TENUTA DELLO SCOMPIGLIO   AT 15.30-19.30

15 SEPTEMBER 2012

OPENING

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.