PAOLO VIVIAN AND HIS EXHIBITION " MAPPA MEMORIA: [im]POSSIBILI UTOPIE"

mappa memoria : (im) possibili utopie
PAOLO VIVIAN
a retrospective exhibition
paintings, sculptures and installations
22 | 11-14 | 12 | 2014

VENUES: 
Pergine  Valsugana  (Trento) , Italy
- Exhibition Hall of the Municipal Theatre | Piazza Garibaldi, 5 / H
-Sala Maier, Piazza Serra
CURATORS: 
Dora Bulart and Paul Zammatteo
ORGANIZED:
Municipality of Pergine Valsugana (Trento), Italy

the abstract:
The project mappa memoria: (im)possibili utopie is a kind of artistic “cartography” of the work of Paolo Vivian, a special journey into the depths of his Alter Ego. The anthology covers the historical period of 30 years that has generated the various stages of creative growth, the formation of the art equipment, the development of the style and art identity. In the centre of the presentation, which is orchestrated by means of modern philosophy, mental mapping and game associations, are placed the author’s researches into the field of collective memory in the dialog with his own philosophy for utopia, the inner perfection and ideal beauty. It is as an artistic revelation of human longing for Shangri-La, a journey to the new Promised Land, an urge of the spirit to absolute freedom and spiritual purity. For Paolo Vivian the memory is an artistic tool, a password for access, a language for communication and the muse, and the object, and the path.

image: Paolo Vivian "Bar Code of correct memories", wooden object, wooden colored cubes, 2014; 

photo credit : Paolo Vivian, ANB  

The anthology allows you to explore this particular imaginative world, full of inner contradictions and dynamism of personal victories; a world, harmonized by the poetry of the present, full of love, hope, passion and admiration of the beauty. His artistic development is as an act of self-knowledge and an expression of striving for spiritual perfection through the necessity of creativity. The overview explores the formation of his plastic art language, “mapping” his creative discoveries in the depths of memory - individual and collective, the concepts for possible utopia and messages for freedom of the spirit, for a pure love and inner peace. In art of Vivian the collective memory has a laconic form and vertical direction. Cultural archetypes, mutation of myth and taboo he transforms into the totem of memories, the dialogue between generations and the daily human communications - into the bar code of modernity. In his “fusion of horizons” the symbols of the personal experience and its different faces have coloured cubic form made by wood and iron. The “cubes of memories “ of Vivian are special instruments organizing his messages and creating new impressions for the audience, assisting the invention of his ideas. The artist used mnemonics distinctive methods and specific set of associations building a visual parallel reality of the cultural memory of the individual, based on the memory of the community.

exhibition view "Locus of Memory" at Exhibition hall (Teatro Comunale); photo credit: ANB

 

 exhibition view "Locus of Utopia" at Sala Maier ; photo credit :ANB

The vertical laconic forms of Vivian’s totems, wooden figures, objects, same as his panels and installations are in derivation to ancient cultural models connected with the concept of Mather Nature and eternal longing to perfection. Natural wood and stone in his works are not only materials for the forms, they are the symbols of the ”centre” of mankind and his own sacral place in which he creates in his unique way a new puzzle of the synthesis between modernity and the colourful face of present form of collective and cultural memory.

exhibition view: Paolo Vivian , retrospective exhibition "mappa memoria: (im)possibili utopie;2014; 

photocredit :ANB

Following in the steps of this personal awakening, revealing the wisdom of ancient religions and beliefs through the faces of “Eros and Thanatos” Paolo Vivian “merges the horizons” with the modernity of our time, creating his messages as the “locus” or “places of memory” encoded the personal records in coloured semantic systems.
As in a poem William Blake says
«To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour»,
unbiased viewer is invited to follow the “mappa memoria “ of Paolo Vivian to his Promised Land and leading by his creative “diary” to arrange his own pieces of memory and to create an own, personal possible utopia.

Dora Bulart,

co-curator of he project

bio 

Paolo Vivian (1962, Trento, Italy) working in the field of sculpture, installation and performance. His works have been presented in the program Vilnius - European Capital of Culture in 2009, in celebration of the 100th anniversary from the foundation of the city of Differdange in Luxembourg; in the curatorial project "Heroes Corners" in Budapest, "Art & Nature", the Netherlands under the auspices of Dutch Queen; in the "Mythology of the tree" in Italy, "Off-On" project in Hamburg, International Biennial of visual Arts, Exi[s]t project; Bulart gallery, Varna, gallery "Actus Magnus", Vilnius and others. He has over ten solo exhibitions in private galleries and cultural institutions in Italy and abroad, including the Palazzo Ducale, Genova, Palazzo Liberia,VillaLagarina; Cultural Institute Bernstol, Italy, gallery Artstudio, Ravenna, gallery La Ravellina,Ferrara, Augustinian Abbey in Novacella , Bolzano etc. Lives and works in Palu del Fesina, Trentino, Italy.

practical information:

mappa memoria : (im) possibili utopie

PAOLO VIVIAN
a retrospective exhibition
paintings, sculptures and installations
22 |11  - 14|12|2014

VENUES: Pergine  Valsugana  (Trento) , Italy
- Exhibition Hall of the Municipal Theatre | Piazza Garibaldi, 5 / H
-Sala Maier, Piazza Serra
CURATORS: Dora Bulart and Paul Zammatteo

official opening ( left to wright): Angela Leornardelli, vice-mayor of culture , Municipality of Pergine Valsugana, Italy, Paolo Zammatteo, co-curator fo the project, Paolo Vivian , Daniele Lazzeri, the Chairman of the magazine “Nodo di Gordio”; Dora Bulart, co-curator of the project; photo credit: ANB; Paolo Vivian; Municipality of Pergine Valsugana (Trento)

The exhibition is organized by the Municipality of Pergine Valsugana (Trento), Department of cultural promotion. To support of exhibition was edited a mongraphy with critical texts by Paolo Zammatteo and Dora Bulart  (176 p, graphics and printing Publistampa Graphic Arts, Pergine Valsugana (Trento), Italy, 2014).
blog of the project: www.mappamemoria.blogspot.com