In Seravezza, Michele Chiossi's exhibition in the 18th-century Cappella Marchi

From June 17 to June 25, Spazio Cappella Marchi in Seravezza, Lucca, is hosting a new solo exhibition by Tuscan sculptor Michele Chiossi (Lucca, 1970), entitled Anatomy of Places. Works by Michele Chiossi. Curated by Lorenzo Belli, the exhibition displays a series of recent works by the artist conceived specifically to be exhibited in the 18th-century space of this deconsecrated church. This is the first event of the 2023 art season at Spazio Cappella Marchi, managed by Alkedo aps, which is distinguished by its dialogue between classical settings and new languages of contemporary art.

Michele Chiossi is a sculptor who lives and currently works between Forte dei Marmi and Milan present with his works since the late 1990s in important public and private collections. His research is characterized by continuous analyses of the moods that mark the everyday by decoding iconic subjects and contemporary classicism. “For Chiossi, art is a social and aesthetic quest,” the curator explains, “a celebration of history that begins with an almost anatomical breakdown of the traditions of certain places dear to him. His creations are objects that are timeless and universal at the same time because he pursues a research that has man and tradition at its center, measurable according to modern modeling standards that actualize and make recognizable signs, habits and customs.”

The set of works proposed by Chiossi at Cappella Marchi can be summed up as a tribute to the patron saint of his hometown, Saint Zita, to whom the people of Lucca have been devoted since the 1200s. Her sanctification is linked to her most famous miracle of turning bread for the poor into flowers. And it is precisely this miracle that inspired the work Zita, which depicts in sculptural format, one of Lucca’s traditions, the torta di erbi, or torta coi becchi, a cake that is annually prepared on the feast day of the saint on April 27. Chiossi incorporates this popular element of Lucchese tradition, artistically revisiting and mobilizing it with a brass casting of which it is entirely composed.

The work, like a golden crown encircled by ribbons that garnish it, almost seems to hover in the air joining earth and sky, the earthly and the sacred. The same goes for the two works Lily Nike and Peace floating, which are related to the same miracle of the saint and reproduce a flower, the lily, a symbol of wisdom and sincerity, and an olive branch that attests to the end of the chastisement and God’s reconciliation with mankind.

“The symbolic objects,” continues Lorenzo Belli , “are the result of that archaeology of emotions often handed down, even orally, which is the basis of rituals that we put in place in an almost mechanical way during rituals and celebrations. The artist moves in linguistic and material experimentation, shaping, through his sensitivity, what comes from the everyday but grows within himself.” The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Fondazione Terre Medicee and the Patronage of the Municipality of Seravezza, can be visited with free admission every day from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and will be accompanied by a text by curator Lorenzo Belli.

Spazio Cappella Marchi, at Chiesa della Madonna del Carmine, is located at 38 Via G. Lombardi, Seravezza (Lu). Info: www.michelechiossi.com

Image: Michele Chiossi, Zita

In Seravezza, Michele Chiossi's exhibition in the 18th-century Cappella Marchi

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