Rome, an exhibition showcases the Naturographies of Roberto Ghezzi

In Rome, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art is hosting, from Nov. 7 to 26, Roberto Ghezzi ’s exhibition entitled Thybris. The Eternal River, which displays a selection of works from the Naturographies series, works born from contact with the waters of the Tiber, created by the artist from 2022 along the course of the river, from its source to its mouth. The methodology at the genesis of these works involved immersing large canvases for a long period of time-about a year-in the riverbed, allowing its waters to interact with the media. This procedure allowed the surfaces of the canvases to reproduce visual stratifications, textures, chromatic moods, and material sedimentations that, in turn, constitute the outcome of the symbiosis of the supports with the ecosystem of the Tiber.

“The exhibition,” say curators Cristian Porretta and Davide Silvioli, “is conceived in close correlation with the geographical reality that hosts it and at the same time, thanks to the temperament of Roberto Ghezzi’s work, it is also designed to establish interdisciplinary connections in order to set up a highly topical dialogue between contemporary artistic experimentation and other areas of knowledge. In fact, the Naturographies, a distinctive series of the artist’s research and already realized by him in a variety of natural contexts, allow to confront what, among many interesting aspects, can be considered one of the most coherent results provided by contemporary research regarding the historical relationship between art and landscape, as well as to thematize urgent issues of our daily life referable to the complex relationship between man and nature. So, by making the waters of the Tiber River the site of creation of the works on display, the event intends to highlight both its cultural value, still in power to capture the attention of artists, and the criticality of its condition today.”

The exhibition highlights how much the author’s modus operandi is liable to a plurality of readings, all equally valid, now artistic in regard to the link between art and landscape, now philosophical in regard to the synergy between man and nature, and now ecological in regard to the knowledge of the environment.

Roberto Ghezzi’s Naturographies can thus be undertaken as an object of interdisciplinary comparison, particularly with the scientific sphere. They preserve in their constitution the biological and chemical properties of the habitat underlying their conformation, thus also corresponding to potential reservoirs of information regarding a specific place in a given time frame.

In this regard, in order to offer an exhaustive fruition of the artist’s work and practices, the exhibition of the works created in the bed of the “eternal river” will be accompanied as much by the related critical discussion as by technical-scientific reports elaborated by the academic subjects who collaborated on the project, through a moment of in-depth discussion scheduled at 6 p.m. that will precede the opening.

Roberto Ghezzi(Cortona, 1978), lives and works in Cortona. His training began within his family’s sculpture studio and improved at theAcademy of Fine Arts in Florence. He began exhibiting in the 1990s and his beginnings are related to painting. All his production is based on a strong interest in the natural landscape, which, in the early days, he investigates both through pictorial representation and through experimentation “in the field,” in direct contact with the natural environment. It is a study carried out over a decade, which, moving from a scientific approach of in-depth examination of organic reality, takes conceptual form through matter.

In the early 2000s, he presented to the public works related to the aforementioned research, matured over the years. Unpublished creations, which arise from studies and experiments on natural, often unspoiled places, and whose title Naturografie© has in itself the founding concept of both the final result and the process. The latter is an integral part of the work, in a journey to the origin of the relationship between artist and nature, where the medium is a space of communion between them. The artist creates with nature, but, at the same time oversees every stage of creation: from the determination of initial variables, to the time factor, to the final form.

Recent exhibition experiences include: AQUAE, curated by Start Cultura and EContemporary, Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Venice, IT (2023); CONTEMPORARY ECOSYSTEMS, curated by Bojana Janeva and Davide Silvioli, Museum of Contemporary Art of Skopje, NMK (2022); IMPERMANENT, curated by Cristian Porretta and Davide Silvioli, galleria d’art FABER, Rome, IT (2022); THE WRITING OF NATURE, curated by Inanna Riccardi, Sixty Eight Art Institute, Copenhagen, DK (2022); GENETICS OF SHAPE, curated by Davide Silvioli, Palazzo Collicola, Spoleto, IT (2022); THE LATITUDE OF ART, curated by Virginia Monteverde, Pulchri Studio, Den Haag, NL (2021).

For all information, you can visit the official website of the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Pictured: Roberto Ghezzi, Naturography of the Tiber (2022), detail

Rome, an exhibition showcases the Naturographies of Roberto Ghezzi

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