The opening is scheduled on Saturday 9 October at 11.30.
Reservation required: cultura.turismo@comune.spoleto.pg.it

Vittorio Messina has devoted a large part of his activity to the theme of Habitat and Building, focusing his attention on the iconography of “cells” and “rooms” as a basic element of architecture.

The open, enigmatic character of Messina’s works can be compared in part with the way of constructing thought and language of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, with the novels of the Prague writer Franz Kafka, or with the theories of quantum physics. Without ever basing his discourse on critical, political, social, economic or ideological content, Messina’s work is a clear metaphor for constructing the work of art as an activity that is always fluid, dynamic, mobile, concrete and at the same time mysterious, immaterial and metaphysical, a sort of building yard crossed by the demands of the present and the possibilities of the future.

As on so many other occasions, therefore, the artist has drawn up a specific project for the space – in this case the Piano Nobile of Palazzo Collicola – entitled Dishabitat, consisting of two large works conceived and created for the site, a project that is therefore situated in and derives from the nature of the site destined to host it, at the same time feeding a field of reflection on the topical conditions and emergencies of our time.

The essential reconstruction of a building cut out of the very floor of the Salone d’Onore of Palazzo Collicola entitled Dishabitat 1 (of which only the roof covering and part of the retaining wall made of gasbeton blocks can be seen), similarly to the transformation of the long Gallery into a space dense with red light entitled Dishabitat 2, define a residential itinerary in the form of a building site within spaces that today are strictly museum-like, but which in the past were the home and places of representation of the Collicola family.

Palazzo Collicola was built in 1730 by architect Sebastiano Cipriani, was bought in 1939 by the City of Spoleto. In 2000 it became the city’s Modern Art Gallery, and in 2010, the city’s Pinacoteca.

In a metaphorical sense, compared to the idea of an original habitat, already modified by its transformation into a museum, Messina has added another (hence the term dishabitat) with a conceptual and contemporary matrix, which makes his works true metaphysical and mental construction sites. The lowering of the viewpoint from the top of a house and the suggestion of a red light caused by the phenomenon of moving away (the typical physical effect of gravitational redshift), are therefore for Messina forms of distancing from time and place, but also of paradoxical rapprochement to the present, and of elevation of our perception and vision of the world.

The exhibition project benefits from the technical sponsorship of Leroy-Merlin and the support of Galleria Nicola Pedana, while the exhibition catalogue will be published during the exhibition.

Opening hours:
Palazzo Collicola – “G. Carandente” Modern Art Gallery
10:30-13:00/15:00-17:30
closed on Tuesday and Wednesday

Special openings
December: Wednesday 8, Tuesday 28, Wednesday 29; January: Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5
10:30-13:00/15:00-17:30