Laura Guiseppi, Retainer Bodies, 2024
Courtesy of the artist, Lagune Ouest and CHART in Tivoli 2024. Photo by Jan Søndergaard
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About The Work
The work series 'Retainer Bodies' by Laura Guiseppi depicts enlarged dental retainers. Retainers are used to correct the mouth and teeth alignment. The sculptures play on the many associations that a dental retainer can evoke. It is both embarrassing and smelly, but it also helps to give a uniform and beautiful set of teeth. At the same time, the retainer is quite literally a foreign object in the body and, in its enlarged form, resembles something from outer space—a piece of armor, a shield, an enormous flower, or perhaps a mutated giant butterfly. The shapes and colors are initially attractive but also repulsive when we see what it actually are. This duality is interesting because it says something about our relationship with nature and the body as a malleable entity.
In Tivoli, the duality in "Retainer Bodies" is intensified. In these magical surroundings, the transformation of the grotesque form into giant butterflies, flowers, or something else becomes believable and not bizarre, blending with the park's decorative and enchanting architecture.
Laura Guiseppi, Retainer Bodies, 2024
Courtesy of the artist, Lagune Ouest and CHART in Tivoli 2024. Photo by Jan Søndergaard
Laura Guiseppi, Retainer Bodies, 2024
Courtesy of the artist, Lagune Ouest and CHART in Tivoli 2024. Photo by Jan Søndergaard
Laura Guiseppi, Retainer Bodies, 2024
Courtesy of the artist, Lagune Ouest and CHART in Tivoli 2024. Photo by Jan Søndergaard
Portrait of Laura Guiseppi
Courtesy of Lagune Ouest. Photo by Frida Ravn Abildgaard
About The Artist
Laura Guiseppi (b. 1989, DK) holds an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2021). Across different materials, Laura Guiseppi shapes works that balance between the natural and artificial, the whimsical and deeply tragic. She explores body culture and how we medically and physically regulate our bodies to transform, optimize, and "normalize" them.
She has exhibited her works at venues including Vejen Art Museum (DK), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (DK), Kunsthal Aarhus (DK), Lagune Ouest (DK), CLAY Ceramic Museum (DK), and Loggia (DE). In 2021, Guiseppi received the Blix Prize for her graduation work "Underbelly". Her works are included in private and public collections such as the Danish Arts Foundation, Vejen Art Museum, and CLAY Ceramic Museum.
Guiseppi is represented by Lagune Ouest gallery in Copenhagen.
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