CRIPTA747
via Quittengo 41 Bis, 10153 - Torino
tuesday - friday, h 3.30 - 7.30 pm – or by appointment
t. +34 3485498512
cripta747@gmail.com
tuesday - friday, h 3.30 - 7.30 pm – or by appointment
t. +34 3485498512
cripta747@gmail.com
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current show
PORTRAITS
curated by Bruno Barsanti and Alessandro Carrer
31.05.2016 – 9.07.2016
Cripta747, Torino
photo: Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Anne-James Chaton, Portraits. Installation view, CRIPTA747, Torino
photo: Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Anne-James Chaton, Portraits. Installation view, CRIPTA747, Torino
photo: Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Cripta747 is pleased to present “Portraits”, first solo show in Italy of French artist and writer Anne-James Chaton.
The exhibition includes two series of works that the artist has been carrying on for years, enriching them from time to time with new elements. Assuming that we are defined by the writings we spread, Anne-James Chaton realizes portraits compose by all the textual matrices that the subject carries with him during the meeting with the artist. Chaton’s Portraits are based on the literal transcription of the conten of everyday life documents defined by the artist “poor literature” such as ban statements, subway tickets, restaurant and shopping receipts. Portrayed subject are chosen according to their craft or profession. The information are collected an assembled so as to build a long sequence of data resembling a written litany in whic meaning and identities dissolve and re-form over and over again.
Conceptually symmetrical to the Portraits, the Muséographies shift the focus to the circulation of “poor images” as well as on the accessibility and fruition of art. The series originates from Chaton’s interest about photo reproductions of modern paintings - mainly portraits - that appear on admission tickets to museums. Each of the final images follows the original size of the reference painting and retains the signs and information originally printed on the back (or front) side of the ticket, such as bar codes, dates, names, prices and typology. The artist starts from a transitory and ephemeral support bringing on the same level the symbolic dimension of the artwork and the material conditions of its accessibility.
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Se in un isola c'è un gran sasso nero.
Judith Hopf, Julius Koller
Rasmus Nilausen, Lorenzo Scotto Di Luzio
curated by Elisa Troiano
05.05.2016 – 28.05.2016
Cripta747, Torino
Judith Hopf, "Cracking nuts”, installation view Cripta747
courtesy of the artist and kaufmann repetto, Milan/New York
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CRIPTA747 is pleased to invite you to the opening of Se in un'isola c'è un gran sasso nero,
first exhibition hosted in the new venue at via Quittengo 41/b, Torino.
In the exhibition irony is intended as a filter through which watching reality, indispensable
medium of understanding and aesthetic production. At the same time social context, in its
dual aspects, are questioned, transforming the opening of an exhibition space into a sort of
witty artifice that presents reality as sharp as futile nonsense.
Curatorial practice and dry wit are here used as a rhetoric means to interpret and rethink the
experience, encouraging the viewer to reflect, with sense of humor, about what the narrative
leaves as a failed connection, dissembling the critique behind the complicity established in
the sharing of an ironic subtext.
The illusory narrative simplicity plays a liberating role, without moral judgment, that defines
both the attitude of the artists involved in the exhibition and the tragicomic aspect of
everyday life. The final result is a dialectical expedient, a collective landscape of citations,
autobiographical and documentary notes, a social analysis in which the system of relations
is precisely revealed through the artist's practice.
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ALT
Ugo Alessio, Giulio Delvè, Jason Dodge, Daniel Faust, Gianni Ferrero Merlino, Birgit Megerle, Bruce Nauman, Kirsten Pieroth, Man Ray, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Lawrence Weiner, Italo Zuffi.
curated by CRIPTA747
Circolo Sottufficiali dei Carabinieri Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Torino
5.11.2015 – 8.11.2015
We have thought about the changes that have affected the city in the last 20 years,
how they have been conceived as a vector of progress and improvement.
The reclamation of abandoned areas, the transformation of neighborhoods, squares
and of all the places we live in, change the relationship with the city and our perception of it.
This new perception seems to be fundamental legacy of the transformation process,
a characteristic likely connected with architecture but definitely immaterial.
We have imagined a landscape of moments in which the presence - absence of
human being, the main protagonist of this change, is highlighted.
The space between the works and the contents are organized to as to return an
unresolved and smoky picture, a corollary of clues that are not yet able to make a proof.
An ongoing investigation.
Intimately torn between progress and preservation, we face a feeling of loss and
inadequacy, sometimes even of anger, while the things around us change, and
sometimes we happily welcome the news.
In this impasse, and in this desire to deal with a doubt, we are thinking of physical
and immaterial, reality and fiction, logic, poetry and so forth, pulled first on one
side and then on the other.
Giulio Delvè, Acquaitances friends and relatives, 2013. Courtesy l'artista.
first exhibition hosted in the new venue at via Quittengo 41/b, Torino.
In the exhibition irony is intended as a filter through which watching reality, indispensable
medium of understanding and aesthetic production. At the same time social context, in its
dual aspects, are questioned, transforming the opening of an exhibition space into a sort of
witty artifice that presents reality as sharp as futile nonsense.
Curatorial practice and dry wit are here used as a rhetoric means to interpret and rethink the
experience, encouraging the viewer to reflect, with sense of humor, about what the narrative
leaves as a failed connection, dissembling the critique behind the complicity established in
the sharing of an ironic subtext.
The illusory narrative simplicity plays a liberating role, without moral judgment, that defines
both the attitude of the artists involved in the exhibition and the tragicomic aspect of
everyday life. The final result is a dialectical expedient, a collective landscape of citations,
autobiographical and documentary notes, a social analysis in which the system of relations
is precisely revealed through the artist's practice.
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ALT
Ugo Alessio, Giulio Delvè, Jason Dodge, Daniel Faust, Gianni Ferrero Merlino, Birgit Megerle, Bruce Nauman, Kirsten Pieroth, Man Ray, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Lawrence Weiner, Italo Zuffi.
curated by CRIPTA747
Circolo Sottufficiali dei Carabinieri Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Torino
5.11.2015 – 8.11.2015
We have thought about the changes that have affected the city in the last 20 years,
how they have been conceived as a vector of progress and improvement.
The reclamation of abandoned areas, the transformation of neighborhoods, squares
and of all the places we live in, change the relationship with the city and our perception of it.
This new perception seems to be fundamental legacy of the transformation process,
a characteristic likely connected with architecture but definitely immaterial.
We have imagined a landscape of moments in which the presence - absence of
human being, the main protagonist of this change, is highlighted.
The space between the works and the contents are organized to as to return an
unresolved and smoky picture, a corollary of clues that are not yet able to make a proof.
An ongoing investigation.
Intimately torn between progress and preservation, we face a feeling of loss and
inadequacy, sometimes even of anger, while the things around us change, and
sometimes we happily welcome the news.
In this impasse, and in this desire to deal with a doubt, we are thinking of physical
and immaterial, reality and fiction, logic, poetry and so forth, pulled first on one
side and then on the other.
Giulio Delvè, Acquaitances friends and relatives, 2013. Courtesy l'artista.
Ugo Alessio, Torino, 1950. Collezione privata.
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Birgitte Megerle, Altglas, 2012
courtesy Galleria Fonti, Napoli
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Jason Dodge, The contents of different peoples pockets kept a body temperature, 2014
courtesy Galleria Franco Noero, Torino
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Patrick Tuttofuoco, Untitled, 2014 and Charles, 2008, courtesy l'artista
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Bruce Nauman, Violent Incident, 1986, collezione privata
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Daniel Faust, Musei Vaticani (Roma), 1998
Daniel Faust, Musee Valentin Hauy (Paris), 1991
Daniel Faust, Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum (Phoenix), 1992
courtesy Galleria Norma Mangione, Torino
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Kirsten Pieroth, Untitled (Essences), 2014
courtesy Galleria Franco Noero, Torino
Gianni Ferrero Merlino, DOM f10, 2010, courtesy l'artista
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Lawrence Weiner, Passed Over. Over Passed. 1971, collezione privata
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Italo Zuffi, Gli Ignari, 2013, courtesy l'artista
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
Man Ray, Saint Sulpice, 1935-1937, collezione privata
Gianni Ferrero Merlino, DOM f10, 2010, courtesy l'artista
ALT a cura di Cripta747, Caserma Ettore De Sonnaz, Circolo sottufciali Carabinieri, 2015, Torino
photo Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
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11 SETTEMBRE
AUTO TUNING TORINO
set by 1991, SAND CIRCLES, VAGHE STELLE, OOBE, ALTOMARE
SABLA, AW/ER, KASSIEL, SIMBIOSI, XIII, MORKEBLA
CRIPTA747 & Co. presents CLUB TUCANO #12
Bunker, Torino
11 SETTEMBRE, 2015 - auto tuning show feat. Club Maestro - Cripta747, Torino
photo Alice Guarini
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CRIPTA747 & Co
announcement 1
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2015 - 2016
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we are are proud to announce first issue of T-A-X-I
ATTITUDE(S) AND CURRENT RESEARCH IN ITALY
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NEW WEBSITE
ABOUT THE BOOK
BUY HERE
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GIANNI FERRERO MERLINO feat. MARIO CRESCI
HOMEWORK
29 JAN - 22 FEB
HOMEWORK, Gianni Ferrero Merlino feat. Mario Cresci, 2015
installation view, Cripta747, Torino
Cripta747 ha il piacere di presentare Homework una mostra di di Gianni Ferrero Merlino in collaborazione con Mario Cresci.
In mostra una parte del lavoro campo riflesso e trasparente
effettuato da Mario Cresci in occasione di una sua personale presso lo
Studio Trisorio a Napoli (1979). La collaborazione con Cresci scaturisce
proprio da una riflessione su “rotazione”, “avvicinamento” e
“traslazione”; considerando il suo lavoro capace di costituire una
grammatica per l’osservazione e per la ricerca sul mezzo fotografico.
Homework, di Gianni Ferrero Merlino è una seria inedita di 9 fotografie
realizzate alla torre Ghirlandina di Modena. Per Merlino il processo di
stampa in camera oscura è il luogo di costruzione dove, attraverso la
luce dell’ingranditore, l’autore ridisegna sopra il soggetto registrato
in ripresa. La stampa è affiancata concettualmente al disegno come
processo di apparizione, guidata dalle nuove architetture rivelate.
Momento in comune tra le ricerche dei due autori è quello di non
servirsi della fotografia esclusivamente come strumento di ripresa, ma
piuttosto come mezzo di ricerca, come veicolo per creare e per ragionare
intorno all’immagine.
Gianni Ferrero Merlino, HOMEWORK, 2015
installation view, Cripta747, Torino
Gianni Ferrero Merlino, HOMEWORK, 2015
stampa ai sali d'argento, 36 x 45 cm
Gianni Ferrero Merlino, HOMEWORK, 2015
stampa ai sali d'argento, 36 x 45 cm
Gianni Ferrero Merlino, HOMEWORK, 2015
stampa ai sali d'argento, 36 x 45 cm
Mario Cresci, "avvicinamento", 1972
HOMEWORK Gianni Ferrero Merlino feat. Mario Cresci, 2015
Mario Cresci "campo riflesso e trasparente", 1979
Mario Cresci, "campo riflesso e trasparente", 1979
Mario Cresci, "campo riflesso e trasparente", 1979
Mario Cresci, "campo riflesso e trasparente", 1979
Mario Cresci, "campo riflesso e trasparente", 1979
Mario Cresci, "avvicinamento", 1972
HOMEWORK Gianni Ferrero Merlino feat. Mario Cresci, 2015
installation view, Cripta747, Torino
Mario Cresci "campo riflesso e trasparente", 1979
Mario Cresci, "sequenza del quadrato", 1972
archivio, courtesy l'artista
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RENATO LEOTTA
MUSEO (CAVALLI E CAVALLE, CAVALLI CAVALLI)
text by DARIO GIOVANNI ALI' and SARA DE CHIARA
portraits and drawings SEBASTIANO IMPELLIZZERI
arduino and technical GIACOMO LEONZI
sculptures FRANCESCO MESSINA courtesy Studio Copernico
display setting PIERGIORGIO ROBINO
and with the collaboration of LORENZO SCOTTO DI LUZIO
CRIPTA747, Torino
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| Renato Leotta, "Museo (Cavalli e Cavalle, Cavalli Cavalli), 2014 installation view, Cripta747, Torino |
Europe has finally overcome the year 1000, the end of the world anxiety
is gone for everyone, at least for now. The weather is bizarrely warm,
the crop is abundant and the natality rate spikes. Economy is flowering,
universities are being created and cities exude colours: red, green and
yellow buildings, polychromatic houses and cathedrals, it feels like
watching the world through a kaleidoscope.
This world, previously covered in rust, is now - after a few centuries -
re- discovering movement; squares are crowded with characters moving
from town to town, seeking fortune: hawkers, jokers, all types of
barkers; pilgrim routes to Rome or Santiago de Compostela are getting
more and more crowded; universities welcome foreign students every day;
artists and wandering poets seeking success and fame are invited as
guests in foreign courts. Economic relationships among distant
countries, between East and West, are being regulated by merchants - who
are revitalised by this new, broadened geography.
It’s a constant contact between social bodies, a system of encounters
and relationships that enriches culture and diffuses styles and trends
and beyond geopolitical borders. Steadiness isn’t trendy anymore. Some
people change their food habits, the taste in clothes becomes more
sophisticated, elegant and expensive objects become more and more
attractive.
In the cities, the seeds of future bourgeoisie are being planted.
The world has not become a living heaven, clearly. Society is still torn
between those who pray, those who fight and those who work - the last
ones paying for all - but it’s now easier to find merchants who are
wealthier than nobles.
The new born bourgeoisie - owning the tools but not the titles - aspires
to be something more; they buy big homes, beautiful fabrics, and start
to read more and more books.
Time goes by and this bourgeoisie becomes more educated, increasing the
demand for culture. Their favourite stories are - guess what - about
kind and valorous knights who fight all around the world and bring back
victories, honour and fame. This class has a taste for travels, a hunger
for adventure being satisfied by the protagonists of their favourite
bestsellers.
Since not long ago, becoming a knight meant creating occasions for a
life change by modifying your destiny with a sword. In a noble family,
inheritance lied with the first born, while the second born was meant to
become an ecclesiastic. All the other siblings had no other choice than
giving their life away to become servants of a rich feudatory or an
emperor, hoping to get back - before or after - a piece of land to build
their fortune. Social climbing was typical of many knights, some of
them being nothing else but legitimate killers riding a horse.
During these years, however, the Church steps in: an army is needed, now
more than ever. It’s the time of Crusades, of fighting in the name of
God. Ecclesiastics name the knights “Christ’s soldiers”, giving them the
custody of the poor and the oppressed and the evangelisation - through a
“necessary” death - of all non believers. Literature, the unaware
complicit of this process of dignification, plays its part.
In northern France, tales are being told about the heroic adventures of
Charlemagne’s paladins, as well as the magic and sentimental tales of
the characters reunited under King Arthur’s court. Very soon myth and
reality blend with each other, and knights become the owner sof values
which never really existed, but were certainly longed for.
The chivalric ideal is being forged: women, knights, arms and loves are
the subjects of the first, rough experiments of our future modern
romance.
These literary attempts, born in France, will spread rapidly across
Europe, finding fertile ground in Italy. Italian culture will begin to
own and master the chivalric epic and in 1532 - in the middle of
Renaissance and in a society which is radically different from France in
the year 1000 - will produce the most complex and charming romance ever
written in this genre: Orlando Furioso (the Frenzy of Orlando).
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| Francesco Messina, "Giovane Stallone"bronzo, 55x76x22,3 cm, 1991 - courtesy Studio Copernico |
ON THE EXHIBITION
What’s the audience of a piece of work that re-proposes stories, reasons
and characters of a consolidated tradition? Throughout the whole Middle
Age and up until Renaissance, the epic-chivalric genre is broadly
diffused and loved by both uneducated and educated audiences. The first
category would listen to such stories in the streets, the second
category would rather read them in the books. The over-production of
such texts (actual spin-offs of the ancient world) causes a rapid
decrease in quality. The new chivalric stories start resembling the old
ones, the genre soon becomes repetitive and it looks like there’s
nothing new to say anymore.
The point is now: how much can we care about a dull historical recovery
that does not talk to (and about) us, in the contemporary world?
Most of these stories written between the year 1000 and the year 1500
did not survive because once the interest of their very first readers
started to decrease, they were not able to communicate anything to the
following ages.
The value of a piece of work like the Orlando furioso is that
being a classic, meant as the historical produce of a specific culture
that goes through - and beyond - the concept of time, it is always able
to speak to contemporary audiences.
The credit of re-vitalising the epic-chivalric genre belongs to Ludovico
Ariosto, who dragged it out of its stagnant condition. How did he do
that?
Ariosto did not just describe and represent a world in which no-one - in
full Renaissance - believed in. The society he represented, despite
being populated by outdated characters, is extremely contemporary.
Behind the canonic masks of the main characters we recognise all typical
behaviours of a contemporary society portrayed as arriviste, mean and
sometimes even ridiculous. The description is always up-to-date: by
combining past and present, Ariosto creates an ironic shot circuit that
unveils, in the blink of an eye, characters who were first presented as
stereotypes of the tradition.
On the chivalric scenery, made of battles and extraordinary loves, the
constantly sneering eye of the author highlights the most authentic and
sometimes even grotesque traits of its characters: we see ungrateful
women who are just not worth the pain, dumb knights who are easily
mislead, and characters who enjoy corruption when in fact they should be
examples of morality.
Orlando, the main character, is a renown and respected warrior who
suddenly loses his mind for love and - all naked in a wood - starts
uprooting oaks and pines like crazy.
Ariosto does not want to diminish or ridicule the antique chivalric virtues.
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| Francesco Messina, "Giovane Stallone" - bronzo, 55x76x22,3 cm, 1991 - courtesy Studio Copernico Francesco Messina, "Stallone" - bronzo, 42x74x42 cm, 1969 - courtesy Studio Copernico Renato Leotta, "Ritratto di donna in movimento (Giacinta)", studio sul ritratto e disegno di Sebastiano Impellizzeri carboncino su carta, telaio motorizzato, 150x180 cm, 2014 |
his purpose is rather to examine them critically in a new society that
now perceives the world as more complex, fragmented and unpredictable
than it was during Middle Age. In other words, Orlando furioso witnesses
the irreversible end of a historical era (the Middle Age), therefore
announcing the start of the modern age.
This historical transition is sustained by the very structure of the
romance. Rather than a linear narration of episodes who start and end,
one after the other, Ariosto prefers to use a more tangled construction,
which he believes is more able to represent simultaneous events: just
like in a series of cinematographic sequences, synchronic stories and
adventures of the main characters are constantly started and
interrupted.
Ariosto indeed recalls themes and characters of the past, but to include
them in a wider perspective that includes contemporaneity. Still
unanswered is the initial question: what is, in fact, the audience of Orlando furioso?
The stories of these ancient knights and ladies are told by a man who
wishes to talk to the living people of each era. Such an operation of
historical recovery has no reactionary origins: looking at the past, at
tradition, is nothing like complaining about the good old times, or just
showing off academic abilities. It is all about discovering - and
recovering - the historical and cultural substratum of our civilisation
with the eyes of those who come after, of those who live the present, of
those who want to safeguard it - and pass it on.
Orlando furioso is a museum-work, a container of values and
ideals belonging to different periods coming together, stratified, in
our contemporary age. Every historical recovery - unless empty or
nostalgic - is a recovery of one’s own conscience.
The already-said can be repeated forever, waste must be searched in the
modalities in which it is expressed: it is right here that an old story
can suddenly reveal itself with the power of an unexpected epiphany.
Francesco Messina, "Stallone"
bronzo, 42x74x42 cm, 1969 - courtesy Studio Copernico
A POSSIBLE
INTERPRETATION
OF THE WORKS IN
THE EXHIBITION
Of loves and ladies, knights and arms, I sing,
Of courtesies, and many a daring feat;
Starting is as important as ending. In these two verses at the beginning
of his work, Ludovico Ariosto synthesises the whole plot of his
romance. The topics are the typical ones: Love (women, loves,
courtesies) and Death (knights, arms, daring feats). But the way these
terms wedge in each other suggests something:
Of loves, ladies,
knights and arms I sing,
Of courtesies
and many a daring feat;
This is movement: reading is a zig zag experience of galloping between
the semantic areas of love, fight and death. Loves-ladies, knights-arms,
courtesies-daring feats.
The text - the horse - gallops between one image and the other to
suddenly stop: I sing. Subject and verb crash and fall, together, to the
end of the sentence to interrupt - at least for now - the frenetic
race.
It only takes two verses, the first two verses, to create a quintessential image valid for the whole romance. In Orlando furioso Love
and Death run after each other from the start to the end, love and
military adventures concatenate making us lose the sense of direction.
The connection is not only thematic and historical, but also textual and
grammatical, involving the structure of the sentence and of the whole
work. Orlando furioso is the romance of movement, a never ending
race generated by a specific cause: women (it is not by chance that this
is the first word of the romance).
Women make the romantic plot possible.
The progress of the historical background - the war between Christians
and Saracens - is constantly interrupted by love hunts and other
adventures dominated by the presence of women.
The escape of a specific woman, in the first chapter, starts the
narration: princess Angelica escapes in a wood close by Paris, followed
by a crowd of admirers she does not care of.
Orlando, paladin of Charlemagne and main character, decides to leave the
war to find her. All adventures in the romance start from these
pursuits.
Angelica, who should be the main female character, is in fact only a
rapid draft of a character who escapes even the overall look of the
reader. She only says a few words, her appearances in the romance are
rare and very short. She is constantly on the move, someone on which
one’s attention cannot stop. When she escapes, she exists because she is
wanted, but as soon as her image becomes steady (when she marries a
common soldier and goes back to Catai) she fades away, forgotten by
everyone, as if she died.
This happens because Angelica is not the exclusive main character of Orlando furioso,
just as all the other women within the romance. The main character of
the is not a woman, but the woman, conceived as a heterogeneous product
of different personalities who, one by one, take the name of Angelica,
Bradamante, Marfisa, Fiordiligi, Olimpia, Isabella, Origille, Gabrina,
Doralice... Good or bad, faithful or unfaithful, women in Orlando furioso represent the start and the end of every adventure.
Dario Giovanni Alì
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| Renato Leotta, "Museo (Cavalli e Cavalle, Cavalli Cavalli), 2014 installation view, Cripta747, Torino - flat display setting by Piergiorgio Robino |
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| Renato Leotta, "Museo (Cavalli e Cavalle, Cavalli Cavalli), 2014 installation view, Cripta747, Torino - flat display setting by Piergiorgio Robino |
When suddenly Johnny gets the feeling he’s being surrounded by horses, horses, horses, horses
coming in in all directions white shining silver studs with their
nose in flames, He saw horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses,
horses, horses
(Patti Smith)
The project of the exhibition Museo (cavalli e cavalle, cavalli cavalli) by
Renato Leotta rises from the willingness to give life again to those
themes that have always been part of the history of art and that have
survived to new artistic trends through the centuries, since they have a
deep and intimate relationship with both the culture and the human
history.
These themes are represented in paintings and sculptures, but they emerge often only superficially.
For this reason, it is hard to capture their essence, their intimate
content, their poetics and the imaginative power that they are able to
inspire.
The exhibition deals with the way of making art in the contemporary age with a critical approach.
This happens when the figurative art seems to have given the way to a
new kind of realism which denies the representation in favor of the
description of the world as it appears.
Is it possible that themes and traditional genres talk us about the present?
Is it possible to actualize the traditional representation?
The exhibition develops these reflections, focusing on the drawing and
the sculpture, in relation to the concept of display. In fact, the way
in which the works, belonging to traditional artistic genres, are
outfitted may expand their potentiality, thanks to the manipulation of
the relationship between the works and the space in which they are
displayed. The display is of considerable importance because it reveals
the poetical choices of the age to which a work belongs: the presence or
the absence of the frame for a painting or the type of the base for a
sculpture are decisive almost as the represented subject. The history of
art is full of similar examples that have changed the way of making
art. The display is not to be considered only from a formal perspective,
but it should be conceived as an essential part of the work, since it
is involved in the process of creating new narrative strategies. It is
realized beginning from the way in which the work occupies the space, by
giving it a meaning. The works of the exhibition change the essence of
space and the way in which we perceive it: their presence becomes almost
immanence.
Museo (cavalli e cavalle, cavalli cavalli) is
focused on two different series of works: one series is constituted of
female portraits, committed by Renato Leotta to Sebastiano Impellizzeri,
and the other one is constituted of sculpture realized by Francesco
Messina. As it often happens during the ages of intense linguistic
experimentation, the protagonists of the exhibition are traditional
subjects, two classics of the history of art: on one hand, we have
portraits of female nudes, and, on the other hand, we have sculptures of
horses. The unifying principle of the exhibition is the movement: the
works act directly on the space, creating an immersive feeling, thanks
to their dynamism.
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| Renato Leotta, "Ritratto di donna in movimento (Giacinta)" studio sul ritratto e disegno di Sebastiano Impellizzeri carboncino su carta, telaio motorizzato, 150x180 cm, 2014 |
The portraits are placed on a movable structure that makes the space
dynamic, like in a theatrical scene. Following a principle akin to that
that guided Robert Breer in realizing his well-known Floating sculptures,
the drawings run along the wall of the space slowly and moving
horizontally, thanks to a small engine, astonishing and hypnotizing the
viewer with their unexpected dynamism.
The external change creates a semantic slippage, that blurs the
boundaries between the space of the representation and the real space,
albeit the drawings renounce to mimicry and hyperrealism.
The drawings are realized with charcoal, the concise lines fray so as to
evoke the contortion of the bodies and to echo into the space the
vibrations of a body in motion. The works are astonishing thanks to
their new kinetic action and create a magic and enchanted dimension.
Their elementary and intuitive mechanical translation of the desire to
reproduce the real world reminds the optical experiments typical of the
early ages of cinema.
The framed and shifting drawings are strictly connected to the
fascinating and sinister literary tradition that speaks about moving
paintings and painted women, who create a tricky game with a reciprocity
of gazes.
This happens for example in Nabokov’s short story La Veneziana, in which the real life is compared to the inaccessible dimension of art and beauty.
Besides the portraits, the equestrian sculptures by Francesco Messina
give a perception of movement, thanks to both their shapes and the
reflections of the bronze.
Francesco Messina was a realist artist and loved the sensual side of the life.
Thus, he was able to reveal the alive essence of the world and to evoke
the impetus lying underneath the appearance, by showing the visible
beauty.
Thanks to the realism, Messina links the elegance of the ancient and
mediterranean art - that reminds Sicily (where he was born) - with the
modernity.
This happens thanks to the passionate commitment of those who “capture,
in the reality, the symbols of the rhythm of life and of the harmonic
order of spiritual energy that animates the physical world” (F.
Russoli). This will is achieved thanks to the equestrian sculptures.
When Messina dealt with the horse theme, he had already faced the
question about the display.
As it happened with Degas’ sculptures - artist loved by Messina -, the
base of the sculpture narrows, becomes a diaphragm, overstepped by the
horses, and leaves behind the pose and the solemn walk of the horses of
the equestrian monument and enters into the life, in the real world.
This stirs up its wild and instinctual energy. The price of freedom is
paid with the fallibility: the horse runs, but it also falls down, it’s
dying, as the famous horse of the RAI, here reproduced thanks to Lorenzo
Scotto Di Luzio, giving a metaphysical and surreal atmosphere to the
space.
In the modern age many artists have used the horse as subject to reproduce the essence of the movement.
In fact, in 1878, Muybridge used the horse for his experiments of
chronophotography. In particular, he was capable to show the real gait
of the horse, after studying its gallop. Some years later, Muybridge
invented the zoopraxiscop, which is a primitive motion picture device,
through which he reproduced the horse in motion.
 |
| Francesco Messina, "Cavallo al galoppo" - bronzo, 47x93x18 cm, 1971 Francesco Messina, "Giovane Stallone" - bronzo, 55x76x22,3 cm, 1991 "Ritratto di donna", studio sul ritratto e disegno di Sebastiano Impellizzeri carboncino su carta, 150x180 cm, 2014 |
Similarly, Reynaud invented the praxinoscop, in which twelve drawings of
knights, drawn in different stages of the gallop, reflected on some
mirrors offering the perception of movement.
On his route to the abstraction, Kupka was inspired by these optical
instruments when, at the beginning of the twentieth century, he realized
the ink drawing Knights, that summarizes his research on movement.
Boccioni was a futurist artist and an advocate of the modernity and of
the power of machines. He represented the development of the
civilization by using the energy of the horses in his well-known
painting La città che sale. The horse is the protagonist of another series of works, known as Dinamismi,
which include paintings, drawings and sculptures, in which the animal
overwhelms the environment, arousing plastic emotions: “Indeed, all
things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing. A profile
is never motionless before our eyes, but it constantly appears and
disappears […]. Thus a running horse has not four legs, but twenty, and
their movements are triangular”. (Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting).
Moreover, in 1969 Kounellis displayed in Rome twelve alive horses in the gallery L’Attico.
It is well known how Messina ended up to pay close attention to the
horse as subject of his works. It happened for the first time in 1973 in
occasion of the commission of the new monument “Regisole”, erected at
Pavia. In fact, Messina brought a horse in his atelier, straight from
the stable, in order to study the its anatomy. In 1947, during a travel
in Argentina in occasion of a retrospective, Messina was impressed by a
herd of wild horses running through the pampas.
In 1958, this fascination incited him to create over the years an
amazing series of little bronze horse sculptures, in different poses and
sizes. The vibration of the material of these sculptures, that seem
still to be in a fluid state, contains the potential energy of life and
shows their incredible force. The horses, with their smoldering bodies,
are crossed by opposing forces. Their tails and manes rise up in the air
like torches. And it is possible to perceive in each sculpture the
previous action to the one that follows, like a film still. The sequence
of the poses of the horses is an ideal series of movements. The hearth
of the research is the movement and its essence. The deformity of the
lines of the horses, distorted and grotesque, causes a dramatic increase
of the emotions. The horse is the symbol of the power together with the
beauty and the elegance “but in the horse, power, beauty and elegance
are glorified and to some extent overwhelmed by its wild nature” (A.
Paolucci), that belongs to human being as well, and that survive in the
instinct, in the impetus and the doubled nature of the centaurs.
The desire to become an indian
If one were only an indian, instantly alert, and on a racing horse
eaning against the wind, kept on quivering jerkily over the quivering
ground, until one shed one’s spurs, for there needed no spurs, threw
away the reins, for there needed no reins, and hardly saw that the land
before one was smoothly shorn heath when horse’s neck and head would be
already gone. (Franz Kafka)
Sara De Chiara
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| Renato Leotta, "Museo (Cavalli e Cavalle, Cavalli Cavalli), 2014 installation view, Cripta747, Torino |
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| Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio and Cripta747, "Cavallo morente della RAI" cartapesta, 300, 200x302 cm, 2014 |
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| Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio and Cripta747 "Cavallo morente della RAI"cartapesta, 300, 200x302 cm, 2014 |
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| "Aria di testa (Elisa, Antonella, Giacinta)" studio sul ritratto e disegno di Sebastiano Impellizzeri - carboncino su carta, 140x170 cm, 2014
Francesco Messina, "Stallone"
bronzo, 42x74x42 cm, 1969 - courtesy Studio Copernico
|
GIANANDREA POLETTA
MOONWALK
EN
Moonwalk by Gianandrea Poletta is a work included in the CRIPTA747’s project MUSEO EUROPA, presented on the occasion of the forthcoming exhibition programme and addressed to the emergent generation of European artist.
Moonwalk by Gianandrea Poletta is a work included in the CRIPTA747’s project MUSEO EUROPA, presented on the occasion of the forthcoming exhibition programme and addressed to the emergent generation of European artist.
The
artist defines Moonwalk in two ways: as a sculpture and as an event
taking place between two objects: sneakers and electric vibrators.
Through a small but fundamental acceleration, Moonwalk creates an almost
metaphysical atmosphere in which the human being is completely absent,
replaced by machines.
Within
a research field that studies proximity – defined as the material and
immaterial space that surrounds us – Poletta interrupts the links that
exist between objects, revealing them in a new, intriguing way and
taking them beyond their essence and utility.
The work’s innovation is carried out exactly on this decision that unties objects from their obsolescence and usability patterns and returns them outside the edges of Market, Philosophy and Aesthetics.
The work’s innovation is carried out exactly on this decision that unties objects from their obsolescence and usability patterns and returns them outside the edges of Market, Philosophy and Aesthetics.
The
work of Poletta brings the viewers in front of an emotionless
seduction, giving them that feeling of alienation perceived during a not
fully explicable event.
ITA
In
mostra Moonwalk di Gianandrea Poletta, opera inserita nel progetto
MUSEO EUROPA di CRIPTA747 presentato nel corso del prossimo programma
espositivo e rivolto alla generazione emergente di artisti europei.
L’installazione Moonwalk è definita dall’artista tanto una scultura
quanto un evento che si verifica tra due oggetti, le sneaker e i
vibratori elettrici. Attraverso una minima ma fondamentale
accelerazione,Moonwalk rende un’atmosfera quasi metafisica in cui l’uomo è completamente assente, sostituito dalla macchina.
All’interno
di un campo di ricerca che studia la prossimità, intesa come spazio
materiale e immateriale che ci circonda, Poletta ferma quei link che
esistono tra gli oggetti, svelando questi ultimi allo spettatore in una
nuova veste intrigante, portandoli oltre la loro essenza e utilità.
La
componente rivoluzionaria del lavoro si attua proprio su questa
decisione, che slega gli oggetti dalla loro sorte di consumo e
obsolescenza e li riconsegna a un luogo fuori dai bordi previsti dal
mercato, dalla filosofia e dall’estetica.
L’opera
di Poletta porta lo spettatore davanti alla seduzione indifferente
dell’opera, restituendo quello straniamento che si avverte per un
avvenimento non completamente spiegabile.
sneakers and electric vibrators, 2014
installation view at Artissima, Cripta747, Musei in Mostra.
photo: Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano
OFF SITE - FESTA
SATURDAY 08 NOV 2014
CIRCOLO ESPERIA, TORINO
ABELE E CAINO
JIM LAMBIE
HOLY WOOD
OPENING ON SATURDAY 08 NOV 2014
CRIPTA747, TORINO, ITA
CRIPTA747, TORINO, ITA
04 - 21 OCT / CRIPTA747, Torino
We will talk about horses and women, painting and sculture, MUSEO (CAVALLI E CAVALLE, CAVALLI CAVALLI) is an exhibition by RENATO LEOTTA whit DARIO GIOVANNI ALI', SARA DE CHIARA, SEBASTIANO IMPELLIZZERI, FRANCESCO MESSINA with the partecipation of LORENZO SCOTTO DI LUZIO, GIACOMO LEONZI and PIERGIORGIO ROBINO.
MUSEO
is an environmental work produced by CRIPTA747 and presented during
Artissima's week in the basement of Franco Noero gallery.
MUSEO is supported by Fondazione CRT and Regione Piemonte
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_____________________________________________________________________________
OFF SITE : TROPICAL
23 - 26 OCTOBER
YIA, CARREAU DU TEMPLE, PARIS, FR
 |
| - |
_____________________________________________________________________________
0 - E-ELT
with YARI MALASPINA
04 - 21 OCT
CRIPTA747, Torino
E-ELT is an open studio about space and spaces. Our
time and works are presented in order to think to a new relation flow
with the experience, without pressures on a specific exhibition format. 1. This is the place where we work 2.This first appointment is a laboratory 3.We can work in studio if today it's a rainy day 4.The space of research is not here and the truth is out there 5. Is this a Museum?
YARI MALASPINA &
RENATO LEOTTA
E-ELT, 2014
spray on architect paper
88x118 cm
works produced by Cripta747 in occasion of E-ELT
04 - 21 october 2014, photo credit Alice Guarini.
_____________________________________________________________________________
2014 - 2015
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