1 oCTOBER 2023, FROM 5.00PM TO 8.00PM

OPENING

Chiara Bettazzi - Reverse and Cecilia Bertoni - RUBEDO and On The Corner

curated by Angel Moya Garcia

until 17 december

On 1st October, three exhibitions will open in the various spaces of the SPE at the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, which examine some of the hidden sides of reality. Although a good part of what happens may be incomprehensible or inexplicable, we often prefer to cling to the safety of the perceptible and the rational, drawing on any explanation that can solve any doubt immediately. However, there is always a hidden side to everything, or to be more precise, an unseen side that, in most cases, has much greater importance than that which is visible. At the expense of the frequent dichotomies with which the understanding of reality is defined, both sides (visible and invisible, body and soul, static and in transformation, true and false) are inextricably linked and the one cannot exist or be defined without the presence of the other. In this sense, the three exhibitions, albeit with very different approaches and intentions, question any clear dialectic between these polarities, investigating the intermediate zones and inviting us to reflect on how the absence of defined dividing limits is precisely the condition in which we manage to live with the insecurities and fragilities inherent in every human being.

In this sense, the exhibition “Reverse”, designed specifically for the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, takes shape from the idea of still life as a pictorial genre, linking it to its genesis and its evolution in the course of art history. The exhibition space, sectioned asymmetrically, generates two apparently opposing points of view, which become respectively the front and back of the work, referring in this case to the painter’s canvas and the tradition that sees the birth of still life painting on the back of the canvas. The work investigates the archaeology of still life through a process of installation construction that takes place on site, where the perceptive illusion determines and evokes two relationships; on the one hand, that between space and object and, on the other, between still life and the viewer. While the first highlights the relevance of the object itself through the classic ways of using elements such as a mirror, a niche, a trompe l’oeil and curtains, the other represents the historical artistic value of the modes of vision, between front, back and illusion.

In completely different terms, yet creating a complementary narrative, Cecilia Bertoni examines the relationship between living and dying, between the body as a prison and the transition of the soul as liberation, through two works that mirror and reflect each other, starting from a dissolving boundary. “RUBEDO” is an enveloping video installation in the exhibition space that draws on the theme of death and dying, but also tells of the relevance and instability of living, in an individual and collective sense, in its affinities with the mysteries and the imagery of the alchemical process. A unique environment surrounds the visitors and transports them to a disembodied elsewhere, in which the transition and transformation of every daily gesture becomes a ritual. On the contrary, the video “On the corner”, originally presented in 2019 as part of the homonymous performance, is now presented as archive version and here recalls the theme from another perspective: the body is accommodating, it moves, it carries us in the world, it communicates, but it can also become inhospitable. Physical pain imprisons us, isolates us in an increasingly limited, unstable and lonely space, from which we would like to escape. Both videos, contrasting in aesthetic and sound choices, follow the story of a single figure that changes, dances, laughs, walks, travels, rests, abandons itself and becomes aware of every mistake, fall and uncertainty.

Ticket price
Opening  (1 October) 
free admission

Exhibition and permanent installations fee 
Thursday Friday 2.00-6.00PM, Saturday-Sunday 3.00-7.00PM, or by appointment: € 5,00

Contacts and reservations
SPE Ticket Office - Performance and Exhibition Space
tel. +39 0583 971125
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Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio
Via di Vorno, 67 – Vorno, Capannori (LU) Italy
tel. +39 0583 971475
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