Craigie Horsfield's Comprehensive Exhibition at MASILugano

MASILugano, in collaboration with the Centraal Museum of Utrecht, presents a major exhibition of Craigie Horsfield (b. 1949, Cambridge). The show explores themes of social relationships and the 'longue durée,' reflecting on the nature of photographic imagery. It includes portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and group images, with some works created specifically for the exhibition, such as large-scale pieces, tapestries, and photographic prints. Music plays a fundamental role; a new sound work composed and mixed by Horsfield with longtime collaborator Reinier Rietveld is featured. The exhibition requires extended viewing time, as Horsfield's research resists categorization within trends or movements. In an interview, Horsfield discusses a decade-long project titled 'La traduzione delle anime' (The Translation of Souls), where 'soul' is understood as vital energy. He describes his portraits as four-handed collaborations that capture a moment in the subject's life and the relationship between artist and subject. Works depicting El Hierro, the smallest Canary Island, are highlighted; Horsfield was captivated by the twilight atmosphere and the island's harsh subsistence economy, evoking Dante's Ulysses and the concept of hybris. Regarding his tapestries, including those of Ground Zero and the Gigli festival in Nola, Horsfield emphasizes that they are not historical pastiches but explorations of processes of mutual understanding and coexistence. The exhibition runs at MASILugano.