On Monday, April 14, 2025, at 7:00 pm, Quartz Studio is pleased to present To Leave Is To Return, the first solo show in Italy by the American artist Brittany Nelson (Great Falls, U.S., 1984), conceived specifically for the space, in the context of EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival.
Created using a screen capture from the film Solaris (1972), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, a large-scale silver gelatin print depicts the ocean outside of the window of a spaceship. Based on the science fiction novel of the same name by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris details the story of a research crew who has been attempting to communicate with the oceanic planet, which they discover to be a sentient being. The attempts have been futile, and the crew can only view the ocean longingly from a distance, until a new communication attempt sparks the planet to send recreations of people from each crew member’s memories and subconscious to haunt them aboard the ship. The image of the spaceship window has been printed and recaptured on high-speed analog film by Nelson and developed with chemistry which causes the silver grains of the film to clump together. The result is an image that feels delicate, almost ephemeral, and appears to be made of static or sand grains. This enormous analog print, exposed and hand developed by the artist in her studio in New York City, serves as the focus of the exhibition.
In addition, Brittany Nelson produced an audio artwork that will be comprised of field recordings made at the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in northern California. The ATA consists of 42 radio telescopes built specifically for research to look for signals from extra-terrestrial intelligence. When the viewer enters the space, they will be immersed in the sounds of the choreographed buzzing and clanking of the telescopes as they search for signs of life.
The work Mordançage 10 is produced using the historic Mordançage photo chemical process. This technique creates a violent reaction between the chemistry and the silver contained in the darkroom paper, causing the gelatin layer of the paper to come loose to form textures, veils, and colors. This is a new work from a larger series comprising hundreds of images, where the artist imagines each print as the creation of an alien landscape. Nelson considers this particular work to both reflect the living topography of the oceanic planet Solaris and the longing to connect to the alien life form that exists far out of reach, as well as serving as the “phantom” that haunts the viewer in the exhibition. Both works expand on the artist’s interest in dissecting the human desire to connect with others across the dark vacuum of space, and our inability to do so even when we are in close proximity. Nelson takes the starting point of Solaris in the exhibition to also discuss photographic history. The human replicas haunting the crew members are created solely of subjective personal memories, much like a compilation of images. To the artist, the ghosts are living photographs.
Brittany Nelson (Great Falls, U.S., 1984. The artist explores 19th-century photographic chemistry techniques and science fiction to address themes of loneliness, isolation, and distance in the LGBTQ community and its parallels with space exploration. Her work has been exhibited at Luhring Augustine (New York, NY), KIASMA (Helsinki, Finland), Bonniers Konsthall (Stockholm, Sweden), Le CAP – Centre d’art (Saint Fons, France), Fotogalleriet (Oslo, Norway), Die Ecke (Santiago, Chile), Sonnenstube (Lugano, Switzerland), Trondheim Kunstmuseum (Trondheim, Norway), The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (Detroit, MI), The Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York, NY), The Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), The Newcomb Art Museum (New Orleans, LA) and The International Print Center (New York, NY), among others. She is the recipient of a Creative Capital Foundation Grant in Visual Arts and the Fish/Pearce Award for process-based work from The Print Center (Philadelphia, PA). Nelson was an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2017 and a current Artist in Residence at the SETI Institute. Her work has been featured in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Art In America, Frieze, Mousse, and Cultured Magazine. The artist is represented by Patron Gallery, Chicago.
Quartz Studio would like to thank the artist, the curator Théo-Mario Coppola and EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival.
https://daily-lazy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/©bg-QZ-Brittany-Nelson-To-Leave-Is-To-Return-012b-copy-scaled.jpgCountry Offside is a research and exhibition project that reviews the foundational myths of the gaucho and the farmer, essential to the collective imagination of Argentina and Switzerland. The exhibition featuring works by artists Nina Kunan, Oz Oderbolz, and Valentín Demarco, reinterprets these archetypal figures from a queer and postcolonial perspective, highlighting the performative and sensual qualities of associated objects. Challenges traditional patriotic symbols, habits, and traditions, prompting a profound reconsideration of binary national identity.
Valentin Demarco mixes 16th century European artists and paintings with elements of Argentine gaucho poetry to create a new video installation. In one of them, freely inspired by Benvenuto Cellini, a goldsmith working in his atelier has made a piece whose original function has been superseded by its peculiar appearance. He turns the coffee spoon and says goodbye to the goldsmith to become a brilliant and solitary artist. The other video, inspired by a painting by Pieter Brueghel, stages a Jauja Criolla country, where three people rest idle and satisfied around a collective mate.
Nina Kunan presents “Industria Nacional”, a series of works/jewelry/clothing based on iconographies of the national imaginary and associates them with her project Arrepentida, an online shop of harnesses and erotic accessories. There are harnesses presented as jewelry, with belt buckles with the National Shield or with the prefabricated legend of Malvinas Argentinas (Falkland Islands) that are sold in any leather goods store.
Oz’s series of sculptures are suspended between fiction and reality. After a process of formal abstraction and material alterations, the function of the objects has been re-signified. In Hell Rider the tin comes from Catholic church chalices and in Juicy the seat is decorated with Swarovski rhinestones, a reference to the iconic velvet tracksuit in the 2000s. These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ suggesting a performative farmer’s stride in space.
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara contributes an evocative poem that fits within the gaucho genre, a form of narrative poetry that tells the stories of itinerant horsemen in the Argentine pampas of the 19th century. Her work highlights contemporary socio-environmental issues affecting the Argentine countryside, weaving a connection between historical and current concerns.
The exhibition invites us to imagine utopian narratives, explore the potential for a new folklore, and critically reassess celebrated fictions and opens a dialogue about identity, tradition, translation and the future of cultural narratives.
Willkommen to Museo Internacional Gauchx
Violeta Mansilla.
https://daily-lazy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/EXHIBITION-VIEW-1-min-scaled.jpegThere’s that line in How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days, where Andy snaps at Ben in the cinema: “Who is she? You can’t watch Meg Ryan for two hours and not be thinking about another girl!”Walking into a show titled Hermeneutics, we can be sure that what we see isn’t exactly what we’re going to get, but that there is another layer of meaning beyond what immediately meets the eye. That Meg Ryan isn’t actually Meg Ryan, but a perfect silver screen for anyone’s sprawling desire.
Over both floors of Triangolo, 23 scanned page spreads, in which Kathy Acker traces the tumultuous romance between poets Rimbaud and Verlaine (R & V), are layered with candid snapshots. Pastel skies over familiar cities, the insides of a minimally decorated bedroom, dogs on leashes, dick pics. Scenes from the life of a twentysomething artist, wallowing in contemplation on how life is best to be lived. Immanently, the two narrative strands, albeit seemingly unrelated, weave into a place of speculation, a fiction within fiction.
Our protagonist, it appears, is neither V nor R, but S, an enthralled reader who hangs onto phrases here and there, making them his own. Like the juvenile urge to hoard stories that mirror a sense of self, he highlights these phrases in a way that isolates them from the rest of the text, granting them some sort of pronounced articulation. In The Hatred of Poetry, poet Ben Lerner states, rather theatrically, how he can only really enjoy poetry when recited in prose. Where “the line breaks were replaced with slashes, so that what was communicated was less a particular poem than the echo of poetic possibility.” Where the poetic somehow signals the possibility of another world, only accessible when held up against the backdrop of our shitty little lives.
When R & V recklessly fuck their way around Europe, broke, drunk, chased by cops or their resentful spouses, tenderness and cruelty sometimes seem so close it’s hard to tell the difference. What is it about this desire to feed off others’ pain? Does it make one’s own feel truer, more real? Rimbaud was known for his compulsively groomed appearance. Slick, combed-back hair, creaseless clothing, posture like a wooden soldier. Perhaps an attempt to contain an inside of desolate chaos. Acker, on the other hand, shaved her head and pierced her lobes with a needle in an attempt to cleanse herself from her Upper East Side upbringing. I have a theory that the most outwardly composed people are often the most fucked up. On the flip side: Never trust a rich punk.
S knows these codes well, only ever hinting at a trace of wildness trapped within these bourgeoise box frames. The depicted scenes, familiar to some and enigmatic to most, offer as much of S’ story as he chooses to reveal, leaving the blanks to be filled with speculation. Whatever story emerges between the lines can be made your own, allowing you to enjoy the genius of R, or V, (or the perfectly inoffensive visage of Meg Ryan), who might as well be whoever you want them to be.
– Dara Jochum
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