On our trips to Barga we had always found time to have a slice of pizza at the little pizzeria just inside the town’s main gateway, the Porta Reale, in the Via del Pretorio. This street, which leads up to Barga’s fine cathedral, has new significance for us in the attraction of an art gallery at no .4. I can’t do better than to quote what this gallery’s web site says about itself – here.
Via Del Pretorio 4 is not just an address. Via Del Pretorio 4 is not only a physical place, it is also a point of reference, via Del Pretorio 4 is a soul space.
Between the walls which embrace the studio of the artist Giorgia Madiai, over time, a conservatory has been created where the arts evolve and are expressed in all of their diversity and potency.
This corner in the historic centre of Barga, in a short time, has become a “speakers’ corner”, where art and knowledge take shape and are freely expressed.
Cultural events by numerous artists and musicians of national and international renown have been presented here: Alessandro Cavalloni, Nicola Perullo, Federico Maria Sardelli, Dimitri Grechi Espinoza, Nicolao Valiensi, Giuseppe Venturi, Zeno Marchi, Patrizio Alaimo, David Dominici, Azzurra Tanzini, Gabriel Feld, Candida Abbondio, Nicola Salotti, Mario Madiai, Stefano Tommasi, Nicholas S. Kraczyna, Sara Saccomani, Sandra Rigali, Noah Tortelli, Fabrizio Da Prato, Luca Salemmi, Walter Nenci, Keane, Kerry Bell, Claudia Haberkern, Masahide Kudo, Francesco Piacentini, Andrea Landi, Andrea Convalle, Sally Li, Angela Guadalupe e molti altri.
My greatest wish is to continue to organize events, to involve artists and anyone who would like to exhibit their work in any form: actors, musicians, writers, painters, sculptors, performance artists, free thinkers, as well as events, presentations, conferences, plays, and courses open to anyone who wants to learn: #viadelpretorio4 should become a forge where art is not just to enjoy, but something to participate in collectively, and then we’ll add to the mix, hospitality, oenology and gastronomy.
The gallery’s space was conceived for conversation and presentation and will host artists, musicians and performers in exhibits and events which will be presented monthly by resident artists, Giorgia Madiai, Fabrizio Da Prato, Caterina Salvi, Stefano Tommasi, and Kerry Bell as well as many guest artists, musicians and performance artists.
Currently there’s an exhibition, open throughout September, on weekdays from 4 pm to 6 pm and at other times by appointment, showing works by the following artists: Giorgia Madiai, Fabrizio Da Prato, Kerry Bell, Caterina Salvi, Stefano Tommasi, Cinzio and Andrea Tessieri. These artists each so different from the other in their techniques and aspirations have put together a show which cannot possibly be missed and it is to be singled out for its very high standard.
“Monoscopia” is the title of the exhibition. Translated into English it means a television test card used to help viewers tune their set to the best picture and which, before the explosion of new channels occurred, used to occupy much of the time a television screen was switched on. Perhaps then this exhibition is a way of attuning viewers’ reactions more clearly in perceiving life details they may not have been aware of, or if they had been aware, to have discarded these images as being of little importance without realising their significance.
Let us look then at some of the art creations presented in this very eclectic and certainly stimulating exhibition. I have very little to add to Kerry Bell’s comments she kindly sent me on the works presented which also include her own. Her comments are shown in italics below.
Giorgia’s work currently on exhibit includes powerful imagery of the double tailed mermaid seen throughout Italy in churches and archaeological sites. It also includes intriguing references to the Tarot, as well as emotionally evocative symbolism of the divine and not so.
Giorgia Madiai’s ‘Sirena’ is a mixed media work which, although highly original, evokes in me reminiscences of Chagall, in particular his stained glass designs. Indeed, I think Madiai’s work could very easily translate into glass. This detail from the work pictures a dream sequence delving into fantasy with the wonderland rabbit. It is also suggests a nightmare appeased by a phrase which, translated means, ‘give her peace’. I especially love the composition’s colour chromaticism with its autumnal shades.
Fabrizio’s work here is part of his on-going exploration of materials and imagery that promote Fine Art in construction, home, and advertising. He is currently installing a series of paintings in place of advertising, as billboards, in Parma, the designated capital of culture in Italy for 2020. These are a continuation of his work in the same field shown in Palermo and Pistoia.
I have known Fabrizio since he was one of my English language students at the Materis paint works in Capannori. I do think that getting a job in a paint factory as an artist must be a very empathic occupation and it certainly adds vividly to the artist’s handling of his medium!
Caterina (Debbie) Salvi presents a series of photographic abstracts with sharp contrast and detail, showing exquisite depth and texture, in addition to a fascinating black and white series done of Casa Pascoli, which is featured in two books.
Black and white photography has tended to be displaced by the current emphasis placed on colour, especially in this digital age. Yet monochrome represents classicism and indeed, evokes in me some of the finest thirties and forties era mostly black-and-white Hollywood films, especially film noirs with their empathic shadows and unusual camera angles bordering into the non-figurative like Billy Wilder’s ‘Double Indemnity’.
Stefano Tommasi is showing black and white photography of thought provoking detail.
Stefano is another acolyte of monochrome photography. His skill is such that it tempts me to turn off the colour option on my own camera and start concentrating on what for a long time used to be considered inferior, if only because its printing was cheaper, to colour photography.
Kerry Bell’s textiles range from garment to sculpture which arouse and evoke our profound emotional connections to clothing.
I have discussed the last exhibition I visited featuring Kerry’s work at Barga’s Oxo gallery at my post here.
I can only repeat a paragraph in that post as it continues to sum the special qualities of Kerry’s work in this exhibition:
“It was the folds in the dresses that principally engaged my attention: those sinuous contours, the interweaving lines, highlighted by the subtle use of lighting, which continued their journey, projecting multi-layered silhouettes onto the gallery walls and forming a profound dialogue between the object and the aura it created”.
Andrea Tessieri’s print delicately and warmly evokes a place lost in time.
I can add very little to this succinct reflection on Andrea’s work except to say that, again, it leads into a parallel universe beyond our mundane concepts of time and space.
The gallery is open generally from 6 PM and by appointment. For more information contact giorgiamadiai@gmail.com or 334 368 8592 and follow us on Instagram viadelpretorio4
Article by Francis Pettitt – all of this articles can be seen here. FROM LONDON TO LONGOIO (AND LUCCA AND BEYOND) PART THREE
