English
How to explain pictures to a Live Rabbit is an explicit homage by Eleonora Chiesa to Joseph Beuys, a quote from the 1965 performance How to Explain
Pictures to a Dead Hare with a further reference to the famous 1974 action I Like America and America Likes Me. If, in the action of Beuys the body
of the hare held in the arms is lifeless to represent the transformation, the cyclical nature of life and death, in the action of Eleonora Chiesa the desire
is to convert this presence into the living body of the rabbit. - who, after being rescued from a farm, was involved in sharing the time of
action with her. An image dilated over a time of almost two hours in which the public witnessed externally through the glass door of the studio and which,
according to the artist's indications, remained closed to preserve the emotional state of the animal and allow a state of greater intimacy.
During the action, the artist tried to establish contact with the animal, respecting its ethology as a temporary guest in a context foreign to it.
What is essentially recovered from the poetics of the German master is the invitation to enjoy art in a more instinctive way, to reflect on the fragility,
the importance of life regardless of its form in a renewed reflection of the relationship between human being and nature. (Margherita Merega)
