riccardo arena
effemeridi: solo exhibition by riccardo arena curated by michela lupieri conceived from the events, suggestions and traces collected by the artist during his residency at the ephemera festival
Riccardo Arena, Effemeridi, 2022, detail of the site-specific intervention for Trieste Contemporanea (courtesy of the artist)
For the Ephemera Festival, after Prato d’Arte Marzona, Vigne Museum, Palazzo Lantieri and Libreria Martincigh, on Friday 16 September at 6.30pm the spotlight will turn on the spaces of Trieste Contemporanea with the opening of the solo exhibition Effemeridi, by Riccardo Arena curated by Michela Lupieri.
In continuity with the festival’s concept, born from the urge to recount contemporaneity through art and sociality, but above all through the search for the traces left in individual and collective memories, as well as the fragments – the ephemera – that narrate the process and trace back to the genesis, persistence and pragmatics of the artistic happening, Effemeridi is the result of the research and mapping of the traces collected by Riccardo Arena in different places of this region during the festival.
An anticipation of this process – presented in the form of a choral intervention by Riccardo Arena, Cristina Burelli and Michela Lupieri, under the title Here There & Everywhere – transformed the windows of Libreria Martincigh, last June in Udine, into a visual landscape for the eye to gaze through, where paper elements alternated with light three-dimensional aerial wooden structures, purpose-created by Arena.
«These different installation units are the connecting element to the space of Trieste Contemporanea – states curator Michela Lupieri – which in September will host Effemeridi, (what lasts only one day) a new bespoke production described by Arena as ‘a complex choreography of abstract forces’ that displays the visual and processual tensions of the Festival, but not only.
It is an installation at an environmental scale that envelops the entire exhibition space and, from the centre of the room, stretches to the walls from the base up to the top. The artist speaks of this intervention as a “spatial diagram”, an energy field within which the visitors can enter and, by walking, surround themselves with traces, signs, temporal footprints of different scales and places, independent phenomena on an astronomical, geological, psychic and particle scale.
While three-dimensional wooden structures – similar to those exhibited in the Bookshop, but larger – fill the room in the centre, the images, lines and drawings of different materials and visual languages – linked to the different suggestions of the Festival – flow seamlessly on the walls, with no proper direction».
By giving a visual form to movements, relationships, processes and fleeting tensions, Ephemerides attempts to restore that ephemeral state of suspension and wonder of what lasts only for a moment.
Riccardo Arena was born in Milan in 1979. Is an artist, researcher and teacher
ricercatore e docente, over the years he has dedicated himself to the development of independent projects in different countries of the world: Four times a tree in Cina (2006-2008), Ellero’dual death in Argentina (2009-2012), Vavilon in Russia (2013-2017), Ludd! Tophography of the Light from a series of travels and researches carried out across Iran, Armenia and Ethiopia (2019) and based on the homonymous novel, written by the artist (Kunstverein Publishing, Milano 2021) e Geranos, on-going project started with a residency on the Mountain of Truth (Monte Verità) in Ascona, Switzerland.
His works were exhibited at: Fondazione Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland; Galleria Milano, Milan; Matera European Capital of Culture 2019; Mambo, Bologna; Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia; Merkurov Museum, Gyumri, Armenia; MAXXI Museum, Rome; Imma Museum, Dublin; Italian Cultural Institute, London; Centro Pecci, Prato; Quadriennale d’Arte, Roma; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Viafarini, Milan; Premio Furla, Palazzo Reale, Milan; Mart, Rovereto; Ma*ga, Gallarate; Museo del Novecento, Milan; Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires; 1918 ArtSPACE, Shangai.
Ephemera is a project born from the meeting of three cultural professionals: Eleonora Cedaro, Michela Lupieri and Rachele D’Osualdo; it is produced by Associazione Culturale ETRARTE in collaboration with PerForm ASD and enjoys the support of relevant partners: Altreforme, Associazione Culturale Amariana, Associazione Culturale CLIC – psicologia e psicomotricità, Comunità di Montagna della Carnia – Rete CarniaMusei, Creaa Snc, ArteffettoDanza, Dramsam – Centro Giuliano di Musica Antica, Libreria Martincigh, Palazzo Lantieri, Teatro Miela Bonawentura, Trieste Contemporanea, Vigne Museum, Yemovement, Centro Noita Yoga and Coro Zahre di Sauris.
Ephemera was created thanks to the prestigious support of a network of cultural mentors, representing the cultural headmasters of Friuli Venezia Giulia and beyond: Monika Branicka, Cristina Burelli, Giuliana Carbi Jesurun, Elda and Giovanna Felluga, Carolina Lantieri-Piccolomini and Gaia Stock.
You can find information about the festival Ephemera on the website www.ephemerafestival.it
