LEGÀMI: When Sculpture Meets Fiber Art
curated by Dina Pierallini and Valentina Redditi
in collaboration with Daniela Magnetti
May 20 to July 1, 2023
Vernissage: Saturday, May 20, 5:30 p.m.
Finissage: Saturday, July 1, 5:30 p.m.
Oratory of the Holy Sudarium
Biella – Corso del Piazzo, 2
VISITING HOURS:
Thursday groups by reservation
Friday from 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Free Entrance
Opening on Saturday, May 20, 2023, and open until Saturday, July 1, 2023, is the exhibition LEGÀMI – When Sculpture Meets Fiber Art, curated by Dina Pierallini and Valentina Redditi. A collection of contemporary artworks by eleven artists of international caliber that will enliven the ancient Oratory of the Holy Shroud in the historic village of Piazzo in Biella. The exhibition is co-produced with the Art Direction of Banca Patrimoni Sella & C.
There were many close collaborations with the territory, starting with Lanificio Rogna, which, with its values, and experience, and tradition, supported and donated the fabric with which artist Elizabeth Aro created the work “The Rings of Time,” a gigantic chain that recalls, even in its colors, the union between the textile work and the buildings of the historic village of Piazzo, between the creativity of the weavers and that of the artist, between the family and the territory.
Another supportive reality of the LEGÀMI project was the Associazione Trame Biellesi, a women’s association of patchwork, quilting and creative sewing that prefers the use of wool fabrics from Biella, which sewed and created with Elizabeth Aro the work The Rings of Time.
Students from classes 1F, 1G, 1H of Liceo Artistico G. e Q. Sella of Biella, thanks to the collaboration of Professor Albini, professor of plastic disciplines and head of the Liceo Artistico, and Professor Nuzzi, professor of Plastic Arts, were involved in the creation of a giant ball of wool that will serve as a reminder and will be displayed at the entrance to the LEGÀMI exhibition.
Another important connection for the exhibition event is the collaboration with the Association A.L.I.Ce. Biella, which through the LEGÀMI exhibition, in addition to spreading its message, will use the donations received in the creation of art workshops for stroke patients.
The Perosi Academy Foundation will accompany the LEGÀMI vernissage on Saturday, May 2023 with a concert. Concerts will follow during the exhibition event on Thursday, May 25, 2023 – Friday, June 9, 2023 – Thursday, June 22, 2023.
The artistic direction of Banca Patrimoni Sella & C., in order to promote and enhance the initiative, is dedicating a solo exhibition at its Turin institutional headquarters to Nazareno Biondo, among the 11 artists featured in the Biella exhibition.
Suoni Sospesi, curated by Daniela Magnetti, will be on view free of charge from May 16 to Sept. 22, in the exedras of Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin
The itinerary selected by the curator relates the visitor to the works through the magic of a thousand suspended vibrations of aphonic strings, whose rhythms are marked by the different chromaticity of the veins and the unusual plasticity of the shapes. The marbles shaped by Biondo spread a thousand sonorities capable of creating an evocative path made of matter and spirituality with an explicit reference to the Biella installation.
CRITICAL TEXT
An unprecedented way of immersing oneself in art, a dialogue that, it really has to be said, weaves threads of comparison and opens up to unprecedented artistic perceptions: this is Legàmi, the exhibition curated by Dina Pierallini and Valentina Redditi that, in the former Church of the Confraternity of the Holy Shroud in Biella, provides the public with an unprecedented path on contemporaneity in conversation with the ancient. Fiber Art, in fact, meets sculpture in an environment dense with history, managing to make sense also of the relationship between art and territory, between manufacturing and artistic productivity.
Eleven sculptors who, also stimulated by the context, have shaped a series of works that aim to highlight the connection between the solid, pregnant forms of the works themselves and their surroundings, thanks in part to the threads that weld, unite and bring past and present, reality and imagination closer together.
The exhibition, which has the patronage of Biella Unesco Creative City, the Province of Biella, the City of Biella, the Municipality of Pietrasanta , the Versiliana Foundation, StArt (Save Tourism&Art), the Atl of the Province of Novara and Tourism Biella, Valsesia, Vercelli, as well as the support of several sponsors, will be open to visitors from May 20 to July 1, 2023, and will be accompanied by a number of events, which will help develop a series of artistic contaminations that are a sign of the vitality of the area.
The featured artists are: Elizabeth Aro, Nazareno Biondo, Teodolinda Caorlin, Edi Carrer, Veronica Fonzo, Emanuele Giannelli, Florencia Martinez, Monica Paulon, Flavia Robalo, Raffaele Russo, Petros Vrellis.
Federica Mingozzi – art critic
ARTISTS:
ELIZABETH ARO artist from Argentina, has established her residency in Milan. She uses various languages and materials to make her installations. Working with fabric for her is to use a delicate material to face a more flexible world, more dreamlike, elastic, malleable and above all contain a rhythm of their own of which the artist is only the interpreter.
NAZARENO BIONDO an artist from Turin, with his works documents what is happening in front of everyone’s eyes, without judging or criticizing, he represents our age as it is, without saying what is right or wrong. In his sculptures are enclosed as in a casket the human moods of contemporary society and especially the feeling of feeling used for specific purposes, only to be discarded and abandoned.
TEODOLINDA CAORLIN Venetian artist deserves special mention for her wonderful technique that with cotton and gobelin canvas creates breathtaking two-meter high paintings on the loom, materializing with thread, warp and weft, the emotions that grip our time. It took him two years to make them because, as an Italian proverb says, “Weaving wants neither anger nor haste.”
EDI CARRER from Pordenone, Italy, works in Pietrasanta. Conceptual artist whose work has always succeeded in questioning the perception of context. She participates in various international sculpture symposia and numerous contemporary art exhibitions, and in 2012 she was among the artists selected for the Sculpture by the sea exhibition in Australia.
VERONICA FONZO artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives and works in Pietrasanta. Assistant to important Argentine masters, she moved to Pietrasanta to perfect her skills. His creations have a particular style, easily recognizable among thousands of others: children, women and horses are the main protagonists. Marble, bronze, wood and resin, many materials and colors, but the same sober and distinct “feminine writing” that will lead her to International recognition and awards.
EMANUELE GIANNELLI Roman artist, transplanted to Pietrasanta. He grew up in punk and cyber punk culture, experimenting with new materials and techniques with impetuous curiosity and consciousness, but also experimenting with the world, until he found his own narrative, which almost like an obsession returns in all his works and which we still see today: the human figure in the grip of contemporary chaos and transformation.
FLORENCIA MARTINEZ a multifaceted artist, Italian-Argentinian, Milanese by adoption. The choice of fabric for her has a motivation rooted in the need to communicate in other ways: it is a transversal material, everyone’s, present everywhere, humble, malleable, it contains and can also expand. Her works touch on the theme of the role of women, family dynamics, historical memories, places and the construction of identity.
MONICA PAULON artist from Como, Italy. She communicates through natural materials found in her territory, traditionally devoted to silk weaving, with a technique as ancient as felting. She uses only organic material, living matter still imbued with stories to tell, which she searches for, collects, recovers and transforms personally, without the aid of tools, into works of extraordinary emotional intensity.
FLAVIA ROBALO artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives and works in Pietrasanta. Student and assistant of sculptor Orio Dal Porto. In 1997 she undertook her first trip to Pietrasanta, where she continued her training as a sculptor and where she began to exhibit her works in a meticulous succession of works of extraordinary intensity. This path will lead her to obtain International recognition and awards over the years all over the world.
RAFFAELE RUSSO artist from Biella city where he lives and works. He attended art workshops in Pietrasanta to improve himself. Attracted by experimentation with different materials he prefers marble, the expressive and sensory potential of which he investigates. Always in search of the essence of form, he creates chromatic and perceptual contrasts in a dialogue between light and shadow in order to reveal the fascination of matter, prompting a careful analysis of surfaces.
PETROS VRELLIS Greek artist, with him any digital image can be converted, thanks to an algorithm he created, into an image reproduced with wires. These are indeed handmade works even though there is no knitting, as traditionally understood, within the loom. The one proposed is, therefore, a new way of making art, of creating images with traditional tools but rethought through technological innovations.
LOCATION
Around the mid-1600s, the Confraternity of the Holy Shroud, which had its headquarters at the small oratory of S. Rocco dell’Ollera, in Costa del Vernato, decided to build a new church at Piazzo by purchasing the land bordering Palazzo Ferrero.
It is reported that, after years of bureaucratic formalities with the Bishopric of Vercelli and with the Ferreros, work began around 1670 to last, amidst ups and downs, until around 1760 when it is certainly known that it was completed to the design of engineer Beltramo. In the years between 1755 and 1790 the Oratory of the Holy Sudarium experienced the most splendid moment of its history; many donations of both precious vestments and objects for worship in gold and silver were bestowed upon it.
During Napoleonic rule, between 1792 and 1794, the Church was completely stripped of its property. In 1807 the Bishop of Vercelli, on whom Biella depended, dissolved the confraternity and closed the Church to worship.
In 1834 the oratory of the S. Sudario was sold to Carlo Ferrero della Marmora, who restored it by demolishing and rebuilding the chancel and high altar, and in 1841 it became the headquarters of the Compagnia delle Figlie di Maria del Piazzo.
In the late 1960s it was purchased by Prof. Sandro Maria Rosso with the intention of creating a space dedicated to the arts and music.
The family, collecting the material and spiritual legacy entrusted to it, in the year 2000 on the occasion of the Jubilee and the concomitant Ostension of the Holy Shroud, in collaboration with and under the patronage of the Piedmont Region and the Association of Italian Historic Houses, carried out the final restoration of the facade and the interior, restoring the church’s ancient dignity with the aim of promoting an active place in hosting cultural events. The restoration project is by architect Ippolito Calvi of Bergolo.
COLLABORATIONS
THE WOOLEN MILL ROGNA
The weaver’s craft has ancient roots, and in Biella knowledge and skills have been formed over the ages that are difficult to replicate elsewhere. Lanificio Rogna combines the creative experience, gained by its founder, with some of the most prestigious Italian men’s fashion brands with the best textile drapery tradition of Biella. A link between tradition and modernity, between the ancient village of Biella Piazzo where Leonardo resides with his family and where there are the city’s most beautiful buildings, now home to a widespread open-air museum and cultural reference of every Biellese citizen.
THE BIELLESE WEFTS
Women’s association of patchwork, quilting and creative sewing that prefers the use of Biellese wool fabrics. They organize and participate in industry exhibitions, workshops and fairs.
G. and Q. ARTISTIC LICEO. SELLA OF BIELLA
We accepted the invitation because it is always a great opportunity for the children to learn first of all about initiatives related to the art world in the area, and secondly because getting to know, and having a space alongside artists of international caliber is a moment of personal, educational and cultural growth of great value.
Professor Nuzzi Professor of Plastic Arts
The Liceo Artistico accepted this proposal because it was considered first and foremost an inclusive and collaborative artistic action. The desire to see the children at work and to try their hand at creating a choral sculpture excited the plastic arts teachers, who made the students of 1F, 1G, 1H actively participate. Why them? Never as in these years have we understood the value of being together, of collaborating having as the ultimate goal a very noble thought that is so dear to us: art. The possibility of then exhibiting the artifact alongside internationally renowned artists honors our high school, which left in the hands of the little artists the creation of a giant ball of yarn that will serve as a reminder of the exhibition Legàmi
Professor Albini teacher of plastic arts and head of the art high school
ASSOCIATION A.L.I.Ce. Biella
“In the world of A.L.I.Ce., art comes in disruptively to help stimulate brain areas affected by stroke, but it doesn’t stop there. Art is a liberating tool that allows people to discover and rediscover misunderstood abilities and creativity. Participating in this event creates an opportunity for A.L.I.Ce. users to generate “bonds” that are a moment of reflection on the healing role that art possesses, and an opportunity to help our foundation be more and more active and present in the community.
