With the present project, FAU literally invites readers to a journey through the ironic, bewildering mind of the young Swiss artist Oppy De Bernardo. A glossy white box subtly reminding us of some vague yet unmistakable iconography, discloses a black and gold book that, besides of being an articulate recapitulation of the artist’s imagery, mirrors the very same experience which spectators undergo by entering “Scacciapensieri”, the site-specific installation that De Bernardo has created for the Ala Est of the Museo Cantonale di Lugano.
‘Scacciapensieri is a work that compels us to complete a journey […] intended to push us to that boundary zone between life and death […] The visitor is catapulted into the unreal dimension of an architecture dominated by a pervasive whiteness that totally transforms the usual articulation of the space […] an alienating environment devoid of all spatial referents, provoking the sensation that we are detaching from earthly reality and entering a dimension of pure light, in keeping with the accounts of those who have had near-death experiences.
At the end of this journey which seems to have led us into an ultra-terrestrial dimension of pure light, we find […] the insoluble bond that joins life to death, despite their irreducible discongruity. Indeed, it is only from the death of the individual that humanity and the “preciously precarious” of which Borges speaks can come to life.’
Excerpt from the book text, by Elio Schenini.
Title:
Scacciapensieri
Project by:
Fine Arts Unternehmen & Museo Cantonale di Lugano
Curated by:
Elio Schenini
Text:
Elio Schenini
Language:
Italian / English
Design:
Sidi Vanetti
Pages:
120
Format:
20 x 21 cm
(soft cover + box)
Illustrations:
51, b/w, gold
(12, b/w, gold; 37, b/w)
Published:
April 2012
Price:
€ 28
Codes:
ISBN-10 3-03720-017-0
ISBN-13 978-3-03720-017-9
EAN 9783037200179 |
