L'isola dei pirati
(The pirates island)
Chorasis, Villa Rospigliosi, curated by Riccardo Farinelli
Exhibition, 2022
1 - Above the background noise 300 x 200 x 200 cm Altana, desk, wooden chair, table lamp, blue paint 2 - Under the eyes of all Environmental dimension Red PVC sheets 3 - Ladder to reach the clouds 250 x 60 cm Wooden ladder, blue paint 4 - The island of pirates Environmental dimension Mixed media drawings, audio installation
The spaces of Villa Rospigliosi seem to be the umpteenth opportunity for Antonello Ghezzi to reiterate some concepts that are important to them about art.
At least this seems to be the driving force that first pushed the duo to accept the invitation to design an original exhibition intervention for those places, the focal point of the ChorAsis project in which he belongs. Concepts that, if you think about it, find an exemplification in the title, The island of pirates, and in its apparent inconsistency with the host site, which is clearly an eighteenth-century villa.
The resulting estrangement highlights how for the two authors, art is first and foremost imagination, which, perhaps stimulated by a perfume, a color, a shape, is able to envision other possible points of view of reality.
These concepts, so important as to be reiterated on several exhibition occasions, methodologically find a starting point from which to begin to expand, precisely in a detail extracted from the whole, the one that most struck the interest and the imagination of the two artists. (but also of the visitor, as we shall see). Thus a game of references is triggered, also made up of personal memories and stories read or listened to, where individuality is enhanced in the lightness of a fairy tale.
Thus an answer is attempted to the question: what happens when an individual, totally immersed in an environment, captures its stimuli through his or her ability to observe and imagine?
It seems that, in the desire to make the overall design clear, Antonello Ghezzi conceived and developed a narrative machine capable of moving in four design steps, where the visitor is constantly seen as an active and moving protagonist.
Move n.1 (Above the background noise): Leaving the avenue of cypresses, the visitor is surprised by the vision, in the lawn overlooking the facade of the villa, of a completely ultramarine blue wooden roof terrace, the color of fantasy and imagination . He approaches it, notices a staircase, climbs the steps. On the platform he finds a desk and a chair, also ultramarine blue. Some papers and pens on the desk seem almost an invitation to write something. Thing? He looks up, the raised point of view allows him to see more things, beyond the tip of the cypresses.
Move # 2 (For all to see): A large red "X" is now clearly visible on the lawn. What does that mean? The visitor sits down. Time passes. He begins to write. Finished, he goes back down.
Move n.3 (Ladder to fetch the clouds): Crossing the threshold of a large door, you enter a large room on the back wall of which a wooden ladder rests, which continues painted on the wall, above which you finds a cloud, also painted. The presence, also in this case, of blue, the title of the installation and the structure of the whole, reaffirms the meaning and significance to be given to the whole experience, already amply stated by the roof terrace in the lawn.
Move 4 (The pirate island): On the right wall there is a large and comfortable sofa. It is a clear invitation to sit down, take some time and, perhaps, in the meantime observe the many drawings on the opposite wall, which seem to represent a story that seems to speak of lemons and pirates, just like the one that can be heard on headphones. or read on the sheets placed next to it.
When you think it is appropriate, you get up from the sofa. Perhaps the desire is to take another spin, to take a closer look. Maybe you want to go back to the desk, add something to what has been written. Maybe you just want to look and smell the lemons, the ones that were so fond of that lord of history and the pirates who inhabited that island.
Riccardo Farinelli
May 2022
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