I seek cosmic spaces, skies, spaces that are distant but tactile. The spaces I seek are not so much in a surface as beyond it…Astral maps responded to the need for a relationship with the infinite, for a dilation and projection onto the distant… They are an invitation to travel.
Maria Lai
MUSMA (Museum of Contemporary Sculpture of Matera) continues to expand its collection by accepting new donations. During 2024, the museum will present works already in the collection on a rotating basis, making them interact with new works, both permanent and temporary, designed specifically for the museum spaces. The exhibition aims to make the language of contemporary sculpture more readable and to highlight the links and relationships between the artists. Thanks to the fruitful relationship with the Institute for Conservation and Restoration based in Matera, which contributes to the conservation and restoration of many works in the collection, some case studies have opened up new possibilities for debate in the field of contemporary restoration.
The first appointment is on 16 March at 6 p.m. with “Cartogramma”, the new permanent installation by Crisa in dialogue with the three works by the Sardinian artist Maria Lai, already in the museum’s collection.
The works are: ‘Cuore mio 2002’, ‘La torre, 1971-2002’ and ‘Sa domu de su dolu, 2002’. “La torre” attests to Maria’s great ability to recreate reality; to rewrite the memory of an object by offering it another dimension. The work consists of the assemblage of two groups of overlapping wooden frames, painted black and white, textures, knots of painted string. This description shows that the lower part of the work, the white part, is actually the 1971 Country Frame, which Maria rethought and reused to create the work commemorating the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York and which dates from 2002. Cuore mio and Sa domu de su dolu tell us about another Maria, the one who transforms into works the words written in the stories of Cambosu, her teacher, who teaches Maria the rhythm and breath of silent words. The threads, the breads, the three works of the ‘little goat anxious for precipices’ will enter into dialogue with the work of the Cagliari muralist Crisa who, in 2019, on the occasion of the centenary of the artist’s birth, commissioned by her family, created a graphic intervention on the façade of Maria’s studio in Cadeddu.
New “GEOGRAPHIES” will be born in the MUSMA hall, just as Maria used to say about them: “I seek cosmic spaces, skies, spaces that are far away but tactile. The spaces I seek are not so much in a surface as beyond it…The astral maps responded to the need for a relationship with the infinite, for a dilation and projection onto the distant…They are an invitation to travel. “The work that Crisa (Federico Carta’s artistic name) will create for the MUSMA, CARTOGRAMMA, this is its title, will be an invitation to go further: “An imaginary geography composed of sections or fragments of the world that will tell the story of a territory with its landscape and its urban change and depopulation. His key accompanies Matera to mirror itself in this vision.
The painting will be overlaid with ceramic sculptural inserts, painted and engraved; real focuses on the memory of humanity. A relic of memories that have come to define us, such concepts are migration, change, settlement and displacement.” In the portions of his geography, the Sassi, still and stable, are the guardians of historical time in this scenario, the reeds in the wind symbolising freedom that grow wild in the suburbs. threads connect human beings to the landscape. Crisa like a seismograph sensitively picks up the terrain and tries to trace the world.
Cartogramma. Crisa in dialogue with Maria Lai, MUSMA, Matera, 16.03 – 31.04.2024
images: (cover 1) Cartogramma, MUSA, Matera, exhibition view (2) Maria Lai, «La Torre», 1971 – 2002 – chassis, cm 271 x 183 (3-4) Crisa, Cartogramma, detail, ph. Luca Centola (5) Maria Lai, «Sa domo de su dolo», 2002, terracotta, cm 35 x 40 x 40 Donation Maria Lai, Cardedu, NU
