We are all lichens

The new exhibition venue at Andrea Guerzoni is based on a profound understanding of the nature understood as an indissoluble fabric of relationships and coexistence, based on the fundamental concept that no organism lives in complete isolation, but within the dynamics of cooperation and interdependence. The chosen setting of the’Botanical Garden of Turin, a place historically linked to the botanical studies of Giuseppe Gibelli on symbiosis between fungi and plant roots, provides the ideal setting for a fruitful dialogue between art and science and to continue the series of Exercises in naturalness. For over twenty-five years, the artist has been constructing a veritable emotional genealogy in which natural forms, artists, poets, botanists, naturalists e travellers come together within a dense network of cultural and biological affinities.

The lichen, a central element in his visual imagery, becomes an emblematic paradigm of cooperation and coexistence. The works on paper dedicated to the’plant kingdom are planted in the Greenhouse in South Africa and in the Propagation greenhouse, coming into direct contact with the microclimate, l'moisture, the spores and thebiological activity local. In this poetics generative osmosis, pigments e vegetable fibres change over time, leading the visitor to experience a dimension of slowed-down observation in which the scientific rigour and thepoetic imagination they feed off one another.