Curated by Kris Racaniello for SpringBreak Art Fair in NYC 2021

Press Release:

We are pleased to present Unbellowed, the culmination of Chiara No’s work on ritual, religion and feminist herstories over the past three years. Chiara No has developed the tools of a personal, private devotional practice centered around color magic, sigils, and critical fabulations. Unbellowed presents the objects of her liturgy: summoning rugs imbued with meaningful materials from cows teeth and snake skin to local Vermont brick-dust, carpet beaters with activated demonic sigils, semi-iconic ceramic bells, and an immersive installation space cleansed with a massive salt circle.

Together, these tools generate an interactive atmospheric shrine space with prompts for viewer interaction placed strategically throughout the space in the form of No’s hand-made furniture which suggests kneeling, sitting, or lying prostrate before the central icons. A massive arch containing a summoning rug hung like an interdimensional portal, reminding viewers of an altarpiece or fetish icon, dominates the central salt circle.
Chiara No’s work sits at the crossroads of intersectional histories, dominant cultural narratives, gender identity and magico-religious practices, with a particular interest in the late medieval period and neo-medievalisms (especially the neo-medieval graphics of metal). Graphic demarcations have deep historical roots in magic and making. Often accused of hubris and creating pagan idols, medieval artists flirted with condemnation as devil worshipers for executing their craft well. Architects and masons were especially associated with power, appearing as both God and the Devil in medieval art. Mason’s marks, oft mistaken for graffiti in medieval cathedrals, denote the identity of the stone carver responsible for a block, an arch, or even for the engineering of architectural elements. These marks are personal sigils, used to quickly name a maker but they could only be understood by those initiated into the language of the masons. Similarly, the sigillography of Chiara No’s practice can only be understood through initiation. Architects and artists formed the foundation of medieval spiritual experience. In Unbellowed, Chiara No plays both of these roles, creating an immersive interior shrine space and iconic focal points where viewers rethink oppressive sexist histories tied to religious practice.

A central question to Chiara No is: who, in reality and in historical terms, are demons and how does contemporary American culture demonize what it fears? No states that “the heretic, the midwife, the hermit, the foreigner are all historically politicized bodies once considered demons. My critical fabulations are a gateway to dismantling demons within herstory.”

Liturgical paraphernalia is the basis of performing religious worship, and Chiara No’s materials collectively conjure a glimpse of a feminist religion antithetical to dominant religious practice. Most importantly, the objects No so carefully crafts are tools; equipment for evoking the repressed, twisted, and misdescribed. An example of No’s material herstories is a carpet beater containing a sigil with the name of the demon “Amaimon,” first mentioned in 1563, in the appendix Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, (“The False Monarchy of Demons”). The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum states that "the demon is known for its "dangerous, putrid breath” and “Amaimon” is an anagram for ammonia. No used these details to connect this demon to ancient practices of collecting and fermenting urine to create ammonia, a task traditionally carried out by women.

Viewers are invited to ring the sculpted bells and interact with the liturgical objects found in this installation. By doing so, they will contribute to the production of the soundscape which calls forth No’s demons. Walking through this soundscape, one feels both followed and watched, mirrored and echoed by the duality of demons presented in Chiara No’s fabulated herstories.

Summoning M/other
Yarn, cow leather, local bovine teeths, hematite, red ochre, red brick powder made from a Drury Brick Co, a Vermont brick company in acrylic matte medium, thread, vinyl
66 x 66 x 2” (size of rug)

Back of Summoning M/other

***Please reference “Summoning Bells” tab to get more information on the ceramic pieces in these photos.

Yarn, cow leather, fake hair, nylon, silk poppies, thread, recycled plastic bags, salt, wood, wax candles, silver bells, incense, deer horn, bitterdock, mullein, thistle
78 x 66 x 24 in. (rug with arch)
2020

***Please reference “Divining Rods” tab to get more information about the carpet beaters on the walls in these photos.

Back of Summoning Her/etic

View of the rug storage behind Summoning Her/etic

Yarn, tarp, lamb leather, snakeskin, cock feathers, thread, vinyl, salt, wood, wax candles, silver bells, incense
78 x 66 x 24 in.
2018

Back of Summoning Crone/logistic

Yarn, vinyl, acrylic paint, raccoon pelt, thread, salt, wood, wax candles, silver bells, incense
78 x 66 x 24 in.
2020

Back of Summoning Cunt/forming

Back of Summoning Whorrior

Yarn, vinyl, cooper, amethyst, pheasant feathers, fox hide, astro turf, thread
66 x 66 x 8in.
2021