Dazed and Confused by Francesco Simeti at YI OU LAI Suzhou
Urbanities at Suzhou
Time: 18th September, 2015 to 30th January, 2016
Venue: YI OU LAI Suzhou
Dazed and Confused is a site specific installation in collaboration with Silk Story Shop, Suzhou.
NYC based artist Francesco Simeti has been exploring what he defines as “trying to make sense of a bombardment of images that envelop us in daily life: not seeking to fix a core truth, but rather exploring the layers of meaning embedded in the sea of images that surround us.”
In his installation Fenyun, Dazed and Confused at YI OU LAI Suzhou, Simeti presents a monumental piece that brings his imagination to life, with the precious material of silk.
See below for a making of the installation, followed by an opening dinner in which the artist’s work was mapped across the interior of the banquet hall at YI OU LAI Suzhou.
Video Produced by: FLATMIND
Francesco’s artwork can be found in various immersive interventions across the Village, floating images hang from gates and passages, touching visitors and providing stunning backdrops for passerby’s photos—like flags billowing in a garden. A unit in the Village is dedicated to Dazed and Confused, which takes the form of a monumental installation composed of twenty banners hanging from the ceiling, in a theatrical and, at the same time, silent presentation. The free flowing long silk scrolls are teeming with a utopian landscape replete with elements from a variety of influences and times.
The imagery in Francesco’s work mimics past projects in which the artist marries botanical imagery from the European Renaissance and China to create surreal gardens. The unfamiliar scenes, marked by clouds and trails of smoke, allude to traditional Italian and Oriental landscape paintings. Though elements of Simeti’s landscapes are familiar his creations are imbued with a sense of otherworldliness, expectations and overwhelming beauty: the beauty that we look for as a reflection of our need to rest, be at peace and ultimately transcend.
Photo Credit: Zhou Zihan
Francesco Simeti
Born in Palermo in 1968, and graduated in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Francesco Simeti lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Among the most internationally acclaimed Italian artists, Simeti is currently engaged in a number of public art projects in the United States, including the Brooklyn subway stop in New York, and has made site-specific installations in various museum spaces including MACRO of Rome, the Risd Museum, Providence, Art & Idea Gallery in Mexico City, Columbia University in New York.
His work has been featured at the 9th Shanghai Biennial, the Gallery of Modern Art in Palermo in the solo exhibition An Artful Confusion, and among others, at MASS MoCA, Massachusetts, at the Gallery of Modern Art of Bologna, at Mu.dac, Musée de Design et d’Arts Appliqués Contemporains of Lausanne, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and the Riso Museum of Palermo. Some of his wallpapers have been acquired by major international museum collections such as the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt, National Museum of Design in New York, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia.
His work is inspired by the ambiguity in printing that characterizes the relationship between form and content, by creating a kind of continuous and endlessly changeable landscape. His research emphasizes on the one hand that interest for the aesthetic factor that threatens to deny the actual content of the images, on the other hand the risk of flattening brought about by the excess of visual information. The first impact with his ornamental patterns brings about an aesthetic pleasure and a reassuring feeling; on looking closer, however, one cannot fail to notice unexpected details.
See more of Francesco Simeti’s work on his website here.
