Introduction

Since the late 1970s, Ann Veronica Janssens has developed her research around light and its relationship to what surrounds it, often creating site-specific works that challenge the immutable nature of sculpture and installation. Janssens has built her practice on overcoming the art object through its dematerialization and deconstruction. Through minimal forms and gestures that have an anti-monumental quality, Janssens is able to change the public’s perception of space. Using light, color, mirrors, air or artificial fog, the works of Janssens call for the direct participation of viewers, invite them to experience reality differently, to develop an awareness of their senses and of the architecture. Often based on experiments carried out in collaboration with scientists, the artist’s works become labs for testing the boundaries between properties and physical-material elements that are regarded as opposites, such as light and darkness, sound and silence, emptiness and presence, the tangible and the incorporeal.

Grand Bal at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan explores the career of Ann Veronica Janssens as well as different aspects of her practice. Presenting the most comprehensive selection of her works to date, it includes both historical projects and new productions designed to interact with the space of the Navate within Pirelli HangarBicocca and the outdoor area, expanding its boundaries. The resulting alterations fit dynamically within the exhibition plan, conceived by the artist as a visual and sound choreography that centers not so much on objects as on visitors: they are called upon to move and participate directly, following the train of sensations and perceptions generated while experiencing the works. The title Grand Bal (grand ball in French) evokes precisely this performative dimension, and the dynamic relationship that is established between works, architecture and the human body as in a dance, where each and every element is necessary for the other to reveal itself completely.

Ann Veronica Janssens
Grand Bal
Pirelli HangarBicocca
Via Chiese 2, Milan
April 6 – July 30 2023
Opening hours: Thursday – Sunday, 10.30am – 8.30pm
Opening Wednesday April 5, from 7pm
www.pirellihangarbicocca.org