MARCO BAGNOLI
IOxTE
Scientific, alchemical, mystic knowledge, artist’s writing, Platonic and neoplatonic philosophy, Hermeticism, multi-religious sacred writings, history of art, a great many knowledges and recollections: these are the sources on which Bagnoli draws when he wants to overstep the knowledge itself and soothe his melancholy through a double tendency, being either formal or spiritual.
Bagnoli’s personal show will include a new staging of both new and old works. We are dealing with a sort of path, a fleeing one, featured by visions, thresholds and entrances, where the becoming shapes and the sensory beauty show a further direction; light and shadow, just like space-time ratio, call up a passage, a connection and an overcoming limit. It is the so-called buon luogo, as stated by Fulvio Salvadori, a place where the symbols and the shapes are cleared up by the appearance of the ‘logos’. Following one’s emotions upon seeing such performance of shadows, means being able to perceive and behold something more sublime, exceeding the pathos of beauty: that ‘something’ arouses our emotions.
La Parola: a grand imposing maze, made up of dozens of benches piled up one over the other, will initiate the audience into the contemplation of the overturned fire-balloon, L’albero Rovesciato, and of its projected shadow. Three stripes, being red, silver and gold coloured, are painted in various points of the gallery, whose sizes correspond to the golden section relating to the narrow door, being the thresholds and the passage limits. Another area of the gallery is reserved for the big parabola, which reflects the gardens and throw their shadows on the walls. The focal point features small wall-mounted ceramic balls, Quincunx, which have been dipped in gold and silver paint; these balls are arranged according to the quincunx drawing, a Roman unit of measurement used for arranging trees in the gardens and in the plantations, whose origin is to be traced back to mystical and magical roots. The Dog, an abstract figure, according to the hermetic tradition, watches over the seven sleeping figures, I 7 Dormienti, who wait for resurrection in the cave.
Galleria nicola fornello / Antonella Nicola e Enrico Fornello, Prato
MARCO BAGNOLI, IOXTE
September-November 2004