“What you cannot see/Attempting to See 試行、イメージへ)”, created by artists Federica Luzzi and Naoya Takahara accentuates the acoustic detail of the wooden floor of the Bruno Lisi Gallery when someone passes. The creators were inspired by this detail after reflecting on the connections between what was seen and perceived in Japan and Italy; connections that occur suddenly without any warning.
In the West, what might be considered a defect or limitation due to the wear and tear of material, in Japan becomes unique, like the nightingale floor/uguisubari.
Uguisubari, which produces a sound that can be heard at a distance when walked on (in temples, coming from connecting corridors, simple passages, it warns the monks when someone has entered), comes from the word uguisu, a small passerine bird (more often heard rather than seen) with plumage the colour of matcha green tea and whose breeding song can be heard in spring.
“Quel che non puoi vedere/Tentativi di visione 試行、イメージへ” presents the production of site-specific works and performances by various artists – Flavio Arcangeli, Melissa Lohman, Federica Luzzi, Simone Pappalardo, Marcello Sambati and Naoya Takahara – accompanied by a text by Pasquale Polidori. The works will be presented in a single performance, repeated in four separate events (Monday 4, Friday 15, Saturday 23 and 30 April), following and/or overlapping one another, integrating as a set of visions.
The physical paths to be taken are indicated not only by the works created by Federica Luzzi and Naoya Takahara, but also by the various elements, the objects of the place, as a result of their intrinsic nature. Perceptual experience can be disorienting and limiting, even modifying one’s usual movements and behaviour or reactivating those that have been dormant. It is the memory of objects, place, body.
The exhibition space outside the performance events will be closed to the public like a box in which container and content are potentially active, underlining the lighting (understood as vital breath) of the objects themselves in their state of being and interaction.
The space of the Bruno Lisi Gallery at AOC F58 opens up as never before with the sliding door and platform standing out, not only structuring the space itself but moving through openings and closures that determine its “breath”, as in traditional houses and Japanese temples where space flows from inside to outside, and vice versa, in continuous osmosis with the vegetation. This allows visitors to contemplate the details (activating all the senses) through sliding walls (shoji) and internal and external wooden walkways (engawa).
Works in the gallery space not only connect the various authors involved in the project (and who, while showing reciprocity, have worked independently) in a single body, but also reconnect obsolete objects and places (restored for the occasion) with those who, although absent, used them in the past. This constitutes a self-repeating narrative, as shown here in the attached Japanese folk tales and haiku on uguisu – material given to the various authors as their main stimulus, in addition to the sound of the flooring in situ.
This short passage, right next to the sliding door and the platform door, refocuses attention on the concept of the “depot”, a place for objects in transit – and our innermost impulses – in acts of custody and of return (happening suddenly and without warning).
Currently used only as a small warehouse, the artist Bruno Lisi once walked through this space when he returned home from his studio every evening, closing all these mysterious doors behind him.
Objects and places veiled in nostalgia, times lost and times found.
As pioneers of an unexplored space, the artists focus their attention on the one who walks (from the etymology of pioneer, from fr. piòn, sp.peon and peâo).
(from the Italian press release)
“What you cannot see/Attempting to See 試行、イメージへ)”, curated by Federica Luzzi, Naoya Takahara, AOC F58 – Galleria Bruno Lisi, Rome
Dates of the performances (it is repeated any half an hour):
– Monday April 4,2022, 7p.m.
– Friday April 15,2022, 7p.m.
– Saturday April 23, 2022, 7p.m.
– Satuday April 30, 2022, 7 p.m.
The Gallery is only opened during the days of the performance
Artists: Flavio Arcangeli, Melissa Lohman, Federica Luzzi, Simone Pappalardo, Marcello Sambati, Naoya Takahara with a text by Pasquale Polidori
