When an exhibition project is put together, it's done behind closed doors in what can feel like a construction site. Here, skilled workers and various experts combine their knowledge and expertise to bring artists' ideas to life. In publishing these images, we wanted to reveal a part of the work of museums that is as intense and fundamental as it is secret and unknown to the public.
To stage “ICARUS”, the exhibition of Japanese artist Yukinori Yanagi, Pirelli HangarBicocca brought together a diverse team of specialised professionals and crafts people, including art handlers, conservators, registrars, engineers, architects, carpenters, neon sign makers and even entomologists. All of them were guided by the production team, which is responsible for interpreting and shaping the artists' and curators' visions. There were some colossal and cumbersome works to accommodate within the former industrial spaces of Pirelli HangarBicocca. These works, made with containers, discarded objects and materials including steel and cast iron, are in contrast with other delicate and fragile pieces, such as those on paper where pencil lines trace the path of an ant.
Through his installation, Yanagi, who was born in Fukuoka in 1959 and now lives and works on Momoshima Island, conveys universal messages: he speaks to us of the vulnerability of national identities and the threat of unconditional use of technology by humankind, especially the destructive use of the atomic bomb. The exhibition, as the artist declared on its opening day, is intended as a warning to distrust human arrogance, well represented by the Greek myth of Icarus, who takes a forbidden flight and soars into the sky, drawn by the energy of the sun that then takes his life.
During the six weeks it has taken to install the exhibition, these ideas have been translated into artworks with a powerful visual and emotional impact, capable of bringing to the surface and inextricably uniting contradictory expectations and feelings, such as fear and hope, Utopia and disappointment, the horror of destruction and the desire for rebirth.
Credits:Yukinori Yanagi - Exhibition set-up “ICARUS”, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2025 - ©YANAGI STUDIO Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan - Photo: Francesco Margaroli
