Microclima

Max Mara, in collaboration with Collezione Maramotti, is delighted to present Microclima.
Microclima is a permanent site-specific work created by French artist Eva Jospin for the flagship store in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Milan. As winner of a contest launched by the fashion house in 2019, Jospin has created this art installation to enhance the interior space of the Max Mara store, juxtaposing it with the open space of Piazza del Liberty, in the centre of Milan overlooked by the terrace housing the work of art. Microclima offers the store’s customers, as well as the city and all people passing through, a fascinating encounter with art. The brief given to the artists invited to take part in this ambitious contest (organised in collaboration with Collezione Maramotti) was to create a piece of art which, although designed to be long-lasting, would have characteristics linked to the idea of impermanence and which, set in a contemporary metropolitan context, would stimulate reflection on a different perception—natural, physical, poetic—of space.

Microclima, Eva Jospin's winning proposal, consists of a glass and metal greenhouse. It is a structure that encloses an intimate world yet maintains a close relationship with the world outside, the vision of which changes from day to night and with the changing seasons. It is inspired by the winter gardens of the late 19th century, a period in which the Liberty style that gives its name to the piazza— a quintessential example of contemporary Milanese architecture—flourished. This pavilion is the backdrop for the staging of a cardboard landscape, a relief depicting plant elements on a mineral substrate, a panorama of enigmatic vertical rocks that evoke a physical and imaginary environment of exotic cacti, majestic tropical trees, cave stalagmites and root fossils. These organic forms are the suggestion of nature and not real samples of them as would usually be expected in a greenhouse. This pavilion does not enclose or protect nature transplanted from outside, it is not a shelter for real plants but is the setting for a scene of cellulose sculptures, the material that derives from them. Spectators will be able to immerse themselves completely in this elaborate landscape of cardboard: a rough, mostly monochrome material favoured by Jospin, who moulds and embellishes it, even incorporating small pieces of coloured paper, rope, metal and mineral elements, giving a delicate rhythm to the forms of the sculpture. The installation is given greater olfactory perception thanks to an essence specifically developed by the artist in collaboration with perfumer Julien Rasquinet, as an impalpable trace of a reconstituted nature, to restore the immersive sensation of a tropical greenhouse, suspended between the evocation of a memory and the illusion of a presence.

Eva Jospin’s take on nature generates amazement and dreamlike apparitions, inviting you in along pathways that lead to an inner journey in a symbolic and enchanted universe made up of imaginary forests, abandoned caves and mysterious jungles. Primitive, archaic elements, such as caves and forests, are catalysts for impressions and memories deeply rooted in a personal and collective level. In Jospin’s work, the forest is a primal element of research and knowledge, as well as a place of mental escape and disorientation—somewhere to lose yourself and, perhaps, find yourself again. In the artist’s words: At a certain point, it was as if these natural architectures, rocky gateways, entrances to unknown worlds, had become an obsession. And in this obsession nature becomes a mystery that envelops man in a mysterious spatiality. It is the idea of crossing the threshold into another dimension. (E. Jospin).
Sculpturally and conceptually, her primary interest is in nature (re)constructed. Through a patient process of cutting and assembling, Jospin’s artwork, stage sets are playful, participatory installations, in which, to the observer, deception is as recognisable as it is inescapable. The elegant fragility of the simple materials used by the artist—mainly raw cardboard, together with metal wires, ropes, acorn shells, small stones—also leads to a reflection on the current condition of the natural environment, its instability, and the relationship of prevarication and control that man exercises over nature.

Eva Jospin (born 1975 in Paris) lives and works in Paris.
Trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Jospin has received several prestigious awards. In 2016, she held a scholarship at the Villa Medici-Accademia di Francia in Rome. Her most recent solo exhibitions include: École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris (2022); Domaine de la Garenne Lemot, Loire (2022); The Invisible Collection, London (2022); Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (2021); Musée des impressionnismes, Giverny (2021); Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch (2021); Abbaye de Montmajour, Arles (2020); Museum Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern (2019); Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris (2019); Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara (2018); Cour Carrée du Louvre, Paris (2016).