The female condition in Donatella Giagnacovo’s exhibition opening in Perugia
Curated by Barbara Pavan
18 February – 18 March 2023
Opening 18 February 2023 at 5 p.m.
SCD Studio, via Bramante 22/n, Perugia
Info mob. +39 347 177 6001 | scdtextileandartstudio@gmail.com
Digital catalogue available on request
www.scdtextileandartstudio.wordpress.com
SCD Studio (via Bramante 22) a Perugia inaugura sabato 18 febbraio 2023, alle ore 17, “Il peso del vuoto” la mostra personale di Donatella Giagnacovo, a cura di Barbara Pavan.
SCD Studio (via Bramante 22) in Perugia will inaugurate Saturday 18 February 2023, at 5 p.m., ‘Il peso del vuoto’ the personal exhibition of Donatella Giagnacovo, curated by Barbara Pavan.
The exhibition
Donatella Giagnacovo comes from L’Aquila, for years she has placed the female condition at the centre of her research in its entirety, with this corpus of works intends to bring the focus back to the different declinations of discrimination against women, soliciting a capillary observation of phenomena, starting from a painstaking analysis of the words we use and their hidden meaning, of the thought they imply and which they unconsciously and unexpectedly betray. She does so by immersing the visitor in the midst of ghosts, women whose shells are left to evoke existences marked by a multiplicity of wounds – physical, spiritual, emotional – that are as deep as they are invisible; traumatic, painful, tiring experiences hidden in the folds of a normality that no one wants to investigate, buried under layers and layers of duties and prohibitions, weighed down in hell by the unbearable weight of guilt. It is the weight of emptiness, the infamous legacy of centuries of subjugation and dependence; as Giagnacovo says of one of her ethereal clothes/body – ‘nothingness dressing nothingness’.
The exhibition awakens the viewer from a torpor induced by an underestimation of the long shadows of the relational dynamics between individuals, between them and the communities in which they live, and between these and contemporary society: lulled by an ambiguous certainty that we have now brilliantly overcome the dark times of discrimination in our mature society, impermeable to sexist phenomena, we continue to consider every feminicide as a sporadic, tragic, single exceptional event.
The dramatic urgency of the many instances related to the feminine is rendered here by a monochromatic uniformity common to the entire corpus of works: white itself becomes language and metaphor of that ambiguity between being and appearing that often deceives our perception of reality. Evocative of an ideal of purity, unlike colour which is clamour, noise, chaos, white induces a condition of relaxed abandon, alluding to a domestic and secure quietness, emphasising how easy it is, reassured by appearances, not to realise the true substance of the things we see. We move for a long time among these light figures almost in a state of pleasant suggestion before we are able to hear and understand their voice and awaken from a sleep that is a refuge and defence from the ugliness of wakefulness to discover the poignant truth that white had so diligently guarded. We therefore transit with a new awareness through the exhibition’s itinerary in which we now recognise a modern and secular via crucis, atoning for the guilt of a widespread superficiality that is partly endemic to our times and often rests on the shoulders of the most defenceless. We certainly come away shaken by having suddenly lifted the veil on a reality that seemed different.
The artist hands over a witness, an invitation to go beyond the surface, to act with the purpose of changing things, to lighten that burden and fill that emptiness that is not only to be found elsewhere.
The exhibition will be open until 18 March 2023, by appointment on mob. 347.177 6001
L’artista consegna un testimone, l’invito ad andare oltre la superficie, ad agire per cambiare le cose, per alleggerire quel peso e colmare quel vuoto che non appartengono solo all’altrove.
La mostra sarà visitabile fino al 18 marzo 2023, su appuntamento al mob. 347.177 6001
The artist
Donatella Giagnacovo graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in the course of Decoration and obtained a second level degree in Visual Arts and Performing Arts – Decoration – Historical and Artistic Heritage. She teaches Drawing Laboratory and Art at the University of L’Aquila. She is a trainer in the field of art didactics and author of texts. As an artist, she seeks in a technical and expressive dialectic the constant tension between matter and form for an action aimed at the value of communication. In her artistic lexicon, thinking is sometimes reinforced by graphemes that interact or mutate the vision of material narrative details. The essential restitution is a communicative synthesis that plays on semblance, symbolism, metaphor and perception through the use of dialectic mediums ranging from textiles to papers to recycled plastics. Always attentive to social dynamics, she records emotional signals of a shared everyday life, which she considers binding. She pays much attention to the female condition, delivering an impactful and interlocutory dialectic to the visual experience. She has numerous exhibitions and publications to her credit, and has received national recognition and awards.
