La Merveilleuse
Group exhibition
Hè stata ritrova. / It is found again.
Cosa ? - L’Eternità / What? - Eternity.
Vale à dì u mare / It’s the sea mingled
Unitu à u sole / with the sun.
Arthur Rimbaud, Maghju di u 1872 / May 1872
Starting with a verse from the poet to better announce that there is nothing new under this sun... Because the Mediterranean first evokes a feeling of permanence, a form of equanimity that responds to the tireless and quiet back and forth of an unperturbed nature.
U Mediterraniu ispira prima un sensu di permanenza, qualcosa cum’è un estru inalterabile in accordu cun l’eterna maretta serena di una natura impassibile.
It is sweet images that come to mind, that of an azure sky that the passing days cannot shake, that of luminous pleasures that repeat ad infinitum, that of an existence that does not know entropy. But such serenity is above all a cultural representation that was affirmed with the leisure society in the 1960s and the desire to fully enjoy holidays. The Mediterranean has thus become synonymous with hedonism and nonchalance, rest and paid vacations.
It is not surprising then that irony comes through in many of the works exhibited here. Because artists often invite us to a certain detachment from the beliefs that structure our societies, too aware that they rest above all on historical constructions that naturalize over time. In this perspective, La Merveilleuse can seem somewhat deceptive. Certainly, the sweetness of life is indeed present, but one must not be completely fooled by this seaside happiness.
L’artisti c’invitanu spessu à un distaccu da e cridenze chì anu tessu e nostre sucetà, essendu troppu cuscenti ch’elle sò arrimbate soprattuttu à custruzzione storiche naturalizate cù u tempu.
Given the climatic and political issues that the Mediterranean carries within it today, it seems that this region is not simply synonymous with luxury, calm and voluptuousness. The Mediterranean has always been battered by the tumult of history.
Also, like echoes of memory, there are two works on the upper floor that open onto a universe of mysteries from lost civilizations. These submerged worlds can be read as signs of our own fragility. They make us feel, in any case, that the world we know is far from immutable. In this way, our only certainty lies in the abandonment of the very idea of progress. For the rest, we entrust ourselves to the powers of the imagination and myth, the first way of creating community.
U mondu ch’è no cunniscimu ùn hè manc’appena fermu pè u sempre.
