Milan, Palazzo Reale welcomes reflective installations by Helidon Xhixha

From July 1 to September 3, 2023, Palazzo Reale in Milan presents the exhibition XHIXHA. The Palace in the Mirror, a new exhibition project by artist Helidon Xhixha (Durres, 1970). Promoted by Comune di Milano - Cultura, produced by Palazzo Reale with the Helidon Xhixha studio and curated by Michele Bonuomo, the exhibition aims to trace an itinerary in five stages through the spaces of the Milanese palace, accompanying the public from the Scalone d’Onore designed by Piermarini to the sumptuous historical Rooms, which have recently been restored.

Helidon Xhixha’s artistic practice focuses on the in-depth study of the properties ofstainless steel and its use as a foundational material for the creation of monumental sculptural installations. Inspired by the ancient conception of the mirror as a passage to another universe and of the reflection as the illusion par excellence, Xhixha creates enigmatic abstract landscapes formed by geometric and essential forms. The cubes, cylinders, parallelepipeds, and spheres that make up the artist’s visual vocabulary are worked in such a way as to multiply their reflective surfaces, capturing the images that surround the work, from the architecture of environments to people.

“Heaviness and bulkiness - peculiar connotations of any plastic artifact - in Xhixha’s sculptures change state as in an alchemical process, becoming light and changeable in the gaze of the observer,” explains curator Michele Bonuomo. “Everything that is weighted to the ground becomes airborne, and what invades space is altered and reduced in size until it merges with the reality that surrounds it.”

On display at the Royal Palace is a selection of five installations, specially conceived to amplify the architectural elements of the historic environments in which they are exhibited.

The exhibition itinerary begins with the work Roccia del Mediterraneo (2019), which welcomes visitors from the Scalone d’Onore, on whose ceiling Giuliano Traballesi frescoed an allegory of Aurora, represented by a winged young woman carrying a torch that puts the night and the evil spirits of the shadows to flight: it is Aurora, the Roman goddess who opens the gates of day, having attached horses to the Sun’s chariot, pouring dew on the earth, announcing the morning to the world.

We continue in the rooms of the Historic Rooms, made in the Neoclassical period: recently restored (2022) and relocating some historic furnishings inside, the spaces house a series of seven tapestries dedicated to the myth of Medea and Jason. Helidon Xhixha’s four site-specific sculptures have been selected to dialogue with the interiors: the cube, cylinder, parallelepiped, pyramid and sphere in fact recall many decorative elements, inherent in the neoclassical style, that characterize the sumptuous rooms of the parade apartment, whose decorations and furnishings are captured and returned through the curved surfaces designed by the artist.

On Xhixha’s steel surface, light, among the main inspirational traits of Piermarini and the artists who worked with him, seems to dematerialize the sculpture.

Picking up the legacy of the great Italian sculptural tradition, from the neoclassicism of Antonio Canova to the futurist experiments of Umberto Boccioni, Xhixha builds a landscape of ethereal and powerful forms, capable of transforming along with the environment that welcomes them and the figures that populate it. Thanks to these sculptures, visitors will be able to rediscover the rich decorative apparatus of the rooms and appreciate in detail artistic elements that may elude an overview.

The exhibition is realized with the support of Imago Art Gallery Lugano, Fondazione Giacomini and Magna Pars. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Silvana Editoriale, which flanks the installation views with contributions from curator Michele Bonuomo, art historian Marco Tonelli and Palazzo Reale director Domenico Piraina.

For info: https://www.palazzorealemilano.it/

Image: XHIXHA. The palace in the mirror, Royal Palace, 2023. Photo by Lorenzo Palmieri

Milan, Palazzo Reale welcomes reflective installations by Helidon Xhixha

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