Venia Dimitrakopoulou completes her Italian trilogy in Trieste with an exhibition dedicated to sound

The rooms of the Civico Museo Sartorio and San Giusto Castle in Trieste will host the third Italian solo exhibition of Greek sculptor Venia Dimitrakopoulou from April 13 to June 16, 2019. A review dedicated to the theme of sound, as reflected in the very title of the Trieste exhibition, Futuro Primordiale - Sound, curated by Afrodite Oikonomidou and Matteo Pacini.

In this new selection dedicated to sound are small and large-scale works, traditional sculptures and installations, writing and graphics. In the Civico Museo Sartorio, visitors will be greeted on the ground floor by the video Zoodochos Pighi(Source of Life, 2011), a dramatic work in the etymological sense of the term, in which the artist’s hands stand as a symbol of the generating force of the sculptural dimension, in an incessant metamorphic process of creation and destruction of form underscored by the music of noted contemporary composer Pablo Ortiz. On the second floor, you can admire Insomnia bed (2011), a large paper drape lying on the bed that stands out in the room, on which take the form of a kaleidoscopic annotation - with a technique akin to automatic writing and the stream of consciousness of Joycian memory - words in various languages, visions, epiphanies, afterthoughts, dreams, sensations, up to the most intimate and personal thoughts; all enriched by sound suggestions returned in narrative through the voice of the artist herself. This is followed by a site-specific sound installation composed in collaboration with Pablo Ortiz and an installation created from pivotal works from the entire trilogy.

“Sound has an enormous evocative power that comes from its abstract nature. It suggests narratives that each of us develops and completes at will in the privacy of our own minds. Like the proverbial Proustian madeleine a sound is able to bring back sensations from our lives, experienced in times long gone, and it also has the power to open a threshold to a new understanding of the world. The sounds in this installation are not meant to be heard: they simply contribute to the immersive nature of the experience. Listening to these sounds should almost subliminally complement the sensations provoked by the artworks on display,” said Pablo Ortiz.

The monumental Promahones (meaning Bastions), the artist’s iconic work, will be located in the San Giusto Castle: the imposing steel discs, frayed at the top, currently on display in the main courtyard of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, are here evoked through the video installation The Sound of Promahones, which returns sounds from the work itself reworked by Ortiz with the sculptor. Completing the exhibition are a number of warriors’ heads that symbolically refer back to the first exhibition in Palermo, concluding a path that is linear and circular at the same time.

“The trilogy concludes in Trieste, a city relevant both for its geographical location and its history. A crossroads that connects North to South, just like Greece. After all, duality is one of the main cornerstones of my work, as is also the space in between. Beginning in Palermo where Matter was the protagonist, with an intermediate stop in Turin with Logos, I now arrive in Trieste with Sound, that is, ”non-matter.“ An attempt to map the human condition and the cycle of life as I perceive it. The historical moment in which my crossing into Italy takes place is one of great change both in Europe and in the world. In this rather clouded landscape, art today can play an important role and the artist must face up to his responsibility. Memory and history are the thread that comes from the depths of time and I feel that if we can hold it tightly in our hands, it can guide us to the future with greater confidence. In Trieste I therefore attempt, through simple and intangible means, particularly through sounds, to activate memory. The individual and personal memory at the Sartorio Museum and the collective memory at the San Giusto Castle,” declares Venia Dimitrakopoulou.

The Trieste exhibition concludes the trilogy of Italian exhibitions organized by the Hellenic Cultural Foundation-Italy in co-organization; the final stage was organized with the Municipality of Trieste in collaboration with Artespressione of Milan, the artist’s reference gallery in Italy, and the Eastern Greek Community of Trieste.

The artist’s three exhibitions in Italy, in Palermo, Turin and Trieste, are part of the Tempo Forte Italia - Greece program, an initiative promoted by the Italian Embassy in Athens and sanctioned during the First Intergovernmental Summit between Italy and Greece, held on September 14, 2017 in Corfu, to support the strengthening of cultural relations between the two countries.

Ameeting with the artist will be held at San Giusto Castle onSaturday, April 13, 2019 at 12 noon.

Hours: Civico Museo Sartorio Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | San Giusto Castle daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Special openings: April 21, April 22 and May 1.

Tickets: Civico Museo Sartorio free admission | San Giusto Castle: included in the ticket price full 3 euros, reduced 2 euros.

Image: Venia Dimitrakopoulou, Insomnia Bed (2011; ink on paper) Ph.Credit Panos Kokkinias

Venia Dimitrakopoulou completes her Italian trilogy in Trieste with an exhibition dedicated to sound

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