Clémence de La Tour du Pin at Treti Galaxie

Artist: Clémence de La Tour du Pin

Exhibition title: sept préludes

Curated by: Treti Galaxie

Venue: Treti Galaxie, Pastiss Underground Fortress, Turin, Italy

Date: October 26 – November 29, 2017

Photography: Marco Cappelletti and Delfino Sisto Legnani, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Treti Galaxie

Treti Galaxie, in collaboration with Museo Pietro Micca and Associazione Amici del Museo Pietro Micca, is delighted to present sept préludes, the first solo show by French artist Clémence de La Tour du Pin in Italy.

The exhibition is installed 13 meters underground in the galleries, tunnels and combat rooms of the Pastiss Underground Fortress, built in the XVI Century by Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy. Buried since 1705, the space opens to the public for the very first time on the occasion of the exhibition.

La Tour du Pin envisions Pastiss’ labyrinthine network of tunnels as intrauterine architecture, which she compares to the unconscious side of the city of Torino – with its forgotten souls, desires and hidden phobias.

For sept préludes the artist has developed a space-sensitive walk in the depths of the Fortress, involving displacement interventions, fictional elements and gaseous sample systems. In this psychogeographical exploration of the space visitors are invited to develop an alternative awareness of the underground landscape through sensorial immersion and non-linear narrative guided tours.

Nourishing her fascination for her great-uncle Charles de Brosses – who coined the term “fetishism” and explored the Cittadella in 1740 – the artist has set up filter systems at some of the deepest points of the galleries in order to seek and extract samples of shadows and impurities preserved in the atmosphere of the place.

“There is a temporary consecration for young women or girls suffering from an attack of hysterical vapors (…). They believe that these girls have been touched by the serpent who, having conceived an inclination for them, has inspired this sort of furor” (“The Returns of Fetichism: Charles de Brosses and the Afterlives of an Idea”, University of Chicago, 2017)

Clémence de La Tour du Pin has exhibited her work at 1857, Oslo, Norway (2017) and in group exhibitions at Dortmund Kunstverein, Germany (2017), Galerie Tobias Naehring, Leipzig, Germany (2016), The Musée d’Art Moderne de La Ville de Paris, France (2015) and SALTS, Basel, Switzerland (2015). Recently, she was awarded the De Ateliers grant, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2017).

Clémence de La Tour du Pin, sept préludes, 2017, Installation view, Pastiss Underground Fortress

Clémence de La Tour du Pin, sept préludes, 2017, seated at her tripod and receiving under her vestments some sort of natural smoke from the earth, or from an herb thrown in a stove, would fall into a fit of vapors, which made her a prophetess and prompted her to utter incoherent speech (Baetyls I, II, III)

Clémence de La Tour du Pin, sept préludes, 2017, Notes on historical-spin