CHIACHIO & GIANNONE: TEXTILE GENEALOGIES, DOMESTIC IRONY AND THREADS OF RESISTANCE

| by Maria Rosaria Roseo |

For Leo Chiachio and Daniel Giannone, art has never been just a matter of form or technique, but a deeply embodied way of inhabiting time, material, and memory. When, in 2003, they decided to unite their artistic and biographical paths, it was not simply a collaboration: their shared practice became a territory to explore, stitch, traverse, point by point, in the spirit of complicity, slowness, and fertile dialogue.

Both came from a solid background in painting, but when they met, they resolutely chose to abandon the brush to take up needle and thread. This transition was anything but a renunciation; rather, it was an act of affirmation, a paradigm shift that transformed embroidery — a craft historically relegated to the domestic and feminine sphere — into a radical tool for reinventing the visual language. In that gesture, their relationship was embedded: two men, two artists, a single gesture stitched together.

In their work, everything is born from collaboration, and when opinions diverge, it is dialogue that keeps the fabric together. They do not deny that divergences often arise, but it is always the shared desire to give life to a common gaze that prevails: a “third” point of view that belongs to neither of them individually, but to both. Neither imposes his own mark. Neither claims the work as exclusive. Each creation is built in the fertile tension of mutual listening.

At the heart of their formal universe is color, handled with a sensitivity that comes from painting but finds new life in textile material. Hand embroidery, without yielding to the temptation of automatism, is a deliberate choice born from the need to maintain personal, intimate control over tone and chromatic vibration. For the two artists, the act of embroidery is a labor of physical, poetic, political resistance.

In their studios in Buenos Aires or abroad, there are no sophisticated tools. Only scissors, needles, found or recovered fabrics, a few tables, a few shelves, textiles brought back from trips or by friends, and sometimes even old discarded clothes. Every fragment, even the most modest, can enter the work. Nothing is wasted.

Chiachio and Giannone’s artistic production is crossed by a constant tension between technical rigor and conceptual freedom. They do not consider technique as subordinate to creativity: both, they have stated, must dance together. Rejecting virtuosity for its own sake, it is only when the work reflects—or perhaps surpasses—the idea from which it was born that one can truly speak of success.

Their irony, gentle and sharp, permeates every project. This was clearly seen in the monumental La famille dans la joyeuse verdure, a tapestry that won the Grand Prix International de Tapisserie d’Aubusson in 2013. In that work, they portrayed themselves as an Indigenous Argentine family immersed in a lush jungle, among fetish-animals, jewel-flowers, and a child-dog, Piolin, their faithful companion and symbol of love. A composition that recalls vintage family portraits, but upends every convention about gender, identity, and the “natural order” of things.

One of their most evocative works is Paisaje de Pompeya, created after a trip to Pompeii and Capri for an exhibition. The artists recounted how they were struck by the beauty and everyday quality of the Pompeian mosaics, deciding to translate that experience into an embroidered polyptych. The work, which took over a year, was made with dyed and printed fabrics to evoke the ancient surface of the murals, and sewn entirely by hand.

In 2018, Celebrating Diversity was born, a participatory art project that began at the Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires and later arrived at the MOLAA in Long Beach in 2019. Transforming the museum into an open workshop, the artists involved thousands of people in the collective creation of textile flags. Among the participants: children, queer teenagers, grandmothers, families, friends. Each was invited to write positive messages about diversity and pride. In Long Beach, 3,000 people contributed to the creation of a flag over thirty meters long, carried in a march by 130 people. A monumental, collective work made of hands, creativity, and listening.

In the last two years, their research has intensified in multiple directions. Quilting, patchwork, and appliqué techniques have been pushed to their limits, to the point of reinvention. They began to dye and print their own fabrics (silkscreen, sublimation), which became pictorial and narrative supports.

The family genealogy expands to include Indigenous cultures (such as the First Nations and the Comechingones, from whom Chiachio descends), modern women artists, and landscapes experienced during artist residencies. From the mountains of Córdoba to the Canadian Pacific, from native ceramics to shared dreams. Today, the family portraits are set in more intimate scenes: two mature men with their dogs, in domestic daily life, between affection and fantasy.

Thus was born the Comechiffones series, a play on words between Comechingones and chiffoniers (ragpickers of 19th-century Paris). Here, the dog-family appears in classical poses, surrounded by images of Argentine Indigenous peoples, old cross-stitch patterns, and designs inspired by native ceramics. The dimensions become monumental: from 300×500 cm to nearly 500×500 cm.

From the Comechiffones series comes Madurones: six works conceived as a visual symphony of everyday life. The fabrics are first painted and dyed, then embroidered with traditional techniques. Each piece tells a fragment of life together, among intimacy, shared time, and identity in transformation.

Currently, the artists are working on the continuation of Madurones, in view of their presentation at ArtBasel Miami 2025 with the Ruth Benzacar gallery. After their residency at the Vancouver Biennale, they are developing a public sculpture project in bronze in homage to the Indigenous weavers of the First Nations.

In parallel, they are collaborating with the Materials Matter department at Emily Carr University for the translation onto a digital loom of a series of drawings on the Vancouver landscape.

2025 will be an intense year: they will participate in the Fiber Art Triennial at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, China, at the Textile Triennial in Łódź, Poland, and in September will open a new exhibition at Ruth Benzacar. In December, once again, ArtBasel Miami.

For Chiachio & Giannone, every embroidered thread is an act of care, a statement of intent, a gesture that resists time. It is never mere decoration. It is writing and narrative. It is a way of seeing the world.