Barga celebrates Giovanni Pascoli and Giacomo Puccini with an exhibition by Sandra Rigali

On the occasion of the Puccini Centennial in Barga, Casa Museo Giovanni Pascoli in Castelvecchio Pascoli (Barga, Lucca) is hosting, from June 1 to August 31, 2024, the solo exhibition Puccini and Pascoli - Notes at the Margins by artist Sandra Rigali (Lucca, 1965) and curated by Alice Traforti.

Sandra Rigali returns to the Casa Museo Giovanni Pascoli with a solo exhibition closely connected to its venue, bringing her gaze to the link between Giovanni Pascoli and Giacomo Puccini and their respective vision of life beyond opera. Medium-format canvases and many small tiles, accompanied by drawings on fine papers and pop serigraphs compose a dialogue of cross-references between lifestyles, thoughts and passions that distinguished the poet and the composer, suggesting similarities and contrasts in a set-up free from punctual thematic constraints, which relies on the peculiarities proper to an environment that is “home” and becomes an integral part of the exhibition.Sandra Rigali also brings into play her own personal history as a Barghigiana painter based in Lucca, intertwined in double strand with the legacy of the masters, and thus transforms this conversation in two voices into a debate of universal significance, placing side by side a common character of everyday normality with the exceptional nature of the lyrical and poetic arrangements of the two illustrious friends.

"Sandra Rigali proposes a vision, a renewed look at the bond of esteem and friendship between Giovanni Pascoli and Giacomo Puccini and their respective worldviews, expressed through their poetic and musical production, the cultural heritage of humanity," writes Alessandro Adami, President of the Giovanni Pascoli Foundation. “It is therefore with particular pleasure that I express to Sandra Rigali, our fellow citizen, who with her artistic activity honors the history of the Barghigiani painters, some of whom were friends of Pascoli, our lively thanks for this new, interesting and beautiful production.”

“The ’notes in the margins,’” explains curator Alice Traforti, “are scriptures that are not protagonists but foundational, inner and outer landscapes that accompany texts and scores as parallel visions. Thinking therefore of each lyrical and literary work as the end result of this series of free thoughts and everyday attitudes, colorful annotations and humoral details condensed together into a maximal accomplished expression, Sandra Rigali’s work is to move to the foreground those secondary atmospheres that support the main plot, restoring a more intimate dimension of the man before the Maestro and his time to the sides of the production, inevitably ending up painting even a small part of her own story at the margins of the painting.”

The public will also be able to make their own pop version of places and characters, with personal “notes at the margins,” on the materials made available. The exhibition includes about 50 works, with several new pieces created especially for the exhibition: a core of works already created between 2016 and 2018 and others that show the most recent pictorial evolutions on the themes always dear to the artist, such as woman, territory and pop, with Pascolian and Puccinian declinations. From a technical point of view, the artist makes use of layered, more or less textural painting, which also includes collages of oriental papers, newspaper clippings and archival materials, with typewritten interventions, details embellished with gold leaf and a new fluorescent color. “Sign, color and material are my voice. The pop portrait embodies a collective identity, abstracting it from the spirit of time to project it into eternity,” Sandra Rigali declares.

The exhibition is organized under the patronage of the Regional Council of Tuscany and the City of Barga, with the collaboration of the Giovanni Pascoli Foundation, the contribution of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca and the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, and the support of Industria KME and Conad.

The Giovanni Pascoli House Museum is open to the public on Tuesday from 3:30 to 6:45 p.m.; Wednesday through Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3:30 to 6:45 p.m.

A catalog is planned with institutional texts by Eugenio Giani (President of the Region of Tuscany), Caterina Campani (Mayor of Barga), Alessandro Adami (President of the Giovanni Pascoli Foundation), a historical intervention by Sara Moscardini (Giovanni Pascoli Foundation) and a critical text by Alice Traforti (art critic).

Part of the works on display will feed into Sandra Rigali’s subsequent solo exhibition that will pay tribute to Giacomo Puccini at the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca in December 2024.

The Giovanni Pascoli Foundation, established in 1998, is concerned with the protection and enhancement of the cultural heritage left by the great Italian poet. Its goals are to disseminate and keep alive Pascoli’s literary production, to promote the House Museum of Castelvecchio - bequeathed by Giovanni and his sister Maria to the Barghigiana community, along with the archive and library - and to disseminate knowledge of the territory of Barga and the Serchio Valley, whose language, history and traditions the poet loved and studied so deeply.

Sandra Rigali, born in Lucca in 1965, graduated in Painting from theAcademy of Florence in 1988 and opened her studio first in Barga, then in Lucca, alternating research painting with teaching and frequent public commissions. She investigates the themes of women and territory as identity, mixing Tuscan tradition with 20th-century instances through her own sign, color and material: fresco, oil, earths, gold leaf and cement, murals, writing, tears, collage. Her female imagery ranges from the nude to posed portraits of bodies and subjects poised between self-defense and resilience. All nature, an inner mirror, is pervaded by the same spirit, which revitalizes every landscape, cottage or flower. He dresses Italian culture with pop, recounting historical personalities of yesterday and today in strong colors and verbo-visual cutouts. With instapainting he combines art and social media, composing a diary of ideas, instants and newspaper fragments, fixed in a social wall with the slow doing of painting.

For all information, you can call +39 0583 766147, send an email to cultura@comunedibarga.it or visit the official website of the Pascoli Foundation.

Pictured: Sandra Rigali, Vita da poeta (2024)

Barga celebrates Giovanni Pascoli and Giacomo Puccini with an exhibition by Sandra Rigali

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