Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi: Bugie

Valentina Cameranesi’s work operates through a sustained logic of deception and concealment. Asked to make a paravent – a screen, an object already suggestive of ambiguity and obstruction – she makes instead a gate, a Melottian memory rendered in folded cardboard that becomes copperwork, which in turn resembles cardboard in the way it is folded. Material and design are entangled in a double trompe, a charade wrapped and tied with a bow.

The exhibition draws on the domestic vernacular of a particular strain of postmodernism: the saccharine wallpaper of Laura Ashley stencils, the floral excess of Mario Buatta, the exquisite aesthetics of Martha Stewart . In Cameranesi’s little rooms and micro-haberdasheries, this sweetness conceals subtle danger: copper tables with glazed enamel tops carry the smudged memory of a patterned silk scarf; dazzling nail polish snags tights; a bright red garter decorates a carefree thigh. The ornamental is never innocent. Ribbons, bows, and frills display their irresistible uselessness while hinting at something sharper beneath the surface. The exhibition ends where jokes are masks and lies are dusty coattails – a not-so-cheerful souvenir from the kingdom of carnival.