Guglielmo Castelli in Venice: “I want visitors to enter like a liquid”

“Venice will be the most important show for my career,” says Turin-based painter Guglielmo Castelli on the phone from his studio. This week, he opens a major solo show at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, following in the footsteps of artists like Enrico David, Peter Doig and Lucy McKenzie. Known for his distinctively muddied palette of greens, browns and burnt yellows, Castelli’s paintings often depict strange, beguiling figures in varying states of play, dance or solitary reflection. He also works with sculpture and mixed-media assemblage, with figures sometimes appearing in three dimensions, to resemble surreal puppets or dioramas, which recall the artist’s background in stage design. “I was drawn to their ability to condense stories; of having to be read between the lines,” says Milovan Farronato, curator of Castelli’s Venice exhibition. “They make me think, from a stylistic point of view, of some passages by Giorgio Manganelli: feverish”.

Inspired by a century-old songbook for children titled Improving Songs for Anxious Children, Castelli’s immersive gesamtkunstwerk in the historic Palazzetto Tito incorporates new paintings, maquettes, textiles and knitted sculptures that reflect on humanity’s shared coming-of-age period, one filled with fragility, violence, and, as he observes, “inexorable failures and scraped knees”. Melancholic is a term often used to describe Castelli’s paintings, despite their physical activity figures appear to be in states of malaise and ennui. Farronato observes how their twilight atmospheric quality is “lake-like, a hyperrealism that blurs the images, breaks them down and above all amalgamates them with enveloping backdrops. It is a specific melancholy that belongs more to sunsets than to dawns…”

Laurie Barron: How did this show come about?

Guglielmo Castelli: Everything started last year when I was in New York for my show with Mendes Wood DM – my first in America. I was at the public library and I saw a book titled Improving Songs for Anxious Children. It reminded me of my background in theatre and stage design and illustrating children’s books. When I decided to study fine art in Turin, I was quite scared about choosing the painting course. I’m close to literature and the romance of it – everything that’s connected with the power of words. So I thought being a set designer was the best way for connecting different elements between words and images, and the relationship between body and space.

So when I found this book in the public library, with all of these stories and weird illustrations dissecting different approaches to morality, showing children jumping and dancing, it was interesting. While it didn’t look unusual or dangerous for children, I thought that for adults, perhaps it could be. The Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa had already invited me to exhibit, so I started to conceive a large-scale show about the idea of the classroom, where there are bodies dancing and falling, dancing again and falling again in the theatrical space that is the architecture of Palazzetto Tito.

LB: I couldn’t find anything about the book online, apart from one blurry image on Etsy of a copy that had already sold. Could you tell me a bit more about the book?

GC: It’s divided into chapters. In one part, I remember a child dancing and talking in an inappropriate moment, and in another, a child eats in a very greedy way – lots of bad behaviour. The book functions almost like a manual on how to behave correctly in society, using the family as a microcosm or motif of society at large.

When I read the book, I imagined a room with a group of people could convey this idea of morality – I could create a dialogue between them and this sort of explosion. It’s Matryoshka Doll style – you can keep discovering layers, going deeper and deeper. I created this project as an extension of the book.

I also had the idea that I could be one of the children; I had a strict education studying with nuns and priests, so I understand what it feels like to want to escape. I’m also interested in the uniforms worn in primary schools. They are strict, but also elegant and beautiful. I explore ideas of beauty and freedom in the show and how they’re both very relative.

LB: Especially with the scope of human behaviour you are exploring, there seems to be a desire to experience paintings together and understand how they ricochet and reverberate. I’m interested in the physicality of the painting process and this layered, sculptural approach to exhibiting. Could you talk more about what you have planned?

GC: Venice will be the most important show for my career. I have created a pieceunique. It’s not just about putting some works on the wall or the floor. I decided every single work should be in dialogue with the others. Also, the work will be different sizes, starting from very small to large-scale installation, as well as drawings, fabric and embroidery.

I want visitors to take their time and enter like a liquid, passing through all the layers. The first time I visited Palazzetto Tito, I noticed that through the historic glass on the first floor, water from the canal outside reflects on the walls, floor and ceiling. The light is like marbling that will reflect on the surface of the canvases and there’s this connection between inside and outside.

LB: This makes me think of Venice, with its rich history of religious art in churches and cathedrals, where on one level, they are incredibly beautiful and powerful in their skill and technical dexterity. But on the other, more narrative level, there are uncomfortable, disturbing scenes mixed in with all kinds of attractive, pleasurable scenes. I feel like this conflict is something you evoke in your work.

GC: Yeah –  now I understand much better after your words – I think you can shake someone more deeply when you make something that looks very welcoming, then when people go inside the work, it’s like saying, “Okay, now the door is closing, you are inside, and now you have to manage these different elements”. As with literature, it’s more interesting when you find something that takes you to an uncomfortable place. It’s more interesting and difficult in painting when you create a secret garden that visitors can enter like a maze. I think, how can I add in layers? How can I arrive at a moment where I can put chaos and claustrophobia into the work?

LB: How has it been working with the curator Milovan Farronato on the show? They’re also known for working on a lot of performance programming.

GC: Working with Milovan was amazing. We talked a lot about not only the idea of the show but also storytelling after I’d finished individual works. I think one of the best gifts that a curator can give to an artist is when he suggests questions not answers.

LB: What kind of questions?

GC: Questions like: “What happened after? Do these characters survive or not? Do they continue to dance or fall down? Do you remain more figurative or could you be more abstract?” So it’s not just creating the genealogy of how one particular show is composed, but, thinking about each work like the skeleton of a story – the next step is the next chapter.

Sometimes Milovan puts me in a weird position: I can’t reply to him because I don’t know the answer. I’m a painter and sometimes I don’t know why I move my hands the way they do, but it’s interesting to ask the question. I think you are a good artist if you put yourself in the vulnerable position of asking more about yourself than the paintings.

LB: You mentioned there’s too much painting around and I did notice that you reduced your social media presence by archiving almost all your Instagram posts. Was that a deliberate reaction to the digital saturation of painting at the moment?

GC: I think overexposure is quite dangerous. I’ve reduced my presence in the last few years because I’m still looking for a position. I’m growing up now – I am 36 years old. I’m now able to decide for myself, the way and place I want to be. It’s also a protection for my work and my personal and private life.

I don’t judge anyone because I’m from the generation of artists that Instagram has helped so much. Instagram has benefitted my career a lot: from keeping in touch with amazing collectors for example, to speaking with fantastic curators, magazines and galleries. But although it’s very helpful, at the same time it can be quite a schizophrenic approach.

LB: Do you have any future projects planned?

GC: Not super officially, but after Venice, I would like to take a break. I’m ready to start working on new ideas. In 2025, I will have my first show in Sao Paulo with Mendes Wood DM. I worked hard for a year on Venice. Two weeks ago the studio was filled with canvases. When it was emptied – it felt like the first day of school.