Edited by Melania Fusaro.
Among the significant voices of the contemporary art scene, GildaPan, one of the winners of the first call for contemporary art announced by the Municipality of Naples for 2024 with the Art éco project, presents the solo exhibition “laformadelleonde” at the Spazio 57 Art Gallery. Curated by Melania Fusaro and the Social Cooperative Culturadice, the inauguration of the exhibition represents a concrete path of awareness on environmental and social issues through art.
GildaPan's Eco-Ethical-Aesthetic Message
GildaPan has demonstrated an eco-ethical-aesthetic position since the beginning, actively denouncing marine pollution caused by plastic and abandoned fishing nets both through volunteer work with various environmental protection associations and with the creation of “Le orme sull'acqua.” This series of digital collages, awarded with various prizes and exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Italy and beyond the Alps, represents only one stage of his vast artistic production. Now, in Naples for the first time, GildaPan proposes the artistic research “Parole in luce.” The protagonist is memory and its transmission through the book, in a profound reflection on the fate of printed paper in the era of the digitalization of knowledge.
Paper as a Source of Suggestion
In this new series of works, paper is not used by the artist as a mere material. It becomes, through the words it holds, a source of suggestion for the creation of a heterogeneous series of installations, papier collé on canvas and design objects. All these are made with the still legible pages recovered from her old books found irremediably compromised due to humidity. In some works, these pages are treated with natural pigments, spices and dyeing herbs, demonstrating GildaPan's extreme sensitivity towards the environment and the desire to restore, through upcycling, dignity and value to paper otherwise destined for the landfill.
Critical Reflections on the Exhibition
Rino Mele, in the critical essay in the exhibition catalogue published by Il quaderno edizioni, offers a reflection on the technique and message of GildaPan's works: "What does Gilda Pan want to tell us in the brief and careful sequence of these works? That technique - her way of representing - must be pushed out, into the horizon of the gaze, not kept hidden (Brecht said so, for the theatre) because it contains essential political and aesthetic communications: as when, through sea salt, Gilda Pan repeats the obsessive anxiety of the waves in their infinite repetition of the same sign that sinks."
Special Sections of the Exhibition
The exhibition also includes a small section dedicated to the preview of the new research [reliquia], in which GildaPan uses elements such as hair, tears, stones and words written in blood to take a stand on the issue of violence against women, focusing on the desperate situation in Iran. In addition, a third section on the upper floor of the gallery, which houses the Rosini-Gutman Collection of the homonymous gallery in Riccione, exhibits works inspired by an ancient female tradition from Procida. These works are exhibited alongside masterpieces by artists such as Beuys, Wharol and Schifano. The exhibition has received the patronage of several institutions, including the Regional Council for the Condition of Women, Legambiente Campania, Unione Europea Esperti d'Arte, Culturadice, Museopossibile Arte contemporanea, and Ephymera Art.
Practical Information on the Exhibition
The exhibition “laformadelleonde” will be open from June 22nd to 29th at Spazio 57 Art Gallery, located in Via Chiatamone 57, Naples. Visiting hours are Tuesday to Friday, from 15:00 PM to 19:00 PM, and Saturday, from 10:30 AM to 19:00 PM.
Article published on 11 June 2024 - 18:00
