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Press Release

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Press Release PDF

opening: Saturday February 22nd 2020 | 6 pm - midnight


Via del Castello 11

San Gimignano (SI), Italy


Evergreen is a new annual event that will see a contemporary artist dialogue with the art of the past and, in particular, with ancient masterpieces and a master of twentieth century art. 

The artist invited to take part in the first edition of Evergreen is Berlinde De Bruyckere. Thanks to the collaboration with the galleries Bacarelli-Botticelli, Robilant Voena and Montrasio Arte, in the rooms of Galleria Continua the Belgian artist's sculptures encounter the paintings of Francesco Botti (Florence, 1645-1711), Piero Dandini (Florence, 1646-1712), Johann Karl Loth (Munich, 1632-Venice, 1698), Onorio Marinari (Florence, 1627-1716), Giuseppe Petrini (Carona, 1677-1755/9) and a body of works from the Sixties by the American artist, Salvatore Scarpitta (New York, 1919-2007).

Strongly influenced by art history and classical mythology, as well as by the daily reality of the breakdown of social structures, Berlinde De Bruyckere creates works which, via their own materiality, invite us to reflect on the human condition. In this exhibition, she presents two sculptures realised between 2019 and 2020, entitled "Marsyas". The mythological tale that tells of the torture inflicted by Apollo on Marsyas is a source of inspiration for Berlinde De Bruyckere. Marsyas was a satyr, a kind of genius of the waters, mountains and woods, and a skilled flute player. One day he recklessly dared to challenge Apollo, the god of music, who punished Marsyas for having competed with him by tying him to a tree and skinning him alive. This epic challenge reflects the struggle of the two "spirits" that live within man. The Apollonian one and the Dionysian one. Marsyas is condemned to his sad fate because of the pride that pushes him to subvert the hierarchies that order the relationship between the gods and other living beings; however, through his suffering, he is consigned to the eternity of myth, like a god. 

The sculptural volumes of "Marsyas", which take shape from the working of animal skins and wax, allude to the body through its absence. The body in its physicality emerges impetuously in the paintings that accompany the Belgian artist on this journey. Anatomical accuracy and the tradition of studying the human body from life are a constant in Piero Dandini's work, here present with a virile nude, alluding iconographically to the god, Vulcan. Giuseppe Antonio Pedrini's interest in describing the internal movements of his characters - often portraying just a single figure - is well represented by "The astronomer", the canvas on display in San Gimignano. Onorio Marinari rigorously pursued his inclination for the study of reality that emerges here in the expressive and sentimental tone of the "Magdalene", illuminated by a diaphanous sidereal light. 

If Berlinde De Bruyckere's work is a metaphor for the human condition and vehicle for communicating the suffering of living beings, Salvatore Scarpitta's bandages can be read in a dimension of humanity, of mending, of care. Breaking the classic rectangular structural schema, Scarpitta's works, created in the 60s with the bandaging technique, present themselves in the immobility that precedes destruction.