Hilario Isola's Camouflage Excavator at Artissima

At the entrance of Artissima at the Oval in Turin, an atypical camouflage covers an excavator, an artwork by Piedmontese artist Hilario Isola titled 'Paesaggio con ponte e uomo pensoso'. The piece is a beta phase of a larger project involving companies Miroglio and Ferrino, curatorial pool a.titolo, international project Nuovi Committenti, and the Piedmont Region represented by culture and tourism assessor Antonella Parigi. Isola described it as an experimental practice to mitigate building ugliness by covering structures with an ecological outdoor fabric that mimics vegetation and reshapes forms. The project will first target the Langhe-Roero and Monferrato area under the regional program Dopo Unesco. Agisco!. Atelier del camouflage uses a new eco-sustainable outdoor fabric, aiming to employ camouflage as environmental art to counter the visual impact of buildings and structures on the landscape. The camouflage pattern is based on watercolors by Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti, a Piedmontese romantic painter. Isola explained that real landscape colors mix with enlarged brushstrokes from Bagetti's paintings, creating a new picture made of landscapes. The paradox is that the less visible the work, the more successful it is. Curator Lisa Parola described Atelier del camouflage as a device capable of rethinking landscape transformations from an artistic perspective, blending real and imaginary. Isola's work at Guido Costa Projects was recently acquired by Fondazione per l'Arte CRT.