Department store Rinascente in Milan
Marco Beck Peccoz
ARTY WINDOWS: Rinascente teamed with Georgian artist Vajiko Chachkhiani to celebrate Miart and Milan Design Week, the two international events hosted in Milan Apr. 12-22.
For the occasion, the artist, who represented his native country at the latest edition of the Venice Biennale, created a striking installation for the windows of the department store facing Milan’s Duomo Cathedral.
Called “Under the Midday Sun,” the project includes eight blue unfinished sculptures representing a cotton picker, a tiger and a horse, all surrounded by dry bushes and bare trees shaken by the wind.
“This is my first time collaborating with a retailer and it was actually fun,” Chachkhiani said. “With this installation, I wanted to highlight how an underpaid job, like cotton-picking, progressively destroys people — just as the wind transforms nature day after day.”
Inside the department store La Rinascente in Milan. Marco Beck Peccoz
The Georgian artist also created a short movie in collaboration with La Rinascente, which was unveiled with private screenings at the Odeon theater on Thursday afternoon.
Titled “Cotton Candy,” the dramatic mini film features a young grandmother who, while she attends a circus show with her granddaughter, realizes how miserable she feels. While Chachkhiani left the ending open, the images appear to suggest that the woman found her freedom in death.
