Sette Stagioni dello Spirito (Seven Seasons of the Spirit) by Gian Maria Tosatti is a site-specific project which led to the progressive reopening and regeneration of disused historical buildings in Naples. Radically transformed by the artist, they now appear in an exhibition at the MADRE museum.
Gian Maria Tosatti perceives cities as doppelgängers, an analogy of the human spirit, concrete projections of man’s inner thoughts and emotions. Tosatti’s idea of creating the imposing Sette Stagioni dello Spirito (Seven Seasons of the Spirit) project from 2013 to 2016 was inspired by St Teresa of Avila’s book The Interior Castle (1577), in which she divides the human spirit into seven mansions. These are represented by seven monumental environmental installations, using the same order as the seven chapters of the book, referencing literary and philosophical sources, historical and theological works, further figures, schools of thought and stories.
A narrative and philosophical work in progress, which redefines the relationship between art and the community – between works of art and their social and anthropological fabric – conceived as a single great visual performing tale. The project explores the city and the dimension of city life, linking the absolute of its ethical element to our present with all its conflicts and lacerations. The aim here is not simply to revive the memory of this experience by summarising it in a single perspective, but to offer another dimension: by reconstructing what goes on behind the scenes, Tosatti enables the public to follow the overall scenario, making them aware of an intimate, different, and necessarily selective dimension; memory, for example, while at the same time offering a new vision, thanks to the gallery context.
Start date
Saturday 17 december 2016
End date
Monday 17 april 2017
Museo MADRE
Via Luigi Settembrini, 79
80139 Napoli
go to site
Curated by
Eugenio Viola