W18S

BY ETTORE FAVINI AND ANTONIO ROVALDI
2012

SECOND PRIZE "PORTALS OF SCOMPIGLIO" AWARD #1

The project W18S by Ettore Favini and Antonio Rovaldi for Scompiglio punctuates the landscape with precise signs (the stone and its durability), moments of physical and mental pauses, becoming an integral part of the landscape, with a deep respect for the nature and for the walker that passes it. The 18 chapters of “Walden; or, Life in the Woods”, are inscribed on slabs of stone, their numbering indicating various possible paths within the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio estate, suggesting to the walker/reader a starting point for a poetic diversion that is absolutely personal and different every time. According to the direction from which they come and in which they are going, the visitors are free to follow the line already marked by the portals, or to lose themselves in the woods or in a more open clearing. We like to think of an environmental work of art as a collection of signs deposited on a piece of ground, where, only by physically moving into the space itself, is it possible to build a broader picture of the landscape and not limit the vision to single point of view. Walk.

Ettore Favini e Antonio Rovaldi

Ettore Favini was born in Cremona in 1974 where he lives and works. He puts the environment at the centre of numerous projects, both as subject and as the means of examining its relationship with man. The fruition of his work becomes a way of reappropriating public space. Historical and individual memory is at the centre of a path that moves from autobiographical inspiration to universal themes, such as time and existence.

Antonio Rovaldi was born in Parma in 1975. He lives and works in Milan. His research moves around the relative themes of perception of places and landscape, bringing together the different media used, such as photography, video, sculpture and drawing. The dimensions of the distance between the places, the physical and mental crossing of these, whether real or imaginary, are the constant subjects of the artist’s exploration. In 2012 the site-specific work W18S by Rovaldi and Favini was selected from the three winners of the Portals of Scompiglio Award #1 and created within the grounds of the Dello Scompiglio estate.

There is not a Priori Answer to this Dilemma  (The Dolphin Hotel)

BY FRANCESCA BANCHELLI
2012

FIRST PRIZE "PORTALS OF SCOMPIGLIO" AWARD #1

The stone stair is taken both as an architectonical element and an archaeological object. Its ambiguous position, linking two terracing, reveals the absence of architecture as consequence of a crisis provoked by uncertain gestures, in between of a possible recycling of the materials and the valorisation of the state of the object. The gesture's crisis creates an ambivalent place, highlighting a sort of confusion concerning its placement: this condition of uncertainty takes inspiration from the loss of nowadays' ideological positions, which characterizes this particular timeframe, leading to a sense of fragility and hesitation the actions of a whole society. 

“Do you mean we should do nothing? Just sit and wait? One should gather the courage to answer: ‘YES, precisely that!’ There are situation when the only truly ‘practical’ thing to do is to resist the temptation to engage immediately and to ‘wait and see’ by means of a patient critical analysis.” (Violence, Slavoj Žižek, 2009)

Francesca Banchelli

Francesca Banchelli was born in Montevarchi in 1981. She lives and works in London and Florence. In 2010 she finished her Master’s Degree in Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins in London. Her work makes use of diverse media, from drawing to performance, usually interwoven with video and installations. In 2012 she was awarded the first prize in Portali Dello Scompiglio #1 at the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio in Vorno near Lucca, for her installation There is not a priori answer to this dilemma (The Dolphin Hotel). The artist has taken part in many diverse national and international exhibitions including, in 2014: This morning I woke up from the most amazing dream..., TATE Modern - McAulay Gallery, London; in 2012: 24Hours/25Days at the New Capital in Chicago; The Sunshine Vineyard Program at the Frankfurter Kunstverein; S1 Salon (selected by Ben Rivers) at the S1 Artspace in Sheffield; Cartabianca in Florence; Tornare per partire at the Museo di Villa Croce in Genova; in 2010: Post Monument, XIV Biennale di Scultura in Carrara and Zeitgeist at the MURO Gallery in Geneva, Switzerland; in 2009, Opa 0.2 (On Perform Art) in Athens; Sarah’s Journey - 7° Bulgarian Biennial in Varna, Bulgaria; Studi d’armonia at the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio in Vorno, Lucca; in 2008, Noi per adesso siamo qua, at the Villa Romana in Florence.

Arie per lo Scompiglio (Airs for Scompiglio)

BY ALFREDO PIRRI
2009

The exhibition that inaugurated the training and exhibition activities of the Accademia Dello Scompiglio was assigned to the artist Alfredo Pirri, who also set up the first seminar of the Accademia in May-June 2009. The first book in the 5 volumes of the Dello Scompiglio series, “Incontri d'Armonia” is a record of the exhibition activities, including Pirri’s solo exhibition and the group exhibition. The Chapel, an integral part of the Dello Scompiglio estate, plays a key role in the symbolic system around which the estate was traditionally structured. It represented the religious perspective and tended to uphold the political perspective represented by the villa. The principal entrance faces the old link road that runs parallel to the wall and once welcomed pilgrims processing in religious festivals. The work, conceived by the artist specifically for this space, consists of a walkable glass floor, the depth of which contains a large number of vivid red coloured feathers. The feathers, reflected on the white background, create a luminosity that transforms according to the movement of the sunlight. It is as if big glass windows had fallen to the ground after a collision with a flock of birds or angels, and were arranged to leave a sign of this impact as a background to our light and dangerous footsteps.

Alfredo Pirri

Alfredo Pirri was born in Cosenza in 1957 and lives in Rome. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad: Venice Biennale, PS1 in New York, Contemporary Art Biennal in Havana, Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena, Walter Gropius Bau in Berlin, Villa Medici in Rome, Bunkier Stzuki in Krakow, “La Pescheria” Art Centre in Pesaro, the Contemporary Art Museum in Rjieka, Maison de la Photo in Paris, Volume! in Rome, Galleria Tucci Russo in Turin, Galleria Oredaria in Rome, Tenuta Dello Scompiglio in Vorno, Capannori, Lucca and Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, where his installation titled “Passi” forms part of the permanent collection. He has taken part in training and seminars in various institutions including: Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, Académie de Lyon in France, Università La Sapienza in Rome, Accademia di Belle Arti in Urbino (Italy).

In sosta (In Pause)

BY FERNANDO MARQUES PENTEADO
2014

The work In sosta (In Pause) is a part of the permanent installations in the external spaces of the Dello Scompiglio estate. The making phase involved the collaboration between the artist and a considerable number of staff divided into three groups (archaeology, understanding and garden) through the embroidery, the construction of the objects and the design of the garden surrounding In sosta. An environmental work that revolves around the form of the bench as an archetype of a pause for reflection, meeting and knowledge of oneself. A sharing space which challenges the authorship of the work and in which the artist’s role is that of director or conductor of its perspective, in order to direct the collaborators towards their own worlds of visual references and archives. The installation expresses a moment of meditation in which the visitor is invited to linger, pause for a while, bide their time, stop and reflect, look, observe, read and feel. 

F.Marquespenteado

Fernando Marques Penteado was born in 1955 in Brazil. His recent works are: 30a Bienal de São Paulo Iminência da Poéticas (São Paolo, 2012),  Para além da História (Guimarães, Portugal, 2012), solo exhibition A bancarrota in the Algarve Regional Museum in Faro (2010), Experimenta Folklore (Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany, 2008) solo exhibition Promised Lands (V22 Gallery, London, 2007). His works are exhibited in important collections such as V22 Collection and Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles [CHRRCT] both located in London, Essex Collection of Latin America Art in Colchester (UK) and Kaunas Textile Bienale Collection in Kaunas (Lithuania).