LIMITS AND METAMORPHOSES OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE AT MAMBO
Ambra Castagnetti: Ephemeral Panic explores the mutability of the body and its link to the political and the poetic through sculpture, video, and performance.
The third exhibition cycle of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO) in 2025 presents Ephemeral Panic, the first institutional exhibition of Italian artist Ambra Castagnetti (Genoa, 1993). Conceived specifically for the museum, the show brings together site-specific works that explore transitional states of the human and the relationship between body, matter, and environment. Through sculpture, painting, installation, video, and performance, the artist constructs a visual universe that oscillates between the poetic and the political.
The title Ephemeral Panic refers to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s radical theatrical theory, which seeks to free the individual from the conventional structures of both theater and life. The exhibition is conceived as a total work divided into three acts — ritual, icon, and metamorphosis — activated by a performance on the day of the opening. Each act is spatially and conceptually articulated with the installations and sculptures, building a narrative of ritual and utopian transformation.
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Ambra Castagnetti. “.EXE” (2025). Video digital 3D, 7’20», edición de 5 + 2PA. Vista de instalación en la Galería Francesca Minini, Milán, Italia, 2025. Foto: Andrea Rossetti. (MAMBO)
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Ambra Castagnetti. “Stolen Flowers” (2025). Parafina, orquídea, zunchos plásticos, soporte metálico, 50 × 34 × 20,5 cm. Cortesía: Galería Francesca Minini, Milán, Italia. Foto: Andrea Rossetti. (MAMBO)
This project stems from a two-month creative residency in Bogotá, where Castagnetti drew inspiration from the materiality, character, and social dynamics of the city. Recognized as one of the most promising voices of her generation, she reexamines the body and its relics as a territory for artistic inquiry, addressing vulnerability, spirituality, and subjectivity.
Through Ephemeral Panic, Castagnetti invites viewers to immerse themselves in a sensorial and introspective experience that questions social structures, gender, and identity, proposing a space for symbolic and collective transformation.
Ambra Castagnetti was born in Genoa, Italy (1993), and lives and works in Milan. After earning a degree in Anthropology, she completed an MA in Visual Arts at NABA (Milan). Through media such as sculpture, painting, installation, and video, Castagnetti investigates the complex relationships between the body and the physical and political environment, offering a perspective that is never devoid of implicit critique. The evocative power of her images opens a path into the intricate interplay between the poetic and the political, between reality and fiction, shaping a fluid imaginary. Her attraction to the body is always accompanied by a broader fascination with living beings — animals, mountains, water, desert, earth, and sky are invited to participate in a unified narrative rich in intimacy.
Ephemeral Panic will be on view from October 23, 2025, through February 15, 2026, at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Calle 24 #6-00, in downtown Bogotá, Colombia.
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