All in One

Triennale Milano is hosting the exhibition All in One by Mariella Bettineschi, open from February 28th to March 24th 2024.

All in One is a fitting title since the exhibition includes the artist’s various journeys from 1980 to the present, a time when she has explored various techniques in search of her own unique style.

The first cycle consists of the series of Soft and Feathers boxes, which are delicate pieces composed of organza that are beaded and cast gold-filled with bamboo or feathers. Treasures come next. Although at first glance they appear to be metal plates that resemble medieval homes, they are actually just plain tracing paper that has been given a unique look by the addition of color and tar. Lastly, The Next Era is a series that began in 2008 when Mariella Bettineschi experimented with photographically dividing portraits of famous women from art history, like Bronzino’s Bianca de’ Medici and Raffaello’s Fornarina, making them the focal point and slicing their eyes in half with surrealist terminology.

Her pictures’ dual looks are really the gazes of women who are the architects and rulers of their own histories, gazing into the future. Even familiar locations like libraries and nature are altered by blurring and hazing the image to compel us to focus deeper on the spaces that hold the key to our past and, implicitly, our future.

In an effort to freeze our physical time with perfect formal rigor, All in One aims to describe the origin and conclusion of Bettineschi’s production in a warp that concentrates human history. It accomplishes it by moving the focus from the past to the future.