NYAB Event - Draok "Krypta"

Draok "Krypta"

SOLOWAY

This event has ended.

Giorgio Guidi and Marta Pierobon formed Draok in 2010 to work collaboratively on shared interests including architecture, perception and social systems. Both Guidi and Peirobon have long been fascinated by the secretive and hidden: crypts, cults, ghosts and memories. Italian cities are built on the foundations of previous settlements--Etruscan, Roman and medieval--producing a stratification of civilizations. New buildings rise on the ruins of the old, burying earlier structures in rubble and debris. In Italian Catholicism there is a long tradition of covering and hiding the past; it is deeply embedded in the hierarchy of the church. Beneath the modern city lies the still present and living past and its treasures, relics, and corpses.

Draok's work is an attempt to excavate, archive and rebuild this hidden past. Both Guidi and Pierobon grew up in the city of Brescia, outside Milan. The cathedral of St. Filastrio in Brescia is an architectural composite, a layering of different historical forms and styles that make up the present building, from the secretive crypt to the public place of worship. For their exhibition at Soloway, the artists have rebuilt this labyrinthine structure, as a theater set for the present.

This exhibition is the second part of an exchange curated by Paola Gallio between Soloway and Spazio Morris, a project space in Milan. In 2011 Paola Gallio, as part of her Short Visit Project Series, invited Annette Wehrhahn, Munro Galloway, Pat Palermo, Paul Branca and a selection of artists from Soloway to exhibit work at Spazio Morris in Milan. In return, Soloway has invited the collective Draok to exhibit work they developed during their residency at Spazio Morris.