All Inclusive: nine contemporary artists perform in Massa museum

An encounter between different languages of contemporary art to “perform” the museum, that is, to re-read it, to transform it, to activate new and unpredictable meanings. This is the meaning of All Inclusive. Nine contemporary artists perform the museum, scheduled from June 4 to Oct. 2, 2022 at the Guadagnucci Museum in Massa. The exhibition, curated by Cinzia Compalati, features works by Antonello Ghezzi, Aqua Aura, Emiliano Bagnato, Eleonora Chiesa, Sandro Del Pistoia, Giorgio Di Palma, Aldo Giannotti, Simone Gori and Vincenzo Marsiglia.

The title of the exhibition, intentionally ambiguous in that it is charged with irony but at the same time very explanatory in its reference to the theme ofinclusion (i.e., one of the elements that guide the museum’s action towards its target community and fragile audiences), contains within itself the outlines of the project: the nine contemporary artists participating in the project were in fact asked to intervene and interact with the museum space by performing it, designing works and installations in which relationship is the medium that allows the work itself to exist. Relationship with the community, with the other, with the public, a relationship that emphasizes the empathetic relationship between visitor and work, that with the surrounding environment and in particular the park and nature, that with the sculpture and the seventeenth-century Villa La Rinchiostra that houses the museum.

The duo Antonello Ghezzi, formed by Nadia Antonello (Cittadella, 1985) and Paolo Ghezzi (Bologna, 1980), who have been making installations and performances in Italian and international contexts since 2009, brings to the Guadagnucci three pairs of swings entitled Spingiamoci Oltre, Tienimi Forte and Sempre Insieme and a ladder to get closer to the sky(Oltre), which continue their research focused on research and magic: played on multiple levels, the works exhibited at the Guadagnucci Museum change with each viewing, making use of mirroring materials and referring to children’s collective imagination and deepest desires. Aqua Aura (Vimercate, 1969), a pseudonym for an artist who researches the Sublime in contemporary times, addresses the theme of “relationship” with the surrounding environment and in particular with the Villa’s park, exhibiting three alabaster video sculptures from the series Shelters - On The Very Nature Of Light: these are works that propose a reflection on the Man/Nature relationship, starting with the recording of an entire sub-Arctic day, kept in time capsules in the form of icebergs: from the morning sky, full of light and white clouds, to its transformation into a stormy sky, to the dusk and darkness of the night, which gives off the lights of an aurora borealis. The young Emiliano Bagnato (La Spezia, 1993), a composer, musician and sound designer, has developed a “relational investigation” for the exhibition, proposing an impossible dialogue with Gigi Guadagnucci, which takes place around Brugiana, the artist’s sculpture of choice that bears the name of the Apuan mountain he holds dear. It is an installation that unfolds on two sound levels: in the foreground the words, thoughts and timbre of the Massese master’s voice alternating with fragments of the songs he loved, reinterpreted by Emiliano Bagnato’s guitar; in the background, nature and the working of marble, which enter the museum in the form of sound, establishing a link between material, work, gesture and work.

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Eleonora Chiesa (Genoa, 1979), an artist active in performance and video, has focused her latest research on issues related to economic policies, the relationship between humanity and the environmental context and the relationship with animal otherness, and in Massa she tackles the theme of the “relationship” with the community, presenting the video taken from the performance Lightness, realized in Apricale (Imperia) in 2015 with the involvement of some local inhabitants. Point of departure is the famous Latin palindrome “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni,” used by Guy Debord in 1978 for the making of the documentary of the same name. He will also give an unprecedented performance at the opening. Versilia-born Sandro Del Pistoia (Viareggio, 1975), who trained at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence and is the only sculptor in the exhibition, is called to measure himself against Gigi Guadagnucci and his vision of art and the future: in dialogue with the master’s works, Del Pistoia is exhibiting some sculptures made with light materials - silk, wax, wood, plaster - veined in white as a sign of continuity and respect for the museum aesthetic. The project is titled 24/02/2022 in reference to the date of the beginning of the work, but also of the beginning of the war in Ukraine that has profoundly marked the present and sketched out everyone’s future. Giorgio Di Palma (Grottaglie, 1981), a ceramist and visual artist who reproduces everyday objects in ceramic, in real size, devoid of functionality, but loaded with aesthetic, conceptual and social meanings, presents the work Birthday Party, a public art project conceived with Pigment Bari and born from the involvement of citizens of Polignano a Mare (Bari), who were invited to send the artist photographs of birthday parties from the 1970s and 1980s, to be “brought back to life” through ceramics. The visual reactivation of collective memories simultaneously awakens empathy and a sense of community.

Entitled A Vertical Spotlight is placed on the Rooftop of the Institution and can be seen from the whole Town the work that Aldo Giannotti (Genoa, 1977), an international artist who has lived and worked in Vienna since 2000, brings to Massa: it is a project that, through a beam of light, marks in the sky the exact location of cultural sites, inviting the public to get to know and visit them. The institutions that have hosted it in the past are often described as cultural “landmarks” in the city. The installation takes its cue from this principle by following it to the letter and creating an urban reference that places the museum at its center. Simone Gori (Florence, 1986), an architect and designer by training, interested in the dialogue between art, places and people, makes use of a plurality of materials to invite the public to reflect, questioning them on essential themes of the post-modern condition. In Massa he presents a monumental marble installation that, through an optical spy, allows for a deep probing of the sky, a conceptual, changing and private representation of the Soul. Soul - in this case - not of man but of the material that so connotes the mountains from which Guadagnucci’s marble also comes. The artist - in doing so - creates a work that can exist only when “looked at” by the visitor. Finally, Vincenzo Marsiglia (Belvedere Marittimo, 1972) develops his works starting with a four-pointed star, which over time has become his signature: combining sign pictorialism with new technological tools, the artist proposes a reinterpretation of monuments and historical-artistic assets, implemented by his geometries and iconic patterns. At the Museum Guadagnucci presents the Map (Star) the World project, capable of combining past and present, culture of tradition and innovation. Wearing a HoloLens 2 visor, the user will be able to interact directly on the exhibition path by “drawing” it with the four-pointed star and experiencing a visionary journey firsthand.

“All Inclusive,” says Nadia Marnica, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Massa, “is a high-level exhibition project that the Municipal Administration wanted to place in continuity with last summer’s exhibition, created in collaboration with Vogue Italia. This year we are hosting nine contemporary mid-career artists with international experience to bring to the city a faithful feedback of the most current contemporary art.”

“When I think of a contemporary museum,” explains Cinzia Compalati, director of the Massese cultural institution and curator of the exhibition, “I imagine a chameleon, an ever-changing animal that knows how to adapt and regenerate with respect to the social context that hosts it. In All Inclusive, I wanted to create nine stations-designed by as many contemporary artists-that would activate the museum spaces. The invited artists, all very diverse in terms of poetics and media used, were selected not so much for their individual contributions as for their aptitudes to be able to interact within an unprecedented group that was more than the sum of its individual elements.”

The exhibition, promoted by the Municipality of Massa and produced by the Guadagnucci Museum, is realized with the contribution of Fondazione Marmo Onlus, the technical support of Henraux S.p.A. and is part of the Amico Museo calendar of Regione Toscana. The Guadagnucci Museum (Via dell’Acqua 175, Massa) is open to the public from June 4 to Sept. 18 on Tuesdays and Thursdays 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays 5 p.m:00 to 21:00, Saturday 20:00 to 24:00 (in conjunction with the theater, otherwise 17:00 to 21:00), closed Mondays; September 19 to October 2 Tuesday to Friday 9.00-13:00, Saturday and Sunday 15:00-19:00, closed Mondays. Full ticket euro 5, reduced euro 3, free admission first Sunday of the month. For information: museoguadagnucci@comune.massa.ms.it, www.museoguadagnucci.it.

All Inclusive: nine contemporary artists perform in Massa museum

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