artist\u2019s father in a silent film titled Deux artists<\/i>, 1986. This early work, and its theme of identity and origins holds one of the keys to interpreting the sequence of works on display, which Varga Weisz closes with her most recent creation, Lying man, 2014. This sculpture amounts to a conclusive reflection on the nature of being \u2013 divided, missing, stateless \u2013 an existential human condition that is more relevant than ever in the drama of mass exoduses. Composed of a vast selection of works, from early pieces to more recent ones, this exhibition presents a series of important installations, some of which are large format and on loan from prestigious collections in Europe. The show unfolds across the magnificent rooms of the Castello di Rivoli and establishes a dialogue between multiple works. Like intermittent memories, proceeding in a succession of intimacy and silence, these confront ideas such as abandonment, trauma, memory, birth, and love, in a celebration of the grand theme of human existence.<\/p>\n