Every year a location is chosen as the stage for the themes identified for the current edition.

This time we are in Monferrato, a land of hills and wines that is certainly less known than the nearby Langhe, with Carlo Falciani who, as curator, leads us to the villages of Vignale, Camagna, Montemagno and Castagnole.

His idea of ​​curating is very particular and has to do with his background as an expert in ancient art, as he himself ironically said in the interview we did with him, lent to the contemporary. A novelty for Panorama, which reveals a decidedly contemporary vision of the contemporary.

Puns aside, if the question what is contemporary art for is answered by putting it in dialogue with ancient art, trying to use the same paradigms and the same stylistic elements for both forms of expression, a very incisive and current investigation will arise. Not only art (which has always been contemporary with its time), but also curatorship. We talked about it with Falciani.

The first difference is the idea of ​​a widespread exhibition that, unlike previous editions hosted in a single location, this time involves four countries and even rural areas to act as a "hinge" between one country and another. But the exhibition locations, another difference with the other Panoramas, are not unusual.

"Being used to dealing with works that have specific characteristics of language, space, perspective - speaking of the work and not of content - I do not like forced dislocations. Because I seek respect for the work: you do not listen to a string quartet at a tram stop!", comments Falciani.

Who then continues: "I cannot help but adopt the historical perspective, even in the contemporary. So I wonder what remains and what does not of today, who will inherit that legacy and to which works they will decide to give voice.

We know well that in history it has always been like this, the work is linked to the contingent, it needs someone who makes it speak and respects it, otherwise it is just a canvas with a bit of color on it. If we then consider the contents, those are always the same: the questions about who we are, the idea of ​​history, love, death... in a word, complexity».

And precisely complexity is put under the magnifying glass in a dialogue between ancient and contemporary that starts from a literary text, that of Stefano Guazzo who in 1574 published his “La civil conversazione”.

It is a best seller of the time: it is translated into Latin, English, French, German and sees 43 Italian editions!

What is it about? «A dialogue between a man suffering from melancholy, which has deprived him of all social relationships after a long hospital stay due to a pandemic, and a doctor friend who visits him at home», explains Falciani in his introductory text, «a long conversation begins between the two during which the author states that a community lives and prospers only if it is capable of building a level of civil conversation that allows it to resolve and compose fractures and conflicts, between family members and between different generations, but also between citizens and foreigners and between different levels of society».

This civil conversation becomes Falciani’s method, certainly his point of view. “I am very angry with a mainstream idea that wants to propose the Renaissance as the birth of the Anthropocene, as an era of colonialism and slavery,” Falciani explains, “When it is the Renaissance that produces a text as free and positive as Guazzo’s or that calls a young Brunelleschi, the best architect around, to build the Spedale degli Innocenti, a structure designed to educate orphans. I chose this text as a guide for Panorama to indicate a difference.”