Spora

Šimon Chovan

Curated by Cani

At San Foca, Italy

July 30 — August 02, 2022

Photography by Ambra Abbaticola

Spora is configured as the first intervention within the format imagined by CANI residency. The exhibition relates to a peculiar rural environment, an olive grove affected by Xylella, located between San Foca and Melendugno, which becomes the base camp for a series of artist residencies. Šimon Chovan makes a series of sculptures for Spora, using materials partly taken from the olive field and largely made up of plant elements. The soil and all the tools used by the artist collaborate symbiotically with the surrounding landscape, to the point of amplifying its organic characteristics. The exhibition reflects on the increasing contamination and contact with new pathogenic forms, the constant acceleration of trade and human movements on the globe which foster the birth of new epidemics, both in human beings and in plants.
Chovan focuses, without any moral or scientific judgment, on the processes that underlie the metamorphosis of living organisms with special attention to the nomenclatures, often binary, that still accompany this type of study. Can one still talk about blame? Would it not make more sense to turn the idea of contamination upside down and imagine spores and bacteria as tourists invading a new landscape? How does an all too well known intimate summer story of love and affection situate within the grand narrative of ecocides and pandemics?


40°17’43.3″N 18°21’54.4″E

— Ambra Abbaticola and Marco Vitale (Cani)

Šimon Chovan, Spora, installation view, San Foca, Italy
Šimon Chovan, Waiting For A Crescendo, Together, 2022, beach sponges, wrist watch
Šimon Chovan, Waiting For A Crescendo, Together, 2022, beach sponges, wrist watch
Šimon Chovan, Spora, installation view, San Foca, Italy
Šimon Chovan, Not Your Guardian, Abandoned Fantasy, 2022, roots, beach sponge, found plastic, polyurethane foam
Šimon Chovan, Not Your Guardian, Abandoned Fantasy, 2022, roots, beach sponge, found plastic, polyurethane foam
Šimon Chovan, Not Your Guardian, Abandoned Fantasy, 2022, roots, beach sponge, found plastic, polyurethane foam
Šimon Chovan, Spora, installation view, San Foca, Italy
Šimon Chovan, Sentimental Membrane Longing For A Body, 2022, silicone, photography, pigment, bus tickets
Šimon Chovan, Sentimental Membrane Longing For A Body, 2022, silicone, photography, pigment, bus tickets
Šimon Chovan, Sentimental Membrane Longing For A Body, 2022, silicone, photography, pigment, bus tickets
Šimon Chovan, Sentimental Membrane Longing For A Body, 2022, silicone, photography, pigment, bus tickets
Šimon Chovan, Honey, Don´t Look Away, 2022, bees wax, soil, rubber
Šimon Chovan, Honey, Don´t Look Away, 2022, bees wax, soil, rubber
Šimon Chovan, Honey, Don´t Look Away, 2022, bees wax, soil, rubber
Šimon Chovan, Touch Echo, 2022, photography, soil, dry plant, rubber, wood
Šimon Chovan, Touch Echo, 2022, photography, soil, dry plant, rubber, wood
Šimon Chovan, Touch Echo, 2022, photography, soil, dry plant, rubber, wood
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Harvest To Remember, Paradise Changed, 2022, soil, plants
Šimon Chovan, Spora, installation view, San Foca, Italy
Šimon Chovan, Spora, installation view, San Foca, Italy
Šimon Chovan, Chlorophyll Tears, Sunny Metanoia, 2022, t-shirt, wasps, flowers, plastic plants, silicone, photograph, found necklace
Šimon Chovan, Chlorophyll Tears, Sunny Metanoia, 2022, t-shirt, wasps, flowers, plastic plants, silicone, photograph, found necklace
Šimon Chovan, Synaptic Revenge, 2022, dry branch, polyurethane foam, photoghraphy
Šimon Chovan, Synaptic Revenge, 2022, dry branch, polyurethane foam, photoghraphy
Šimon Chovan, Synaptic Revenge, 2022, dry branch, polyurethane foam, photoghraphy

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