We can all creatively transform society: Virginia Zanetti's exhibition

From May 7 to June 6, 2021, Palazzo d’Accursio in Bologna, home of the city hall as well as the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte, hosts Be a Poem, a solo exhibition by Virginia Zanetti (Fiesole, 1981), one of the most interesting names in young contemporary Italian art. The exhibition, which is part of the Art City Bologna 2021 program and is curated by Matteo Innocenti, shows the public a number of recent series of works representative of the artist’s overall research. The title Be a Poem comes from the most recent series created by the artist: it refers to the possibility of each individual to act creatively and incisively in the transformation of society.

For the occasion, Zanetti presents to the public past and unpublished projects, which are interrelated in the creation of a common discourse: the series on view are Be a Poem (Villa Romana, Florence, 2020), Para onde estamos indo? (Magic Carpet, Lisbon, Portugal, 2019), Abissi (Manifesta 12, Palermo, 2018; Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Zurich, 2019), I Pilastri della Terra (various places, 2016 - ongoing). The exhibition, which takes place in the exhibition halls on the second floor of Palazzo D’Accursio, questions the relationship between individual responsibility and historical future, with reference to contemporaneity, considering as a fundamental element for any change precisely “being poetry,” that is, the choice to act in a personal and creative way; as the artist argues, “It is necessary to believe in the potential of each person. Transformation depends on inner determination, that is, on that growth of the vital condition that is able to empower us and inspire others toward an improvement, harmonious, of society.”

The idea of the review comes from The Pillars of the Earth: it is a project articulated through workshops and laboratories in order to perform collective performative actions in which groups of people, simultaneously, place their hands on the ground to erect their bodies and feet upward. Thus, in Virginia Zanetti’s intentions, each individual becomes a pillar, able, together with others, to hold up the world: the purpose is to turn the point of view upside down, sharing the experience with people from different backgrounds, creating a heterogeneous wandering community in search of a new ethics. The work explores the concepts of rebirth, resurrection, revolution and resistance, and was developed from the first performance that took place in 2016 in India, to the last chapter, curated by Adiacenze and sponsored by ANPI, in collaboration with the Technical Institute Salvemini of Casalecchio di Reno as part of the theater workshop directed by Massimiliano Briarava, which took place in June 2019 in Sabbiuno, Bologna, at the Parco dei Calanchi - a place of great historical importance where the monument, shrine to the fallen of the anti-fascist resistance, is located.

Hence the collaboration with the Museum of the Resistance in Bologna, the Istituto Storico Parri and the Istituzione Bologna Musei, which led to the creation of the new exhibition Be a Poem, on the occasion of which the work I Pilastri della Terra - Monumento ai caduti della Resistenza partigiana, Sabbiuno, Bologna, 2019, is proposed as a donation in permanent form in the collection of the Municipality of Bologna.

The exhibition opens Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (last entry 5:40 p.m.), Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free admission.

Virginia Zanetti works in unconventional venues as well as in Italian and foreign institutions for culture and contemporary art such as Man in Nuoro, CCC Strozzina in Florence, CAC Pecci in Prato, Mac in Lissone, Italy, Kunsthalle in Bern, and the Italian Cultural Institute in New Delhi and Zurich. He has won awards such as the 2015 Movin Up Prize from MIBACT and the International Competition for Artists to Create Permanent Artworks for Palazzo di Giustizia in Florence in 2017, the First Maccaferri Prize for Photography, Artefiera, Smartup Optima 2019, Naples and Level 0, ArtVerona 2020. Her work and texts are featured in publications such as A Cielo Aperto and Breve storia della curatela di Hans Ulrich Obrist, postmediabooks, Milan.

Pictured: Virginia Zanetti, The Pillars of the Earth.

We can all creatively transform society: Virginia Zanetti's exhibition

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