IN AENIGMATE
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On Thursday 8 July 2021, in the Sala Bianca of Palazzo dei Priori in Volterra, "In Aenigmate" by Stefano Tonelli will be inaugurated. The environment, in the heart of the city, will be a work in progress that will last until 09 January 2022.
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IN AENIGMATE by Stefano Tonelli, in the Sala Bianca of Palazzo diPriori in Volterra. Tonelli returns to this beloved city 29 years after "Volterra dell'angelo", an exhibition project that he dedicated to a little angel of the Camaldolese Abbey. For my "presence" at Palazzo dei Priori in Volterra," says Stefano Tonelli, "I drew on St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, reflecting on a fundamental passage in this text: "Videmus per speculum in aenigmate" (Now we see as in a mirror, in a confused way, in the enigma). Through the image of the mirror showing enigmas, the Pauline letter seems to have been written "not yesterday", but today, and describes all too well the moment of crisis, catastrophe and change that our time is going through". The twenty-five canvases and two installations in the exhibition narrate the dramatic historical phase the world is going through. Frightened by the pandemic, flattered and raped by technology, lost in the infodemic," continues the artist, "we are witnessing a total change, "seeing" less and less, in a confused way, as in a mirror. We look a lot, we see little". The latest works that Tonelli is presenting in this ancient palace require precisely the ability to see, observation, research and silence. Moreover, the installation "of land, memory and shipwreck" helps the viewers to stay closer to the canvases and better follow the narrative path. Signs are signs, painting is painting," reiterates Tonelli. The canvases are seeds of questioning between what appears and what is, between living and having to die, searching for a meaning to this transit". These canvases include nine made between the end of February and the beginning of May 2020, during the first phase of the pandemic. They are executed with a fibrillation of tiny signs as a chronological testimony of that bewilderment, of that storm that did not come suddenly. "I remember the words of Pope Francis," Tonelli concludes, "in that extraordinary St Peter's Square, completely empty, wet with rain that seemed to have no end. "How could we think of living healthy in a sick world?". And all around the echoes of the ambulances and the images of the coffins in the military trucks in Bergamo. Now just over a year has passed, and things seem to be getting better in terms of health. What do we do now? If we pick up where we left off, I think we'll be faced with new ruins. If we decide to start again, perhaps we can reverse the course of history and move towards a new humanism and a new renaissance. The man who questions himself in the enigma will have to choose, he will have to see deeply, trusting in the sacredness of his free will.
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The sound atmosphere accompanying the exhibition is provided by Danny Lloyd, who, on the piece "Erbame dich, mein Gott", from the Passion according to Matthew by J.S. Bach, intervenes with sounds and noises inherent to the first pandemic phase of 2020.
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The Artist
www.stefanotonelli.it
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100031908562416
https://www.youtube.com/user/TonelliStefano
The exhibition
www.comune.volterra.pi.it.
https://www.comune.volterra.pi.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/5869
