Pablo Bronstein's 'The Largeness of China' at Galleria Franco Noero in Turin

Pablo Bronstein's exhibition 'The Largeness of China Seen from a Great Distance' opened at Galleria Franco Noero's second venue in a 18th-century palazzo on Piazza Carignano, Turin. The show features works on paper (ink, gouache, watercolor), wallpapers covering some walls or entire rooms, and three videos. Bronstein, born in Buenos Aires in 1977 and raised in London, has a longstanding obsession with 18th-century architecture and antique objects from the 18th and 19th centuries, including a collection of English porcelain and chinoiserie. The exhibition adopts a triple perspective: that of a private obsession, that of a narrator reinterpreting a widespread European fascination, and that of a self confronting the mysterious, incomprehensible, and dangerous Other. Bronstein investigates how architecture reflects societal ideology and how his experience of leaving Argentina's elegant buildings for postmodern London impacted him. In the video 'Scenography,' West and East gaze at each other from opposite shores of an ocean, alluding to irreducible duality and colonial ambitions. The tension is captured in dance that echoes decorative forms and architectural space. Outside the gallery, a giant illuminated Chinese house overlooks the elegant Turin square.