Easter weekend in Pietrasanta: a medieval town in Tuscany, nestled between the Italian Riviera and the foothills of the Apuan Alps. In the cathedral square, a mammoth black bronze teddy bear lies with a knife in his heart. Inappropriate? Not at all, said their priest. This sculpture, Poor Teddy in Repose, promotes family values.
It was the centerpiece of a five part installation by Rachel Hovnanian, her call to resurrect child creative play. Screens are replacing tactile experience, she says, endangering the cuddly Teddy Bear and the stories children create around and with him.
Technology isn’t only affecting the very young. “The ubiquitousness of the cell phone creates anxiety,” says Hovnanian. “If you don’t hear back immediately, or if somebody seems to be doing better than you, it can be unnerving. Being hyper connected is actually making people feel more alone.”
Hovnanian’s multimedia installations — spread across the Cathedral Duomo, Medieval confessional room, Renaissance Cloisters and public gardens — deal with these issues and invite us to heal.
Her art inhabits spaces where Miró, Henry Moore, Fernando Botero and Damien Hirst have exhibited. Michelangelo put Pietrasanta on the map for its Carrara marble. And its foundries have attracted sculptors ever since. Botero had a home there, part of an artist community that has grown around its quarries and foundries.
More than 75 of Rachel’s New York friends/collectors came for a two-day celebration. Dennis Basso, Richard Mishaan, Nicole Miller, Carlos Souza, Carlos Mota, Karin Meyn, Dayssi and Paul Kanavos, Fiona Rudin, Jill Roosevelt, Bettina Zilkha, Carolina Alvarez-Mathies (Exec Director of the Dallas Contemporary), George Farias, and Laura and Harry Slatkin were among those who walked the path to learn about her installations and share private dinners at the Hovnanian home.
Rachel walked them through “You Are Not Alone, Angels Listening,” the installation she expanded from her Venice Biennale 2022 show: white bronze beauties with mouths taped shut. “The culture silences us,” says Rachel, “politically and personally.” Elsewhere, she invited all to write their secrets, anonymously, on ribbons and drop them into “a cathartic box.” Those messages were inscribed on listening mats and paintings.
Rachel’s art is a vehicle to bring those dark feelings to light, realize we are not alone in having them, and cast them off. “I want people to understand we are perfect as we are,” Hovnanian says. Keep walking and you come upon a healing garden. Further down, she’ll create a permanent “Hope Garden” in a public park.
The healing herbal garden was the result of a three-hour foraging trip into an Umbrian forest with ‘Intuitive Herbalist’ Marta Selvatica. “When I found out Marta does trauma therapy using herbs,” Hovnanian said, “I asked her to work on the project.
“When I was nervous before the opening, I ran out to the garden, grabbed some rosemary, rubbed it in my hands and breathed it in. It calmed me.”
There were more lessons for Rachel in Tuscany. Setting up the show, she tried to skip a meal to save time. “No, Rachel. You must eat lunch,” the locals insisted. “And they turned the lights off! They made me realize eating is life. From then on, even when we were working, we made certain to stop, break bread, talk and connect in a personal way.”
It’s all part of the romantic lure of Italy. “In the 20 years I’ve been working in Pietrasanta part time,” Rachel continued, “I’ve really gotten to know the community: the store and gallery owners, other artists, the wonderful open air market that brings us together once a week.
But, it doesn’t have pecans. They don’t grow in Italy. She brings them from America. “I like to cook,” says Rachel, whose mother was a famous culinary personality in Texas. “And I make American deserts for the foundry. Some of the metal workers had never had a pecan pie.”
For the Americans who came for the week-end, it was lasagna at the Hovnanian home, country-style. “I was so appreciative of all the friends and collectors who came from New York,” Rachel told me. “The amount of support was really overwhelming.”
She’ll have to pull herself away from Italy by September for a women’s group show that will feature her neon work. Curated by Christine Mack and Natasha Schlesinger, at Room57 Gallery, the show is titled “These Boots Are Made for Walking.”
But, for now, it will be art patrons walking the tiny streets of Pietrasanta who will discover Rachel Hovnanian’s luscious art and empowering message.
