The artistic duo Chiachio & Giannone spoke with Sculpture Magazine about their work and career, including Genio Doméstico — their first exhibition in Chile, presented at Isabel Croxatto Galería — and their plans for the future.
Genio Doméstico (2019) at Isabel Croxatto Galería was your first solo show in Chile. Recycled or acquired materials of daily use appear there, coming from friends and family, carrying an enormous symbolic capital and stories of those who previously owned them and thus establishing emotional ties over time. I would like you to tell us about this experience that so well exemplifies the value that you give to the materials that you meticulously choose to give life through your work.
C&G: Our intention in Genio Doméstico was to reimagine the intimacy of the ever-expanding home. A home where all the dissident imaginaries of family and queer affection also take place. Isabel Croxatto's art gallery takes the space of an old apartment — a family home that became an art gallery was the ideal place to develop and contain our proposal because it resignifies the space and our own work. To create our artwork, we went on a search for household materials to be used as supports for our pieces, such as napkins, cushion covers, rags and curtains. All easily recognizable materials that inhabit any home. This was part of a search for how to re-imagine and expand the confines of the domestic, while each of these materials (reused with the intention of giving them a second life or opportunity) seek to trace ties and affective networks of sociability and belonging from domestic knowledge, as the curatorial text Domestic Genius by Cynthia Francica explains. [excerpt]
