Photogenic rooms in Palmanova

From 1 September to 3 October 2022, in Palmanova, at the exhibition spaces of Art Ok , the exhibition Photogenic rooms offers the latest research by the Friulian photographer Stefano Tubaro. At the center is the preparation of photographic sets which, illuminated with artificial light sources of different types, become environments imaginary, designed to rediscover a contemplative dimension. Of the installation remains however the only photographic trace, as if it were the document related to the action taken in the space.

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The power of transformation

“Rolls, tweezers, trays, slide magazines, film loading spirals, 'frames'. These are the objects of a photographic past that Stefano Tubaro collects and places on photosensitive paper to relaunch, off camera, new identities” writes in the critical text Francesca Agostinelli.

“Re-photographed, this time digitally, (the photogenic rooms ed) pay homage to photography, its material history, its power of transformation in terms of dreams, utopia, vision and change. The rooms of Tubaro tell this in a declaration of love for a world that, by changing, changes the world in the memory of itself. Photogenic” .

Herbarium in Bologna

From 15 September to 31 October 2022 , the fashion creations of the atelier Maison laviniaturra  in  Bologna mix with the works of Alessandra Calò : a series of photographic dioramas , the result of a shared journey with some people 'fragile' part of the social project Incontri! Arte e persone (Meetings! Art and people) at the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia.

At the center of creative work - symbolic and social, shared and choral - a series of herbaria kept in an old wardrobe in the Botanica room. In particular, “a herbarium of the then fourteen year old Antonio Casoli Cremona (1885) who cataloged in an amateur way all the herbs present in his garden and around the city” explains the artist.

Photography, flowers and overlays

From the observation of nature and its imperfection, Alessandra Calò, together with the participants of the workshop, transformed wild herbs (the so-called "weeds") into footprints on paper photographic thanks to the frame technique.

Fragility and care

The artist then created superimpositions of images and symbols that refer to the concept of fragility and humanity, combining the shapes of herbs with those of the hands of participants. Thus works are born that tell gestures of care.

Historical memory and contemporary art in Rovereto

Historical and current photographs, but also illustrations, performances and installations in which historical “memory is combined with the creative force of contemporary art” explains the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini about the exhibition There is time for medlars. New narratives from the Great War, at Historical War Museum of Rovereto fino to 9 October 2022.

One hundred years after the establishment of the parks of Remembrance built in the aftermath of the First World War to honor the sacrifice of the fallen, the Central Institute for Catalog and Documentation (ICCD) and the Italian War History Museum of Rovereto present an exhibition that intends to raise questions around the theme of monument and memory by proposing a selection of works created by the artists Fabrizio Bellomo, Riccardo Cecchetti, Claudio Gobbi, Stefano Graziani, Hitnes, Alessandro Imbriaco, Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs, Moira Ricci.

Census and artistic interpretations

The cultural project was born from a census capillary which led to the cataloging of over 2100 assets including parks, gardens, monuments, avenues, shrines and tombstones, which were joined by the commissioning of the works on display, destined for the ICCD Contemporary Photography Collections.

These are heterogeneous works ranging from documentation photography to illustration, from performance to installation, and which investigate the multiple aspects connected to the theme of memory and the monument: the formal aspect, the architectural connotation and the relationship with the landscape, use over time, the link with private memory, the many historical, symbolic and social implications.

The intertwining of botany and memory, stories and history

The artist Hitnes, for example, proposes a series of plates that illustrate the profound link between the different elements: botany and memory, trees and men, captions and photographs taken from the immense historical archive preserved in ICCD.

The illustrator Riccardo Cecchetti instead deals with two themes, between the private experience of the grandfather and the official story, overlapping flowers, photos, postcards and comics, stains, traces, shadows and sketches, with letters, red marks of blood and censorship, the figure of the unknown soldier... 

Photography as an intimate and moving restitution

Claudio Gobbi's research revolves around the theme of the architectural monument. Each photograph incorporates different temporalities: it is in fact the result of a plurality of shots taken from the same point of view in different phases of the day. Finally, the work of Moira Ricci is poetic and evocative, which brings out an intimate and painful theme: the censorship of soldiers' correspondence.

In his delicate action of restitution, the artist traced the addresses of three censored letters, photographed those places and superimposed on the images the text of the letters that never arrived, creating small luminous sculptures that reconnect - albeit after a hundred years and only for images - sender and recipient.