Arborea. Reflections on inhabiting the world: works to respect nature and trees on display in Seravezza

The Scuderie Granducali of Palazzo Mediceo in Seravezza is hosting from July 20 to August 18, 2019 the first solo exhibition of Costantino Paolicchi (Florence, 1948), where about forty paintings dedicated to trees and nature are on display. The latter are accompanied by about fifteen sculptures by Mimmo Biribicchi (Groppoli di Mulazzo, 1947). The Lunigiana sculptor’s works arise from the interpretation and enhancement of natural stones and the remains of old trunks and roots shaped and polished by time and the floods of the Magra River.

The exhibition, entitled Arborea. Reflections on Inhabiting the World and curated by Nicola Micieli, is intended to make people understand the necessary respect for nature; for Paolicchi, trees are sensitive creatures with their own intelligence, bearers of an identity, a memory and capable of telling wonderful stories.

The introductory text to the catalog states, “there is a sacredness that is felt in the presence of trees, there is an energy that humans have felt since the dawn of time. And there is an archaic, primordial beauty in each plant. No tree, like no man, is the same as another. All have had similar but singular experiences. On the bark of each trunk the mosses, lichens, the wounds of time, the marks left by pests, animals and humans have traced a geography that can be deciphered, understood, narrated. All great literature worldwide has devoted special attention to trees, so has painting, which has entrusted them with a certainly not secondary role in the vision and interpretation of the world. And for millennia, trees have accompanied the becoming of mankind, assuming in different cultures meanings of profound sacredness and have provided powerful magical and religious symbols whose persistence indicates the importance still attached to the plant world by the men and women of planet Earth: they will have to fight together with trees and all other living beings a hard battle for survival. These in a nutshell are the topics, the themes that for years have been supporting and guiding my pictorial research almost entirely aimed at the tree.”

Alongside the paintings and sculptures on display are reflections on trees and nature, aphorisms and statements by well-known figures in the fields of science, culture, art, literature and politics.

Hours: Daily from 5 to 11 p.m.

Image: Costantino Paolicchi, The Great Beech Tree (2019; acrylic and synthetic mestica on board, 106 x 63 cm)

Arborea. Reflections on inhabiting the world: works to respect nature and trees on display in Seravezza

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