Performance: Chalisée Naamani

Wardrobe

An Arte Fiera – Bologna Fiere project in collaboration with Furla Foundation
Curated by Bruna Roccasalva

Chalisée Naamani’s research explores the relationship between body, identity, and representation in contemporary visual culture, with an interdisciplinary approach that employs painting, sculpture, fashion, and technology. Her works, created with recycled materials and fabrics printed with images from her constantly expanding personal archive, take the form of “vêtements-images” (image-garments) conceived as paintings or sculptures, and therefore not meant to be worn.

Wardrobe (2025), a new project conceived specifically for the Padiglione de l’Esprit Nouveau, combines a site-specific architectural presentation with a performance by the artist in person. Inspired by the dual nature of the Padiglione – manifesto of modernist ideals and prototype of the machine à habiter (a house is a machine for living) – Naamani transforms the building into a sort of large wardrobe in which she stages daily life through the act of ironing.

A wardrobe refers not only to clothing, but also to the act of guarding, preserving, and conserving, and the word Wardrobe itself contains this dual meaning: starting from its etymology (from the French garde-robe, “guard” and “clothing”), Naamani has conceived a presentation that considers the concepts of and how the body, its shelter, and the repetition of gestures contribute to structuring our way of being.

The Padiglione, tracing a line that dialogs with the pure geometries of the building and leading to a room where numerous monochrome garment bags, identical and precisely hung, frame the performance site. 

For the first time, Naamani’s colorful garments are replaced by their coverings, as if the eccentric fabrics she employs were stripped of every iconographic element – the materiality, texture, and weave of the tweed replacing the narrative interweaving created by the images – transformed into only apparently neutral surfaces. Although tweed transmits an appearance of neutrality by means of a reduced chromatic palette and absence of images, it remains a material deeply imbued with history and references linked to social class, tradition, duration, and protection.

If clothing is in itself an interface, a second skin, and an archive of the body, the garment bag emphasizes the idea of guarding, protection, and containment, becoming a meeting point between architecture and the body. Nevertheless, in Naamani’s work, meanings are never unequivocal, but instead open, layered, and crossed by multiple narrations flowing simultaneously. In this case as well, the installation leads to further levels of interpretation that resonate with the dramatic events taking place in her home country, Iran. In light of the current repression , these garment bags take on an unexpected significance: by evoking body bags, they give rise to images that pertain to our present, and theirwhiteness seems to offer a silent gesture of commemoration and homage.

At the center of this domestic stage, the artist performs the simple act of ironing: a daily gesture that evokes care and dedication, but also mechanical repetition and alienation. Contextualized in the Padiglione de l’Esprit Nouveau, this gesture reconnects directly to Le Corbusier’s vision of the house as a machine à habiter, i.e., as a rational and efficient entity designed to satisfy the demands of everyday life.

In its mechanical repetition, the act of ironing reflects the same functional logic embodied by modernist architecture: if the house is a machine, the body becomes an integral part, inserted in a system in which every element works in synergy to guarantee its operation.

But at the same time, this act, which also denotes care and dedication, highlights the physical and emotional aspects of living, showing that every functional space is crisscrossed by daily actions that constantly redefine its significance.

By means of a simple and repeated gesture, Naamani transforms this domestic action into a critical device, revealing the ways in which the body becomes part of, adapts to, and renegotiates the spatial and functional systems of daily life.
 

Opening hours:
Thursday 5 February at 4pm and 6pm
Friday 6 February at 12pm and 6pm
Saturday 7 February at 12pm, 4pm and 6pm
Sunday 8 February at 12pm and 3pm

The Performance lasts approximately 80 minutes

Entrance is free of charge and without reservation. To access the performance, it is not necessary to have purchased a ticket for Arte Fiera. Please remember that the daily ticket (1 entrance) does not let you leave and reenter the fair. lt is therefore advisable to visit the Padiglione before entering or after leaving Arte Fiera.

Technical Partner C.E.A Studio-Impresa

Chalisée Naamani (b. 1995, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux- Arts in Paris, where she lives and works. She has had solo exhibitions in galleries and in public institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2025), Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin (2024), La Galerie, Noisy-le-Sec (2021), and Art-O-Rama, Marseille (2021), and has participated in numerous group shows in spaces such as Hangar Y, Meudon (2024); Nice Biennal, Nice (2022); Poush, Paris (2022); Reiffers Institute, Paris (2022); La Villette, Paris (2022); BOZAR, Brussels (2022). She was awarded the Pista 500 Award of Pinacoteca Agnelli (2023), the Prix des Fondations for sculpture and installation (2021), and the Prix Benoît Doche de Laquintane (2021).