Kaari Upson. Dollhouse

The MASI Lugano presents the first major posthumous retrospective dedicated to the American artist Kaari Upson (1970–2021). Known to European audiences for her participation in the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Upson is among the most compelling and original voices of her generation. Through sculpture, video, drawing, and installation, over the course of little more than fifteen years the artist developed a layered visual language through which she explored themes such as relationships, the body, illness, and loss. Her works—suspended between intimacy and alienation—evoke a disturbing universe in which everyday objects and environments are transformed into repositories of trauma and obsession. Upson’s work thus reveals a portrait that, while rooted in her biography and her place of origin, San Bernardino, California, assumes both an intimate and universal dimension of the contemporary psyche.

The exhibition at MASI encompasses the artist’s entire body of work and is structured into five chapters which, in a broadly chronological progression, trace the gradual focus of Upson’s artistic research towards intimate themes connected to her personal and family history: When Kaari Meets Larry, The Life of Things, Dollhouse – A Giant Miniature, Inner Cartographies, and Body, Memory and Fallibility.

Among the emblematic works presented in the exhibition in Lugano are several series from the celebrated Larry Project (2005–12); the monumental installation “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OUTSIDE” (2017–19), created for the 2019 Venice Biennale, and the environmental work “Mother’s Legs”, as well as her final series, “Foot Face Paintings”, presented to the public for the first time on this occasion.

“Kaari Upson. Dollhouse”, the first major posthumous retrospective dedicated to her, invites visitors to encounter an artist whose work continues to resonate even after her premature passing: unsettling, moving, and of extraordinary contemporary relevance,” say Francesca Benini and Taisse Grandi Venturi, curators of the exhibition.