INSTALLATION BY Francesca Molteni with Margherita Palli/NABA and A2arch
WITH THE COLLABORATION OF Giulia Klimciuk and Laura Galmarini, students at NABA/New Academy of Fine Arts of Milan
WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF The Alik Cavaliere Artistic Center, Diamantini&Domeniconi, NABA, Sailmaker International
COSTUMES Caterina Crepax with Ilaria Berardi and Emanuele Bestetti
PROJECT FOR The Alik Cavaliere Artistic Center at The Alik Cavaliere Artistic Center, Milan, 2013
PRODUCTION Muse Factory of Projects with Studio Due Effe
Alice laughed: “There’s not use trying”, she said: “One can’t believe impossible things”. “I daresay you haven’t had much practice”, said the Queen. “When I was your ages I always did it for half-an-hour per day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
Alice in Wonderland, Chap. V
I believe that fantastic, imaginary art is, for the onlooker, the spark that lights their imagination, by irresistibly engaging them with numerous temptations, hints and cues.
Alik Cavaliere, 1972
Art and design perfectly match in the installation of Alik in Wonderland, an immersion in the magic land of Alik Cavaliere and in the fairy tale of Lewis Carroll. Marvel is the keyword of this project offering to the public of “Fuorisalone”, the occasion to know the artworks of Alik Cavaliere, (1926-1998), sculptor, principal of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and one of the chief protagonists of the cultural revolution in Milan, through a high technological material which has got an extraordinary, evocative power and whose name is I-Mesh, a multi-functional grid for architecture and design, created and produced by Sailmaker International. “Mirror”, watches designed by Marco Acerbis for Diamantini&Domeniconi, beat the time of the fairy tale and “tell always the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!”, as the watch of the Head Matter tells.
Place of installation, fictitious and real at the same time, is The Alik Cavaliere Artistic Center, in the city center of Milan, atelier and workshop filled with the ideas and works of the artist. A world where rules, ladders and atmospheres are different from everyday life. A place of wellbeing, pleasure, joy of the discovery.
As in the fairy tale, told by Walt Disney and Tim Burton, the visitor enters in an enchanted universe through words, images, lights and sounds, where the encounters are extraordinary. “It’s always six o’clock now, it’s always tea-time”.
Alice, the Queen of Hearts and the Head Matter, will be offering relief and storytelling to all guests, through a path made with I-Mesh, leading the visitor from the “outside”, the town, to the inner side of the space, till reaching the inner court, core of the installation. Because, as Alik Cavaliere states: I have always used the materials as a director, a property man, a storyteller, creating and mixing up paths and labyrinths together in the same art work.
Watch the video of ALIK IN WONDERLAND
