TENUTA DELLO SCOMPIGLIO
29 MAY - 26 JULY 2009
Alfredo Pirri
Incontri d’Armonia (Encounters in Harmony)
The exhibition inaugurating programme of the Accademia Dello Scompiglio consists of works by the artist Alfredo Pirri, who will also be holding the academy’s first seminar in May-June 2009. The exhibition will be set up in three sites which are viewed by the artist as being particularly significant for the history, the spirit, and the topicality of the estate that is hosting it.
the Chapel
is part of Tenuta Dello Scompiglio and it plays a fundamental role in the symbolic system around which the estate traditionally revolved, for it represented the religious sphere that was intended to confirm the political power of the villa. The main entrance gives onto an ancient roadwalls that runs parallel to the boundary wall and it once used to take in pilgrims on processions during religious festivals.
The work, which the artist has made specifically for the site, consists of a useable floor made of glass containing a number of brightly coloured red feathers.
By reflecting on the white behind them, the feathers create an ever-changing radiance that varies with the movement of the sun. It is as though the great stained-glass windows had fallen to the ground after being crashed into by a flock of birds. It is as though it had retained the traces of this impact, now creating a floor for our soft, dangerous footsteps.
Alfredo Pirri - Cappella
the Sheep House
is on a rib of the Collina dell’Uccelliera (aviary hill) behind the villa. It is reached on foot along a path through the woods which starts out from a small road at the end of a straight. The little stone building once housed a flock of sheep, and its extremely humble aspect suggests a way of life that embodied none of the power over nature and people that is so clearly expressed in the other two areas of the Tenuta that have been chosen by the artist. It is a place apart, devoid of image, with none of the forceful imagery that lies at the heart of all worlds of representation. The artist will be making a floor for the sheep house, with broken mirrors that continue to shatter under the feet of the spectators. In the end, it will consist of no more than luminous powder that no longer reflects images but simply specks of light.
Alfredo Pirri - Casa delle pecore
