“In these object trouvés I found the symbolic removal of infinite stories, a metaphor for the forgetfulness that envelops our present. It is the trace of a dissolved time, testimony of so many concealed existences”. (Gianluigi Colin)
This volume, edited by Achille Bonito Oliva, documents Gianluigi Colin’s complex, monumental exhibition at the Volumnia Gallery in Piacenza (Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, 23 September – 19 November 2022).
Gianluigi Colin (Pordenone, 1956) has been working on the dialogue between images and words for many years. His work focuses on media systems, the dimension of time and the value of memory. The artist himself emphasises the nature of his artistic intervention: “Canvases taken from the heart of the world of communication on which I have intervened by assembling discontinuous fragments in an arbitrary reconstruction: imprints taken from many lives, dissolutions of infinite stories”. Considerations that gave rise to the title of the exhibition: Quel che resta del presente (What Remains of the Present).
The exhibition venue, the 16th-century Church of Sant’Agostino, was desecrated by the Napoleonic army, and Gianluigi Colin wanted to recall this historical event by reconstructing blindfolded symbolic heads, thus inviting us to reflect on the iconoclastic culture and the practice, very much in vogue today, of cancel culture. The over 60 canvases distributed in the side aisles and the site-specific installation in which large drapes descend from above and envelop the space, as traditionally happens during special liturgical events, give rise to a reflection on the tradition of the relationship between history, art and the church.
€ 28,00