This Body Made of Stardust
Collezione Maramotti presents This Body Made of Stardust, an extensive solo exhibition by Viviane Sassen comprising more than fifty photographs and a video, all dating from 2005 to 2025, with several new works made specifically for the occasion. The show is the most extensive presentation of Sassen’s work in Italy to date and is curated by the artist herself.
Revolving around the concept and iconography of the memento mori, the photos on view trace branching paths through the infinite possibilities and nuances of life. It appears fertile, intense, and overflowing, but also intrinsically fragile: (abstractions of) human bodies, landscapes, dust, earth and organic matter become symbols and recurring reminders of death—an inevitable passage in the transformation of all that lives.
Sassen invites us into a many-sided, dreamlike, seductive universe, instilled with Surrealism, forming a dialogue with sculptures from Collezione Maramotti. Sassen, who has a deep connection to three-dimensional art also calls herself a sculptor. She shapes light – and, above all, shadow, a metaphor for the torments and desires of the human psyche, introducing paint, ink, and collage into her practice to add a new dimension to the photographic image.
In her attempt to “grant structure to chaos,” Sassen transfigures the normal Latin term into her own memento amoris, inviting viewers to see the beauty and awe of passage. We are dust (and to dust we will return), but that dust is stardust.
