On Identikit

During his residency at CSAC Bartolini has focused on the works of two great masters (Luigi Ghirri and Luciano Fabro) in the collections. In the preliminary phase of the project he concentrated on locating all the vinyl records photographed by Ghirri in the “Identikit” series (1979), where the Emilian artist reproduced – in a truthful, inevitable way – a self-portrait through that of his personal library. The titles of the vinyl albums, often eroded by use and nearly illegible on the spines of the 33 rpm record sleeves, have prompted archaeological curiosity in Bartolini, who wanted to finally remove the records from their shelves and listen to them in a precise place, in the company of a certain person.

That certain person is Lo Spirato by Luciano Fabro, a work set up in one of the chapels of the church of the Abbey of Valserena, a setting that for Bartolini lies “halfway between an unmade bed and a possessed bed,” where the body is simultaneously present and invisible: under the sheets there is a silhouette that vanishes outside them and reappears as a presence on the pillow shaped by the imprint of the body.

With the work On Identikit, Bartolini sets out to bring together the invisible and present being of Lo Spirato with the essence – invisible by nature – of music, which will be heard in the evocative spaces of the church.