Fiorella Rizzo solo exhibition “Via della Sapienza” at Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, is at once complex and multilayered but also incisive and balanced. It opens under the portico on the lower floor of the complex, taking the visitor, as a prelude, all the way to the baroque and sumptuous Sala Alessandrina, where the centre of the exhibition and the focus of the artist’s thought/action is to be found. In this ‘prelude’ we find ourselves relating to different bells – with different shapes and colours – with the last one made of gold resembling “thought”, the childhood game about a state change, the conceptual evolution from earth to heaven, the transformation from the material to what lies beyond it.
In this ‘external’ part of the exhibition we also find its genesis: the ‘Via della Sapienza’ plaque, echoing the former name of Corso del Rinascimento, the street which once housed La Sapienza University. The discovery of this curious antecedent led Rizzo to a significant reflection, based on metaphor, on the meaning of knowledge, the nature of what we can define as the ‘path of wisdom’ and the actual path of wisdom running through space and time and that finds in the State Archives located there the exhibition’s extensive and essential raw material and foundation.
And so, upon entering the Sala Alessandrina, we find ourselves in front of display cases, which are like islands, distant from each other but part of a common archipelago founded on knowledge – i.e. wisdom. There is also a dramatic quality, representing the extreme fragility of existence which, between rational knowledge and irrational living, is presented by various historical personalities and texts that concern or represent them. These are mirrored by the artist’s elegant scrolls, both cryptic and arabesque in their handwriting and radiant in their golden material, features complementing their meaning and actively transforming viewers.
One of the displays, the first we encounter (Lingue, 2023), is different from all the others. It acts as an introduction to the other six with sculptural golden tongues grafted to a spiral composed of various scrolls by the artist, invoking the Egyptian mummies found a while ago with golden tongues in their mouths. These were tools for transforming thought into words in the afterlife and represented a translation medium indispensable for transforming knowledge beyond the boundaries of the self.
Le sei teche ordinate, successive a questa (Manoscritti, 2023), invece, riprendono ciascuna un elemento conservato nell’Archivio di Stato che si relaziona ad un’opera di Rizzo: le ultime parole di Francesco Borromini prima di piantarsi la spada in petto (1667), l’estrema testimonianza di Giordano Bruno prima di essere arso vivo a Campo de’ Fiori (1600), il memoriale scritto da Aldo Moro nel periodo del sequestro ad opera delle Brigate Rosse (1978), il lunghissimo telegramma sulla spedizione di Umberto Nobile al Polo Nord, che terminerà con un brutto incidente (1928) e il quaderno autografo di Bellezza Orsini, accusata di stregoneria, morta suicida conficcandosi un chiodo in gola per evitare il rogo (1528). A queste cinque si aggiunge un’ultima teca in cui l’artista dialoga con un’incisione di Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi, disegnata da Pietro da Cortona, di Minerva che lotta contro i Giganti (ovvero della sapienza che sconfigge la brutalità e l’ignoranza) del 1677.
The six neat display cases that follow (Manoscritti, 2023), on the other hand, are each devoted to an item preserved in the State Archives relating to a work by Rizzo: Francesco Borromini’s last words before planting his sword in his chest (1667); Giordano Bruno’s last testimony before being burnt alive in Campo de’ Fiori (1600); the memorial written by Aldo Moro during the time he was held hostage by the Red Brigades (1978); the very long telegram on Umberto Nobile’s expedition to the North Pole, which ended in a devastating accident (1928); and the autographic notebook written by Bellezza Orsini who was accused of witchcraft and committed suicide by putting a nail in her throat to avoid being burnt at the stake (1528). In addition to these five, there is a final display case in which the artist engages in a dialogue with an engraving by Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi, designed by Pietro da Cortona, of Minerva fighting the Giants (i.e. wisdom defeating brutality and ignorance) from 1677.
Each invaluable item in the archive takes on the meaning of a relic, timeless and resonant with knowledge and emotional charge. Each item is reflected in a parchment scroll by the artist, using her intimate, unequivocal handwriting. These parchments are held open by sculptured casts of gilded hands and relate to the other sculptural elements falling somewhere between the conceptual and the substantial: the nail for Orsini; the mouth for the very long telegram from the North Pole expedition; another mouth, this time twisted, unable to speak, for Moro; the sword, in its most essential form, for Borromini; and, finally, a conceptual square bracket for Bruno.
Rizzo welcomes these wise testimonies with great care and respect, and relates to them as if they were real gold, and not books or papers. We approach them as we approach a light on the horizon, beyond our view. But then this essence infuses itself into the object holding it, which becomes a medium, a testimony, a mystical element – receiving more than it essentially is. And all this somehow returns close to these elements in her works, in her personal, elegant and balanced translation.
In addition to these displays, there are two major works. Lapidario (2015-18) is a sculptural-graphic diary, a tool for reflection with an aesthetic character in which writing, mathematical formulas, geometry, free drawing, sculpture and graphics all meet. Convito (2016-20) is a complex, multifaceted work, a table covered in diaries in different languages and sculptured amulets that speak only one language – the human one.
Between archetypal element and personal gesture, Fiorella Rizzo traces a ‘path of knowledge’ that also starts with the personal, the exemplary figures she has chosen to present in order to look beyond them, that is, to broaden our view of the meaning of knowledge itself. These are islands that turn into archipelagos, but even better, bonfires that become widespread fires, because knowledge (scientific, humanistic, emotional…) is disruptive, expanding beyond measure and all-consuming, as the key figures of this exhibition show us.
Fiorella Rizzo. “Via della Sapienza”, Archivio di Stato di Roma – Sala Alessandrina, 19.10 -15.12. 2023
The exhibition was realised as a collaboration between Archivio di Stato di Roma and Studio Stefania Miscetti
images (cover – 1) Fiorella Rizzo, «Via della Sapienza», exhibition view, Sala Alessandrina, ph: Sebastiano Luciano (2) Fiorella Rizzo, «Via della Sapienza – Via della Sapienza», 2023 ph: Sebastiano Luciano (3) Fiorella Rizzo, «Via della Sapienza – Manoscritti», 2023, ph: Sebastiano Luciano (4) Fiorella Rizzo, «Via della Sapienza – Lapidario», 2015-2018 and Manoscritti, 2023, ph: Sebastiano Luciano (5) Fiorella Rizzo, «Via della Sapienza – Convito», 2016-2020, ph: Sebastiano Luciano (6) Fiorella Rizzo, «Via della Sapienza», exhibition view, Sala Alessandrina, ph Sebastiano Luciano
