Amici di Gabriele Mattera

We are pleased to present 'Klepsydra', the exhibition project by Thomas Lange, Valentina Palazzari and Mutsuo Hirano, curated by Davide Sarchioni, at the Aragonese Castle of Ischia from 17 July to 19 September 2021.

Inauguration Saturday 17 July, 9 pm.

The three artists involved, different in terms of languages, generation and origin, confront themselves with the fascinating architecture, spaces and glimpses of the ancient Castle, dense with historical and cultural stratifications, articulating a complex and variegated visual and meaningful itinerary conceived as a diffuse exhibition of new works and site-specific interventions to reflect on the relations between history, space and time.

The Greek term "Klepsydra" (Κλεψύδρα) is a reference to the ancient measuring instrument that restores the symbolic image of time and allows the tangible verification of its passing. Consisting of two overlapping conical vessels communicating with each other through a narrow passage, the hourglass symbolises the union between two polarities, between past and future, which converge at the centre to express the idea of an elusive present in continuous becoming, given by the continuous flow of sand or water. The artist's task is to investigate the 'form' of the present time, as an image of our time still at the mercy of changes and the effects of the health emergency, through the visionary force of gesture and sign that transforms space and subverts the state of things, emblematically overturning the hourglass to initiate a new course of events.

The exhibition is centred on the dialogue between Thomas Lange (Berlin, 1957) and Valentina Palazzari (Terni, 1975) who, following apparently antithetical approaches, reinterpret with a double gaze some of the most significant places of the Castle through interventions of various types, starting with the double installation realised in the eighteenth-century church of the Immacolata, as the fulcrum and pivot point of the entire project. The two works, conceived respectively for the dome and the floor of the building, connect what is above with what is below, the sky with the earth, as inverted projections, mutually specular and complementary, evoking both on a formal and conceptual level the dualism of the hourglass. The same, pressing dialogic tension generated between the works and in relation to the space, continues in the convent of Santa Maria della Consolazione up to the ruins of the Cathedral of the Assumption, following a path of free associations between images and signs, forms and materials. that generate a proliferation of echoes, references and reflections capable of immersing the spectator in a dimension suspended between past and future.

The exhibition is completed by the project of the Japanese-born artist Mustsuo Hirano (Hyogo, 1952), who has created an installation consisting of several terracotta and ceramic figures in dialogue with the medieval frescoes of the Gentile Crypt dedicated to St. Peter and located below the Cathedral of the Assumption, the result of the exchange and continuous confrontation between distant and opposing cultures, between East and West.

"Klepsydra" is a project organised by the Association "Amici di Gabriele Mattera" in collaboration with Terramedia. The exhibition experience will be reflected in a catalogue to be published in 2022.

(Photos: © Marco Albanelli - Amici di Gabriele Mattera)