Invito a Palazzo, Mecenatismi.
On the occasion of CONTEMPORARY VENTIVENTIDUE
Municipality of Tagliacozzo
July 2022
Ducal Palace
October 2022
Alfredo Pirri
Giulio Bensasson
Alice Paltrinieri
Antonio della Guardia
Eugenio Tibaldi
Invito a Palazzo. Mecenatismi is an event centered on the reopening of the most important historic building in the Marsican city: Palazzo Orsini-Colonna.
The exhibition Invito a Palazzo. Patronage is a privileged moment for discussion and reflection on the relationship between art and patronage, conservation and enhancement of the monument, understood as a space intended not only to contemplate the works of art of the past, but rather as a place where, thanks to the comparison with the artistic languages of the present, new meanings and different readings of the history of art can be generated.
SITE SPECIFIC WORKS
ALFREDO PIRRI
ARIE FOR THE DUCAL PALACE OF TAGLIACOZZO
TANNED AND COLORED GOOSE FEATHERS ON PASTE COLORED PLEXIGLAS AND ACRYLIC PAINTS, VARNISHED STEEL (110X210 CM)
The title of the installation refers to the combination between a work from 2015, conceived as a stable closure for one of the windows of the Palazzo d'Avalos in Procida which overlooks the Gulf of Naples and its actualization, here in Tagliacozzo, where, on the contrary , the visitor's gaze will be focused on the interior of the building during its restoration. A gaze only slightly interrupted by the messy rustling of semi-transparent feathers which disturb the view, bringing to mind the dreamy gaze which once must have characterized that of those who saw around them walls covered by a pictorial triumph now fled away with a rapacious flight which leaves itself behind only small and feathery traces like those of a fleeing bird.
A wall painting painted by a colorful bird or an angel, who perhaps came to visit us looking for stable shelter above the stone walls of the building making themselves into paint and who, now, driven away by us who have not been able to guarantee them the right duration, have escaped from their natural home, leaving us a memory on an invisible barrier like a crystal, a material as transparent as air but solid like reality. Making the Palazzo Ducale known means (also) creating new and unexpected looks. New horizons for those who see it for the first time and for those who already know it. We need to open up to both a different look at what will happen in the future in its rooms and relate those who work inside to give it back to us and those who temporarily visit it for this exhibition.
GIULIO BENSASSON
RALLÉGRATI
FREEZER, CUT FLOWERS, AROMA DIFFUSER
An abandoned refrigerator in the Doge's Palace becomes a reliquary that holds and preserves white lilies: flowers, symbols of purity and chastity, which have always accompanied representations of the Annunciation. The fridge keeps the symbol "alive", by now settled in the common imagination, however recalling an aesthetic of the false, of the unnatural, which underlines the growing distance that separates our culture from its Christian roots.
To welcome the observer in the chapel there is a strong fragrance of flowers emanating from a diffuser of synthetic aromas. Here too the figure of the divine is represented with its artificial double: in the sacred scriptures, the Spirit of God is often associated with the perfume and the relief it transmits; in the contemporary world perfume is a mere expedient to cover up our stench of mortal beings. Symbols, as well as values, are by now emptied of their moral power and present themselves to us today as evocative shadows of an ancient culture made up of collective traditions and rituals that are absolved without a critical spirit.
Everything in the room is still. Everything recalls a suspended time: the frescoes that have survived the decades; the frozen flowers and the constant hum of the refrigerator; the synthetic perfume of flowers that is always the same, which knows no season; dead bugs on the floor.
ALICE PALTRINIERI
IO SONO QUI
The chapel of the Doge's Palace is completely dark and in the center of the room a rotating head with a spot light moves 360 degrees revealing parts of the fresco.
The rotating head is connected to my smartphone which, through an application, generates a constant flow of data relating to the geographical position, thus following my movements in space live for the entire duration of the exhibition.
My continuously recorded coordinates thus determine the areas of frescoes visible to the spectator in the chapel who places himself in a situation of expectation and discovery dictated by other random and non-random situations, uncontrollable on his part. The round beam of light moves in the small and precious space illuminating draperies, faces and decorations creating a decomposed image, prohibiting its overall vision, stripping it of its history and inviting the visitor to recompose a new, personal and intimate imaginary .
This attempt to generate the imaginary and another place is allowed by the connection of distant places, a constant now of my research, and also
from an attempt on my part to control the user and the work which is evidently a failure as it was prevented by a succession of random events.
"follow me" in a decomposition of places and paintings.
ANTONIO DELLA GUARDIA
UNTITLED
The work designed for the chapel of the Ducal Palace of Tagliacozzo focuses on the analysis of the mysterious artist of the frescoes. Presumably portrayed on the left wall of the chapel, in the story of the Adoration of the Magi, his figure, not yet classified by various scholars, continues to fuel many doubts. In the absence of reliable sources, Fernando Pasqualone in the book Il palazzo Ducale di Tagliacozzo invents his name classifying him as the Master of Tagliacozzo. On the basis of this enigma of the chapel, the intervention that I will present inside will be to create a second level of mystery, triggering a relationship of visual introspection with the portrayed artist. A work aimed at overturning its temporality and the functions of the gaze, in which the artist-spectre accustomed to being looked at will change into the one who looks.
