XVA Gallery sets its eyes on artist Letizia de Maigret’s Cosmic Horizons
- 03 Apr 2022
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
Coming up at XVA Gallery, Dubai, is Cosmic Horizons, a solo exhibition by Letizia de Maigret (Apr. 15 — May 16). It is the latest collection of the artist, where she directs her artistic research towards an ontological quest to reconnect with major questions which confront humanity: a quest for meaning, origins, permanence and change.
It is also a quest for joy and the universal mystery is not devoid, for her, of a festive dimension. Her artistic approach involves the resurgence of a Golden Age, sought after and claimed not as a nostalgic principle, but as vision and a look towards the future.
It is in the recent discovery made in 2015 of gravitational waves (which allow for black holes to exist) that she finds material for new inspiration.
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Cosmic Horizons allows her to affirm her belief in Parnassus, Grecian home of poetry, literature and learning, that would reconcile the search for knowledge and the admiration for mystery.
She explores black holes and their horizons, in their geometric, metaphysical, and psychological dimensions, “recreating” them by a cascade of fluid pigments on rotating canvases.
The artworks are a tribute to Parnassus and the Sublime, depicting the eyes of the soul of poets buried in the mists of time.
Trained in the plastic approach of the utilitarian object (Parsons, New York and Central Saint Martins, London), occasional collaborator of designer and visionary Ross Lovegrove and industrial designer Karim Rashid, Letizia de Maigret very early directed her artistic research in the direction of an metaphysical quest without answer or end, but of celebration, like the work of a Poussin, leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, who inspires admiration and also influences her.
Also strongly influenced by ancient Greek philosophy (Anaximander, Socrates), she attempts to offer in her works, a journey of wisdom in art, where art and life mingle to offer an experience of going beyond opposites.
The organic conception of artistic activity in human work itself, finds for the artist echoes in Arte Povera, in the visual approach of Mann Ray, the plastic work of Giacometti, or the intellectual approach of Marguerite Humeau.
Letizia’s work inclines towards philosophy and history. She is passionate about the permanence of human nature in the light of evolution; it nourishes her theoretical quest about the essences of being and becoming.
She strives to create philosophical artworks, to link polarised concepts, aesthetics, times and cultures, creating 2D, 3D or kinetic antithesis that transcend and refute the historical dichotomy of Western culture.
The contemporary forays in neuroscience and her exposure to astrophysics has made her concerns and scientific quests grow exponentially from the history of humankind to that of the universe, from metaphysics to physics, from Wittgenstein to Einstein.
Born in 1969, she is an Italian-Swiss artist based in Dubai. She holds a BA in Industrial Design from Parsons School of Design in New York, and later acquired her master’s degree in Applied Imagination from Central Saint Martins, London.
She worked as a senior assistant for Karim Rashid in New York and as a junior designer for Ross Lovegrove, exhibiting also at the Gramercy Park International Art Fair, New York.
In 2002, she founded 17+1 in Vienna, a company that manufactures cufflinks in China. From 2010 to 2011 she designed Poupée xyz and Massimo Matryochka dolls, which were produced and distributed by Pylones, the French gift shop chain.
More than 20,000 units were sold and are currently in the permanent collection of the Sergiev Posad State History and Art Museum, Russia. From 2013 to 2016, she lectured in Istanbul and Baku on art and gender equality and multiculturalism.
Between 2015 to 2020 she was a board member of the Physics of the Universe Endowment Fund, created by George Smoot, Nobel Laureate 2006 in Physics, in Universite Paris Diderot, and president of the Ambassadors Circle.
Letizia de Maigret, alongside artists Tomas Saraceno, Atilla Csorgo, Raphael Dellaporta, Bertrand Lamarche, Gorka Alda, Aitor Ortiz and Liliane Ljin, was the winner of the Prix Artiste Citoyen Engagé, awarded by Fondation Daniel & Nina Carasso, for the project “Univers 2.0”.
It culminated with the exhibition The Rhythm of Space in 2019 at the Museo della Grafica, in Pisa, Italy. Letizia de Maigret has participated throughout the years in numerous art exhibitions in London, Vienna, Geneva, Pisa, and New York, among others.
XVA Gallery is one of the leading galleries in the Middle East that specialises in contemporary art from the Arab world, Iran, and the Indian Subcontinent.
Exhibitions focus on works by the region’s foremost artists as well as those emerging onto the scene. The gallery’s artists express different cultural identities and perspectives, while challenging the viewer to drop prejudices and borders.
The gallery exhibits both locally and internationally and collaborates with galleries and participates in international art fairs, such as Art Basel Hong Kong, SH Contemporary, Singapore Art Fair and Abu Dhabi Art, in order to further expose Middle Eastern contemporary art.
XVA Gallery and XVA Art Hotel are located in Dubai’s heritage district, now called Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood. XVA founded and organised the Bastakiya Art Fair from 2007 — 2010 as part of its commitment to raising the profile of contemporary art practice in Dubai. For three years, it was located in DIFC, and has now expanded its premises in Al Fahidi.