Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs. Tutto incluso

Both born in 1979, respectively in Zurich and Winterthur, Switzerland, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs have been working together since 2003. The two artists, now living in Berlin, make analogue photographs of ephemeral objects and structures that, placed in specific contexts, give life to landscapes and images with an alienating, ironic and surreal character. Alongside their work in the field of photography, they have for some years now been producing sculptures characterised by the use of everyday objects that, freely assembled, acquire unexpected meanings.

On the occasion of the release of the book The Great Unreal, for Zurich-based Patrick Frey Editions, EX3 will host Tutto incluso, the Swiss duo’s first Italian solo exhibition, curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Arabella Natalini. Tutto incluso develops an articulated itinerary that includes a selection of photographic and sculptural works, belonging to some of the most curious and significant series of their production, and two installations specifically realised for the spaces of the Centre.

The corridor, which opens to the left of the entrance, will undergo an architectural transformation obtained through a progressive lowering of the ceiling, physically reproducing a perspective representation. Crossing the lowered threshold, the visitor will find himself in a room populated by a multitude of Growhomes, small houses fixed on slender wooden rods placed at different heights. The façades of the houses, made up of photographic images of American dwellings, cut out and mounted on a rigid support, create open boxes that host various examples of spontaneous vegetation; throughout the duration of the exhibition, the small shrubs will grow freely, occupying more and more of the surrounding space.
In the photographic series Caravan, on the other hand, the potential of still-life is investigated through the manipulation of everyday objects and random assemblages.

The technique used is peculiar: the photographic paper is directly impressed using long exposure times, while the strong contrast of the black and white of the images refers to surreal settings, in which the photographed subjects appear completely transformed. The tour ends with access to a further room, defined by the artists as the Psycho Room (obtained in turn inside a pre-existing room), crowded with images and objects that compose a chaotic and dense space, physical and ‘mental’ at the same time. As a whole, Onorato and Krebs’ work is born under the banner of divertissement, as a reflection on the influence of imagination in the perception of reality and on the possibility of attributing “other” meanings to common images.