From October 24 to February 1, 2026, the Project Room of CAMERA - Italian Center for Photography (Turin) presents the exhibition Cristian Chironi. Abitare l’immagine, curated by Giangavino Pazzola. The exhibition path offers a selection of photographic, installation and video works, some of them previously unpublished, tracing the career of Cristian Chironi, born in Nuoro in 1974. The exhibition highlights the privileged relationship between photography and performance in his multidisciplinary practice, showing how the construction of the self-portrait, staging, character creation and setting constitute fundamental elements in defining the expressive value of images. Since the 2000s, Chironi’s work shows that photography is not limited to documenting the movement of the body. Projects such as Lina (2004) and Offside (2007) highlight how the photographic image can explore the complexity of personal relationships and identity through an imagery of fiction that alters the perception of reality. In these works, photography becomes a tool for investigation and mediation between life, performance and representation.
The performative dimension is also central in works such as DK (2009), where the artist attempts to “steal” the aura of Antonio Canova ’s sculptures found in publications and museum collections, and in Cutter (2010), in which she removes parts of images through the carving of book pages. These projects not only connect the individual sphere to global cultures, but also introduce a new way of inhabiting the image, marked by the gradual disappearance of the artist’s body. The intervention in images in books questions the sacredness of the image and its function in the production of memory, generating new connections of meaning. In recent years, Chironi’s practice has expanded further with projects such as My house is a Le Corbusier (2015 - ongoing), which integrates photography, collage, sculpture, video and installation. Here the theatricalization of staging gives way to a group of images in which gesture does not convey precise meanings, but opens up the everydayness of the contemporary world. Among the symbolic elements of this period, Drives with the Car 127 Chameleon represent the combination of multiple languages, in which reality and fiction intertwine in a constant dialogue between different artistic practices.
Cristian Chironi lives and works in Bologna, while maintaining a connection to Le Corbusier’s architecture scattered around the world. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, the artist adopts a multidisciplinary approach that blends performance, photography, video and design. His research focuses on concepts such as reality and fiction, memory and contemporaneity, figure and image, two- and three-dimensional, conflict and integration. Chironi’s works are in public and private collections and have found space in solo and group exhibitions at national and international museums and foundations, including MAUTO - Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile in Turin (2024), MAN - Museo d’Arte della Provincia di Nuoro (2015 and 2024), Magazzino Italian Art in New York (2022), Casa Victoria Ocampo for Bienalsur in Buenos Aires (2019) and the 16th Quadriennale d’Arte in Rome (2016).
The project My house is a Le Corbusier represents a relevant aspect of his more recent practice through his collaboration with Fondation Le Corbusier. The artist inhabits and interacts with houses designed by the Swiss architect through time-dilated performances. Significant achievements include Villa Jeanneret-Perret, Chemin de Pouillerel (2021), the Studio-Apartment in Paris (2015), and the Esprit Nouveau Pavilion in Bologna (2015).
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| Cristian Chironi at CAMERA's Project Room in Turin with Abitare l'immagine |
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