Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website Museo Novecento On the occasion of Florence Art Week presents Water Spell - Performance on the Arno, by Emiliano Maggi
september 21, 2022 - Museo del Novecento

Museo Novecento On the occasion of Florence Art Week presents Water Spell - Performance on the Arno, by Emiliano Maggi

curated by #carolinecorbetta Artistic direction by #sergiorisaliti

23 September 2022
6:45 pm
Ponte alla Carraia – Ponte Vecchio, Florence

The Museo Novecento, on the occasion of FAW – Florence Art Week, is delighted to present Water Spell, a project created by Emiliano Maggi (Rome, 1977), curated by Caroline Corbetta with the artistic direction by Sergio Risaliti.

The starting point for this dual project conceived by #emilianomaggi is the reworking of a mythical figure, the merman, which the Rome-based artist transforms into a sort of hybrid between man and animal, between male and female. Just as Ovid, in the first book of the Metamorphoses, describes a merman who rises out of the water playing a shell and announcing to the world the triumph of the gods and the supremacy of natural events over humanity, #emilianomaggi gives life to a series of alchemical creatures, bearers of a new, visionary harmony between man and nature.

The Arno river will be at the heart of the #performance, transformed by the artist into a sort of stage for his language that combines music, sculpture and choreography. For this occasion only, Maggi has decided to involve the Corteo Storico Fiorentino [Florentine Historical Procession] and I Renaioli [River Boatmen] in this #performance. Accompanied by a procession of clarions and drums, on board a boat, Maggi will travel backwards along the Arno, starting from Ponte alla Carraia and passing under #palazzocorsini (headquarters of the BIAF – International Biennial of Antiques in Florence), to arrive at the Ponte Vecchio. This nòstos, which is also metaphorical, conceals the artist's source of inspiration, enclosed in the history of civic art, in its public monuments, its iconographies and myths.

Through a completely personal expressive language, Maggi reworked the ancient representations of mermen like those that decorate the late 16th-century Fountain of Neptune in Piazza della Signoria or the frescoes by Vasari in the Sala degli Elementi in Palazzo Vecchio. The artist’s prevailing inspiration seems to be a rebirth of Renaissance and classical myths and fables. He is no stranger to chronological, thematic and iconographic hybrid forms where the human merges with the animal, for example, or the plant world with the marine world.

This was the inspiration behind the six versions, moulded in clay, and made on the occasion of the RINASCIMENTO+ award.

"RINASCIMENTO+, the international recognition that enhances the role of modern collecting and patronage in our city, this year is enriched by the contribution of a leading artist such as #emilianomaggi," highlighted Alessia Bettini, Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Culture. "With Water Spell, an imaginative #performance that will take place along the Arno River, Maggi renews the ancient tradition of Renaissance performances, thus generating a new way of living and looking at a portion of urban territory that we want to increasingly enhance."

“Mounting a #performance with spectacular segments on the Arno between the Ponte alla Carraia and the Ponte Vecchio, with the Ponte Santa Trinita in the centre, is a way to see a rebirth of the ancient staging and spectacles organised by the Medici court on the river”, adds Sergio Risaliti, Director of the Museo Novecento. “With this operation, the Museo Novecento continues its activity outside the walls of the former Leopoldine and this time, the relationship is not with museum venues, as on other occasions. The Arno is the elected stage space, bringing back to the centre of the contemporary artist's inspiration the river that crosses the city, the water – as a precious asset – the ancient myths, the fairy tales. It intertwines a backward narrative that slides from the present towards a past that is neither dead nor immobilised, but a fluid presence, a latent energy that surfaces thanks to the powerful inspiration of an artist like #emilianomaggi, who habitually works on the theme of metamorphoses and hybrid nature”.

“For the 2022 edition of the prestigious initiative - which recognises the role of art collectors and their contribution to contemporary works from a culture that can only be revived through courageous experimentation - the artist conceived a character with a blend of invention and tradition, from a vision that both looks to the past but, at the same time, embodies a vital desire for transmutation”, says Caroline Corbetta, the project curator who has followed the artist's work since its beginnings. “The series of six ceramic sculptures, with both glossy and matte finishes that heighten formal ambiguity and sensuality, which constitute the many awards, is entitled Water Spell, precisely like the #performance on the river. Both projects, among the various themes that are layered and constantly surfacing in them, recount the power of water, a precious and terrifying element that both generates and destroys life. From the water that is too scarce and produces the scourge of drought to abundant water that overflows and engulfs everything. Maggi refers to an ancient coexistence between man and nature based on a delicate balance, and too often forgotten, by creating precious objects and ritual performances to keep fear at bay; tools for an apotropaic spell that attempts a necessary reconciliation between what is human and what is natural”.

With Water Spell, myths and iconographies from the past re-surface, revitalised, showing their eternal relevance and confirming the substantial role of art in shaping a sustainable future.
The Water Spell #performance is realised in collaboration with the Corteo Storico [Historical Procession] and I Renaioli [River Boatmen].

BIOGRAPHY

Emiliano Maggi, born in Rome in 1977, explores the constitution and disintegration of the self through works that, expanding the range of figurative representation, evoke abstract regions beyond the realm of recognisability. The research focuses on the human form which, in the artist's vision, includes not only the body but also the mind, the imagination and the soul.

His works originate from an intuitive relationship with a wide range of techniques and materials - from painting to sculpture, from #performance to dance, to the composition of sounds and musical elements - to form a world where cultural anthropology, iconography of fairy tales, horror cinema, fantasy and science fiction, erotic literature and rural imagery intertwine.

In recent years, the artist has been favouring ceramics to refer to the human body indirectly, also through clothing or footwear, to affirm the value of ambiguity, liberating the imagination towards a freer, more pluralistic and unconventional reality.

Further information in the press release to download

You might be interested in

may 17, 2021

The Galleria Poggiali of #pietrasanta opens the summer exhibition season with a solo show by  Francesca Banchelli (Montevarchi, 19...