A group show in Florence investigates the multifaceted nature of time

Through Nov. 30, 2023 at IED Florence, Via Bufalini 6R, the group exhibition The Tilt of Time, a project coordinated by Daria Filardo (IED) and Martino Margheri (Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi) with the curatorial development of the Master’s class 2022/23, is on view: Georgina Anastasi, Victoria Cassone, Hailey Conway, Patricia Hale-Siedler, Sneha Harish Chaturani, Solomiia Hrebeniak-Dubova, Alisa Kanevskiy, Catarina Mel, Emma Miles, and Alexandra Skilnick.

The exhibition, which was created in connection with the exhibition Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal currently underway at Palazzo Strozzi (Oct. 7, 2023-Feb. 4, 2024) and marking the third year of collaboration between IED Florence ’s Master in Curatorial Practice and Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, aims to explore the multifaceted nature of time through the works of Giulio Aldinucci, Fabrizio Ajello and Francesco D’Isa, Chiara Bettazzi, Alessandro Gandolfi, Jacopo Jenna, and Namsal Siedlecki.

Time in its different forms and meanings, cyclical, eternal, present, linear, fragmented, distorted, biological and personal has been in every age territory of analysis from philosophy, religion, science and art. The Tilt of Time seeks to investigate six trajectories of research and offer reflections ranging from the transformation of objects and their meanings over time and history, to the current role of artificial intelligence in image-making and its relationship to the visual arts, to touching on the geopolitical tensions of our present. The exhibition also includes the language of performance and music, which by their very nature, not only live in time, but also organize, compress or expand it.

The exhibition opens with a site-specific installation by Chiara Bettazzi, who, through the use of objects from the institute’s warehouses, hybridized with evocative objects from her studio, generates new forms capable of emphasizing the encounter between different temporal planes and the sense of transience of matter. The large installation that restores new life and balance to objects, like an expanded still life that makes us reflect on the role of time, is followed by Alessandro Gandolfi ’s photographic narrative that presents images selected from reportages he has made in four different areas of the world. The stories tell the geopolitical tensions of our present time and, through the lives of others, question us about the crises of our contemporary society.

The skylights (solar tunnels) that characterize the architecture of IED’s long corridor host an articulate wall-drawing by Fabrizio Ajello and Francesco D’Isa. The two artists, joined by the master’s class, transcribed dreams to be used as the generative matter of a creative process, after which, exploiting artificial intelligence (AI) programs, they transformed the narratives of dream experiences into images. The visual archive born from this encounter was reinterpreted and translated into complex drawings that find space on the skin of the building. The dialogue between man and technology takes us into a future (already present) that weaves together times, techniques, suggestions and visions to be observed as fresco synopies.

The exhibition concludes with Namsal Siedlecki’s sculpture, a blown glass head that finds its genesis in the relationship with statuary of the past, in a passing of the baton between forms and materials. The artist worked with the residual cavity of a bronze sculpture, thanks to his intervention the negative form kept inside the bronze statue was freed and became the model for a new glass sculpture, capable of preserving the memory of the original volumetry. Placed at the end of the main corridor of IED Florence, the sculpture invites viewers to engage with the interaction between past and present, and the ever-changing forms.

“The Infinite Time of the Internet. The interrupted time of the pandemic. Back in time with the war in Ukraine. The accelerated time of artificial intelligence. A series of recent historical events makes the theme of time, which is always related to that of space, as History and Geography, very topical. That is why I think it is important to dedicate the real and actual spaces of the school to give continuity to Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal. School is the place where young people shape the spirit of the time,” stresses Danilo Venturi, director of IED Florence.

The catalog produced in collaboration with Kunstverein Publishing Milano delves into the artists’ work, recounts the creation of site-specific projects for the spaces of IED Florence and Palazzo Strozzi, and returns the articulation of curatorial research with a special section.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a performance program at Palazzo Strozzi in the spaces of the Strozzina: two performance events are planned: on Saturday, Nov. 11 (9:30-8 p.m.) Giulio Aldinucci’s sleeping concert and on Thursday, Nov. 23 (7-9 p.m.) Jacopo Jenna’s durational performance.

Giulio Aldinucci, composer and sound artist, delves into time as perceptual duration by offering a sleeping concert, a live performance for the duration of the night. His experimental electroacoustic compositions will accompany visitors in their perception of nocturnal, dreamlike, dilated, meditative time. In Aldinucci’s music reverberate the sound memories of places visited by the artist, the use of sampling and field recordings allows him to create an immersive bridge between history and the present moment.

The body and its movements, which mark time and investigate space, are the object of research in Jacopo Jenna’s performance. The artist has created a work, a long-lasting performance, that confronts the different spaces of the Strozzina, where actions performed by performers are interwoven with a discontinuous musical composition between rooms, a choreography of lights and a score of actions for the audience. The continuous cycle of movements, sounds and lights leaves room for the audience to interact in the construction of the event. Time becomes a concrete participatory experience, an inquiry that each of us can embody and measure.

The exhibition can be visited Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with free admission.

Image: exhibition set-up The Tilt of Time. Fabrizio Ajello-Francesco D’Isa. Photo by Sara Sassi

A group show in Florence investigates the multifaceted nature of time

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