Immersions
curated by Anna D’Elia
Artworks by Agnese Purgatorio, Alessia Rollo, Carlo Michele Schirinzi, Cosimo Terlizzi
Friday 4th August
In the dark space turned aquarium, the viewer is a swimmer, who releases tension and dives into the artwork. The gaze slows down and ponders. Diving is deep reading and listening, it is a shock and a buzz.
Pino Pascali loved the sea and underwater fishing. He was an expert in Polignano’s seabed. Agnese Purgatorio leads a mother and her daughter on those underwater reefs, thus associating the image of diving into the sea to the idea of an internal journey and inviting us to plunge into their depths. The abyss becomes the field for new battles, a space where to ponder quietly. However, the sea was for Pascali also the place where ships sink, and it is on this image that Carlo Maria Schirinzi chooses to focus, identifying the viewer as the castaway. Looking requires the viewer to dive into the image and its layered worldliness. It is a sort of plunge that comes very close to enchantment.
Once Pino wore a pair of rhinoceros horns and a straw skirt, took up a pitchfork and retraced the path of humanity back to its origins. He did so because he loved the rituals that connected the living to the universe. Nowadays even rituals are dirty, like air, water and soil. Alessia Rollo cleanses them of the layer of time and history. As far as she is concerned, diving equals digging into cultural layers and freeing them from stereotypes, thus giving images a new meaning and new authority. In her works, ancient rituals blossom like gems in spring. Just like the gems that Cosimo Terlizzi films in slow motion, thus showing us the secret life of plants, insects, fungi and animals, in order to reveal the mystery of seasons and its metamorphosis.
