Echo Di Corpi

Refusés presents Body Echoes, a group exhibition at TUTTO / NIENTE, a restaurant and listening bar in Lugano. Conceived as part of our ongoing research into alternative exhibition formats, the project moves deliberately beyond the white cube, embedding contemporary art within a space dedicated to food, sound, and social exchange.

Historically, artists have challenged the neutrality of exhibition architecture, from the spatial experiments of El Lissitzky and Kurt Schwitters to the institutional critiques of Daniel Buren and Gordon Matta-Clark. In the 1990s, relational practices theorized by Nicolas Bourriaud further repositioned the exhibition as a site of encounter and shared experience. Body Echoes situates itself within this lineage, proposing a context-responsive format in which art operates as an active presence within everyday life and therefore space. By placing artworks in non-sterile environments, one is able to communicate the energy and essence of these artworks.

TUTTO / NIENTE functions as a restaurant, bar, club, and event venue, simultaneously it is a meeting point in time and an exhibition space. The exhibition fully engages with this hybridity, allowing the space to shift in atmosphere and rhythm throughout the day. Natural daylight transitions into artificial evening light; a contemplative audience gradually transforms into a social, nocturnal one. Each moment of the day activates different readings of the works and shapes the relationships between viewer, artwork, and architecture.

Within this evolving environment, the works presented operate as bodies that inhabit the space itself. They absorb its sounds, movements, and conversations, echoing the presence of those who gather within it, both currently and in the past. Rather than a fixed display, the exhibition unfolds as a dynamic choreography in which visitors, artworks, and architecture continuously inform and transform one another.

Body Echoes brings together works by Davide Barberi, Mariapia Borgnini, Davide Cascio, Martina Casey, Matteo Coluccia, Ilaria Cuccagna, Giulio Gamba, Lucas Herzig, Claudio La Mattina, Kaspar Ludwig, Lisa Lurati, Eleonora Meier, Gian Paolo Minelli, Alice Moor, Maddalena Mora, Andrea Popovic, Massimiliano Rossetto, Anna Simonetti, Sir Taki, Enea Toldo, Gloria Tomasini, Enea Zucchetti