Daniela Comani
The artist book often becomes an element within my multimedia installations, which engage in a dialogue about history, identity, gender, and language.
Daniela Comani was born in Bologna, Italy; she lives and works in Berlin since 1989. Recent solo exhibitions include: YOU ARE MINE, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, 2022; Planet Earth: 21st Century, Museum Folkwang, Essen, 2023; Perturbazione / Disturbance, Fondazione La Rocca, Pescara, 2023; Supporto Memoria / Memory Device, Galleria Studio G7, Bologna, 2024; Orlando’s Library,site-specific installation at Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, 2024; The Reading Room, Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, 2024.
Her work is also recently included in the following exhibitions: BIENALSUR – Real Fictions, Centro Cultural Kirchner, Buenos Aires, 2023; Überall und nirgendwo, Neues Museum, Nuremberg, 2024; Bangkok Art Biennale – Nurture Gaia, Bangkok, 2024, and currently on view in Our Voices. Auf den Spuren bildender Künstlerinnen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (through September 14, 2025) and in Kosmos Blauer Reiter, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (through June 15, 2025).
The publication is a board book sized at 27 x 21 cm, with 14 pages on thick cardboard. It includes 13 photographs that correspond to the 13 large prints (each sized at 400 x 305 cm) installed in the 13 arches of the loggia of the main floor in Palazzo Ducale. Each print depicts a shelf with 4 books, with a total of 52 book covers. The back cover (page 14) shows a partial view of the installation.
"Orlando’s Library" is a site-specific, large-scale photo installation based on the series "New Publications edited by Daniela Comani," where the artist manipulated titles of classic novels, changing the gender of the protagonists on the covers. Through a trompe-l'oeil effect, the viewer experiences the effect of standing in a library and walking amongst bookshelves displaying gender-manipulated titles.
Stapling, recycled paper / Special edition bound with a special cover of cotton and aluminum
72 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
Monroe Books, Berlin, 2024
ISBN: 978-3-946950-17-2
The book is comprised of text-images from the series “You Are Mine” in English, German, and Italian. The sequence of text-images are taken from news reports about femicide. I reversed real-life violent acts that fill the pages of these articles (male becomes female, victim becomes perpetrator and vice versa), inviting reflection on the absurdity of femicide.
The works are printed on cotton with an aluminum background and simulate wrinkled newspaper clippings (taken from diverse media that I collected, filed, selected, and manipulated).
The cover of the special edition of the artist book is printed on the same material as the text-images (cotton with aluminum backing), becoming like an object.
Perturbazione / Disturbance is an artist book that reflects on weather in the current time of climate crisis. It further reflects on society and the dynamics of perception and interpretation of situations that are broadcast daily on the news. Starting with a white image and gradually turning black (from a white page to a black page) short texts of weather forecasts become more and more catastrophic, from clear to bad weather, from white to black.
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