Lycian Princess,
Marina Sant’Elena,
Venezia
“These works represent lovers, contemplatives caught in their emotional expressions. Expressions such as love which, like the sea and the wind, if it calms us today, supports us and elevates us, tomorrow will be able, in a single instant, to disturb and divide us”.
The artist Giovanni Pinosio inaugurates the 2022 Art Biennale sailing in the San Marco basin in Venice with a crew made up of sculptures embroidered in the air.
THE INSTALLATION ON BOARD
Allegoria del Mare set sail in the San Marco basin on April 20, 2022 aboard the Turkish gulet Lycian Pricess and an audience of no less than thirty people who, together with me and the artist, contributed to making the dreamlike journey of this group of sculptures more real than ever.
A perfect occasion given the theme of the 59th edition of the International Art Exhibition for which Cecilia Alemani, artistic director of the event, chose the title “The milk of dreams”. The inspiration comes from Leonora Carrington’s book of fairy tales in which the surrealist artist describes a magical world in which life is constantly reinvented through the prism of the imagination and in which it is allowed to change, transform, become something else. An imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of bodies and definitions of the human.
So what better way to respond to the creative invitation of Biennale Arte 2022 than by transforming its dreamlike manifesto into reality?
Thanks to my Artista a Bordo project, I had thirty meters of boat at my disposal to create a space capable of empathizing with the public.
An intimate place but at the same time open to change, where the perception we have of ourselves and of what surrounds us is constantly tested by the instability that distinguishes the sea.
Having already worked for some time with the Venetian artist Giovanni Pinosio, I knew he was the perfect person to take up this challenge and this is because his works are known to question the observer thanks to shapes and volumes that change depending on where you place them.
We got to work at the end of February 2022, taking advantage of the extraordinary maintenance period during which the boat was hoisted out of the water at the Chioggia shipyard.
Just one month later, at the beginning of April, we installed the final works on board Lycian Princess at the gulet’s usual berth in Marina Santelena, our starting point on our maiden voyage.
The Allegoria del Mare installation consists of three distinct works and their arrangement on board was as follows: reclining on the bow sofa, two embracing lovers observed the horizon almost merging into a single body. Behind them, the profile of a man sunbathing on his knees on the large raised deckhouse of the boat while, standing upright in mid-air holding on to the steel shrouds, a naked woman looked up and seemed to give herself to the wind as she leaned down inside the boat and its guests.
The Allegoria del Mare installation consists of three distinct works and their arrangement on board was as follows: reclining on the bow sofa, two embracing lovers observed the horizon almost merging into a single body. Behind them, the profile of a man sunbathing on his knees on the large raised deckhouse of the boat while, standing upright in mid-air holding on to the steel shrouds, a naked woman looked up and seemed to give herself to the wind as she leaned down inside the boat and its guests.
THE EXPERIENCE
The concept of my experience was based on the perception of our inner boundaries and the resulting responses in terms of actions in space in relation to the works that surround us. To give an example: if I feel love for what I am observing in this moment, I feel I am surpassing myself and then it will be natural for me to embrace the work in front of me. If I feel understanding, I will try to lie down next to it or otherwise, in case of disorientation, I will be tempted to rotate that figure, to place it elsewhere or simply to choose a different sculpture to interact with.
People are not used to touching the artist’s works with their hands, but with this traveling installation I have offered them an active role in history, making them not only protagonists of an artist’s journey but also responsible for the emergence and metamorphosis of a creative vision.
The traveling exhibition Allegoria del Mare remained open to the public throughout the month of May 2022. In June, the work “Amanti” was chosen by Arredo3 for the Milan Fuorisalone, remaining on display until August at the new showroom in Via Solferino.
Today the “Amanti” of Giovanni Pinosio continue its journey at the Galleria Sinopia in Rome.
Riccardo Benedini
