AlbumArte presents
Paradigma
Solo show of Sandro Mele
Curated by Raffaele Gavarro
Opening reception Wednesday, September 23rd, from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Entrance will be regulated by means of a planned access program via booking*
Open to the public until October 31st
AlbumArte | via Flaminia 122, Rome
What we have gone through in recent months is within us, a stimulus for new and different reflections that enter into our future projects as they will contain traces of all this. That’s the reason why the four exhibitions scheduled at AlbumArte after the lockdown are somehow connected by the common thread of the strongest emotions we experienced for the pandemic: disorientation, anxiety, anguish, and political and social considerations or resentments. Four exhibitions that we had already planned, but which, in the space and time spent in social confinement, have changed considerably, incorporating new contents.
The first, hosted at AlbumArte from June 24th to July 17th, was the personal exhibition by Sonia Andresano, entitled Allegra ma non troppo curated by Daniela Cotimbo, an intimate exhibition where the artist relives the sense of disorientation, disorientation, change, confinement and shifting of physical and mental limits.
The second is Paradigma, the personal exhibition by Sandro Mele (Melendugno, Lecce1970) curated by Raffaele Gavarro, a socio – political research which, as a consequence of the Covid19 emergency, has branched out into several different interventions.
75 portraits of the Constitution Commission members, also known as the Commission of 75, which on July 25th1946 was appointed to write our Constitutional Paper. Seventy-five portraits painted in black and white on paper, 100×70 cm each, will take up the big walls of the main room. An assembly of characters and images which is ideally and conceptually connected to a video regarding the initiatives of the Certosa neighborhood Committee (near Tor Pignattara), located in the little screenings room, as told by its members, a group of citizens who work hard for the improvement of their community.
A great installation, made of tens of bikers’ helmets filled with dirt, in which grow plants and flowers, will occupy the floor of the exhibition space, creating a landscape that represents the symbolic and silent testimony of the act of demonstrating carried out by the community. A sound device, in the first room, will reproduce the lecture by Piero Calamandrei to the students of the University of Milan realised on January 25th1995 regarding the equal opportunities. An issue that is still jeopardized today as, for example, not one woman was appointed to take part to the experts’ taskforce established by the Government for the management of Covid-19 emergency.
Paradigma represents a strange conjuncture of time and meaning. The project, conceived before the pandemic, was intensely enriched with ideas and materials during the isolation, as a reflection on the heavy social, economic and political consequences that it caused, and which inevitably led to establish some similarities with the most recent post–war period in which the Constitution was born. As then, it seems necessary to rethink and rebuild our existence and our communities through a more conscious political culture and, in order to overcome the serious crisis in which we all are, to produce a significant change in the current economic and social paradigms, that appears even more irrational today.
Paradigma will not be only an exhibition but a form of aggregation, of social encounter by means of didactic programs that will involve students of all ages. After this troubled period and the lack of complete training caused by the Covid-19 emergency, the workshops will seek to narrate the similarities between the time in which our Constitution was born and today, and above all the cultural, social and political values which – then as today – are needed to reconstruct our society in a new and better way.
The project has received the patronage of the Centro per la Riforma dello Stato (CRS) and Fondazione Lelio and Lisli Basso- Onlus and in collaboration with Flower Lab Roma. Thanks to Casale del Giglio for the wine tasting on the opening day.
* In compliance with the rules concerning the current health emergency, during the opening day and for the entire extent of the exhibition, entrances will be regulated through compulsory reservation. It will be possible to book by e-mail at the address info@albumarte.org or by telephone at the 06 24402941. In case of telephone reservations, a reference contact will be requested in order to ensure traceability. All public activities will be carried out in compliance with the ban on gathering Article 1, paragraph 8, first sentence, of the Decree-Law May 16, 2020, No. 33, and at an interpersonal safety distance of at least one meter. It is mandatory to wear a mask for the duration of the visit. Body temperature measurement and hand sanitizing at the entrance.
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