Il Cimitero della Memoria (Graveyard of Memory)

CURATED BY ANGEL MOYA GARCIA WITH CECILIA BERTONI

SILVIA GIAMBRONE, DAVIDE ORLANDI DORMINO, GIAN MARIA TOSATTI, BARBARA UCCELLI, ENRICO VEZZI AND CLAUDIA ZICARI

Il Cimitero della Memoria

The exhibition Il Cimitero della Memoria (Graveyard of Memories) – which can be visited as an indipendent installation - began as the third stage of the performance Riflessi in Bianco e Nero directed by Cecilia Bertoni. The première of the performance took place on 29-30 May 2010, during the Maggio dello Scompiglio event.

Cimitero della Memoria spread out through an area that was once an old vineyard, in the remains of the concrete pillars. Ephemeral memories, simulacra, empty spaces to walk through, libraries of forgotten fragments, private spaces, disregarded images, narrowed passages, mental places balanced between the past and present of the artists invited to reflect on and develop a subjective reading of memory.

Assimilation, retention, stratification, acquisition, and codification of notions, absorption of stimulus, translation into stable recordable internal representations, categorisation, labelling according to pre-existing patterns and categories, storage or stabilisation of information learned through experience. 


We barely know about the neurophysiological processes associated with memory and forgetting and we do not know yet how to pinpoint precisely their locations despite the purposes and concepts in defining memory. Can memory be considered a process or simply a collection of memories and mental images? An exact reproduction of the past or an approximate reconstruction? Can we consider ecmnesia the transformation of memories into actual experiences, a pathological weakness or a normal development of it? To what extent can we live in the present without being conditioned by or tied to the past?



Faced with this problem, eight artists were invited to put forward a perspective, an interpretation and a subjective reading of their own relationships to memory. The collection shows the paradox between the violent tension of their own past and the necessity for freedom in their own present.

Silvia Giambrone, Simulacra (Simulacrum), 2010
technique: bronze; environmental dimensions

Davide Orlandi Dormino, Untitled, 2010
technique: reinforced concrete and epoxy resin; dimensions: 600 x 400 cm

Gian Maria Tosatti, Le considerazioni sugli intenti della mia prima comunione restano lettera morta - spazio #03 (the dreamers) (Considerations on the Intent of my First Communion that are no longer relevant - Space #03 (The Dreamers), 2010
technique: iron, wood and glass, environmental dimensions

Enrico Vezzi, Arbitrary Gates, 2010
technique: three gates, modified hinges, spring mechanism, environmental dimensions

Claudia Zicari, Pensatoio (The Place where one goes to Think), 2010
technique: iron; dimensions: 250 x 50 x 50 cm

Barbara Uccelli  Sleeping-Beauty (2013)

technique: glass, stainless steel wire; environmental
 dimensions