A Path of Signs/ Art and Environment

Installations

Aurellll & Christiane Fath, Gabrielle Cirocco, Maria M. Deval, Valentina Lapolla, Francesco Landucci, Rachel Morellet, Elizabeth Sainsbury, Serena Tani, Tatiana Villani & Manuel Perna

Interventions of Fabio Cresci, Franca Bellucci and Lorenzo Poggi

Borgo San Giusto Il Terraio Salaiola Street Monterappoli

by SINCRESIS

June, 29, 2017

hours 18.30

The choice of a natural place, thrown by the man to obtain the fruit from the seeds of the earth, but possibly not marked by artificial constructions in which to find ‘signs’ of nature naturans that could generate other ‘signs’, thought by artists as light interventions, but awe-inspiring, dense of significance to dialogue with the earth originated properly from the will to draw and bring energies as a union between the potential of nature in its continuous proliferation and the potential of the gaze and the thought oriented to create to renew each time its own dialogue with the life as artistic action.

A path between an olive grove, two mirrors of water and a grove is the natural environment in which ten artists were invited to think about a non-invasive sign that could respect the perfection of nature, because the human being has often tried to interact with the living environment to modify it, and so, for survival needs, its action has been aimed at changing its ‘connotations’ for an adaptation that in many cases was conceived as ‘domain’.

Art can, however, allow to experiment and find different solutions to resume a dialogue with too often forgotten things. Certainly, the invitation was solicited by the presence of Aurellll (Aurélie Lemille) and Christiane Fath who came to our territory from La Reunion, from their energy to participate in a participatory operation, having sometimes worked outside in their country in contact with nature and preferring natural materials. From this potential the idea was born about to involve several artists who have long lived in our territory, Fabio Cresci, Maria M. Deval, Francesco Landucci, Valentina Lapolla, Rachel Morellet, Elizabeth Sainsbury, Serena Tani, Tatiana Villani or temporarily as Gabrielle Cirocco, who recently spent a period in residence at Sincresis, who prefer to work with poor or found materials and propose actions or installations that create a dialogue with the earth, with the natural environment and with the daily context, lived.

Each ‘sign’ becomes a stop in the path, walking along the path that assumes a clearly symbolically symbolic meaning as a trip that has the duration of a simple walk. The uphill road becomes a conquest of height, such as the ascent to Mount Ventoso for Francesco Petrarca, an inner route as a knowledge of oneself; the leap into the culmination in the many possible ways assumes an equally symbolic significance in relation to the path of life and suggests a meeting, an exchange, a mode of relationships that intersect among the ‘signes’ created by artists who become works in works such as creations of nature, who participate in a common dialogue because, moreover, they have been conceived in relation to a meeting of all in the need to collaborate and to activate synergies.

Not everyone starts from matter, from material, but rather their work sets themselves on an idea to be developed in relation to the daily, natural place, but in each case each one draws from it suggestions, emotions, as well as perceptions and impressions to create and to dialogue not only with the ‘landscape’ as a generation of nature and as a manifestation of the human being and of the community to which it feels or not to belong, but with the significant sign of the one in relation to the other. Each artist is invited to propose, therefore, in relation to their different experience of being able to intervene, without constraints, at the site chosen at Il Terraio near Empoli, a few kilometers away from Sincresis.

Aurélie and Christiane have identified at the culmination of the route a ‘hug’ between two trees and a stone staircase leading to the villa The Terraio as a climb prevented by a wire mesh, thinking of creating two arched doors, one of which seems to be a fictitious opening, as an optical illusion, by elaborating with strips of fabric arranged between the tree branches, installations requiring the free participation of other artists to constitute a collective work; in the immediate vicinity, as ‘signs’ that engage in a mutually dialogue, Valentina Lapolla has devised an installation made up of leds that produce light in relation to the natural brightness and shadows of the trees of the forest; Rachel Morellet has identified the wild animal’s dungeons as mysterious places and their excrement as ‘signs’ of attendance to which we can give value compared to the glances that are usually unknowing; Gabrielle Cirocco noted the millstones used as dining tables in the woods to create a ‘sign’ in the environment; Elizabeth Sainsbury has thought about an action with water and pastel paintings on pipes that appear on the path as a human artifact with respect to nature. Everyone will collaborate on the realization of the collective work proposed by Aurélie and Christiane as dialogue, while Fabio Cresci, observing the field of olive trees reconsidered an installation action of conceptual connotation, Some Things Made (1995), a work as action made many years ago at Trequanda at artist Rolando Deval’house, calling to talk about it together, her daughter Maria M. Deval, recalling the memory, who in turn discovered the paths of the animals along the route during a walk, thinking of reproducing the “signals” of conventional language with natural materials to emphasize their presence; Francesco Landucci considered the space near a pond to frame the ground and to put on the surface fossil remains and stones as traces still living in the time, stratifications of our being in nature; Serena Tani has thought of working with the cloth, wrapping some trees, to create signs similar to those appearing in the mountains to indicate the path and connecting the two ‘gates’ as Aurellll and Christiane’s collective installations;Tatiana Villani placed on the surface of the water a transparent cubic element that allows observation, from the inside, of the state of water, its dynamic reflux and the crossing of natural elements such as leaves, branches, insects.

In any case, each intervention interacts with each other as it originates from a common agreement, from a visit to the place, from a meeting that becomes the exchange and knowledge of different itineraries that, for a time and even a little by chance, can be combined in works that they live together in a crossed place, like during a walk of friends and friends, who walking almost at sunset can reflect and urge further observations at different moments intertwined with thoughts and poetry readings as additional sources of inspiration, along the path and in the landscape that becomes the place of the soul.

Thanks for courtesy Borgo San Giusto Il Terraio Monterappoli