The exhibition, that inaugurates the restoration of Salone Verde in Calle della Regina, is a collateral event at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Danilo Eccher, organized and promoted by Nomas Foundation From 23 April to 27 November 2022, for the occasion of the 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice, Francesca Leone presents “Take your time”, an original installation itinerary. Among the Collateral Events of La Biennale, the exhibition project came about starting from the reflections on the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and the suspension of collective and individual time that has characterised the time of the pandemic, asking questions about the relationship between humans, time and materials. The artist decomposes, forges, shapes, sculpts and paints materials that are marginalised, thrown away, and discarded, giving them back a poetic life and a new moral relationship with the human. “Take your time” invites us to reflect, to slow down individual time, in order to go through collective time, immersing ourselves in what curator Danilo Eccher describes as «a route marked out by rose gardens crystallised in sheets, firmaments composed of roadside waste, geological concretions that were once calcareous, now converted into metal, banner-plates of burnt colours». The public is invited to move around inside an installation itinerary modulated into fluid spaces, separated yet connected together, to enter a condition suspended between personal and public experience, between the intimate and the universal imaginary sphere, between the terrestrial and the cosmic dimension. Here time takes on a value of aesthetic reflexivity that is necessary for the redefinition of the self and the meaning of our actions in relation to the world. Time as an instrument of knowledge, beyond an everyday routine that is often absent and superficial. Opening up a profound dialogue with the critical issues suggested by the curator Cecilia Alemani in “The Milk of Dreams”, the post-human questions of “Take your time” look at the consumption of time as one of the damaging effects of the Anthropocene, suggesting the possibility of engaging in a new relationship with materials that is no longer extractive, but restorative. The public will have access to a series of immersive installations in a genuine journey in time. «In these works» – Danilo Eccher explains – «it is the rust that is oxidised on the metal, it scratches it, it grazes it; that is what shows the face of its time and it is on this face that the colour caresses scars, indicates expressions, heals wounds. These are metal sheets that conserve traces of their memory, souvenirs made of work, toil, suffering, perhaps even pain. Every scratch, every laceration, every fold whispers its own story, offers the gaze the symbolic image of a happening that is lost in the embrace of time». The curator continues: «These are rusted memories, the same metallic skins that challenge, in a metaphysical karst cave, the geological time of rough stalactites and stalagmites». Walking through the environments of the Salone Verde is something to be experienced in a kind of multiplicity of realities. Francesca Leone’s project also opens up a new space in the heart of the lagoon city: the Salone Verde, located in Calle della Regina, at Sestiere Santa Croce 2258, the object of a recent restoration by the German architect and academic Ralph Petersen. The Collateral Event is accompanied by a catalogue published by Silvana Editoriale, with texts by Danilo Eccher, Laura Cherubini, Raffaella Frascarelli and Cesare Cunaccia. While the exhibition is open, a study day will be organised in the space of the Salone Verde, with scientific curatorship by the Nomas Foundation, involving sociologists, philosophers, economists, architects and art historians. The project is supported by Allianz Bank Financial Advisors, Dante&Associati, F.P.A Finanza – Previdenza Assicurazioni. FRANCESCA LEONE Francesca Leone was born in Rome into a family of artists. Her first solo exhibitions as an artist were presented in 2008 at the Loggiato di San Bartolomeo, Palermo (Riflessi e riflessioni) and Palazzo Venezia, Rome (Primo Piano, then Castel dell’Ovo, Naples, 2009). In 2009 she exhibited at the MMOMA-Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Moscow (Beyond Their Gaze, curated by Maurizio Calvesi) and was made an Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts. In 2011 she participated in the 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (Italy Pavilion) and in 2013 in the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (Cuba Pavilion, La Perversión de lo Clásico: anarquía de los relatos). In 2014 three solo exhibitions were devoted to her – at the MAC in Santiago in Chile; at the MACBA-Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires; at the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg –, followed in 2015 by the one-woman show OurTrash at the Milan Triennale and in 2017 in the Garden at the MACRO-Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Rome. In June 2018 in Palermo – within the sphere of Palermo Capital of Culture 2018 and the collateral events of Manifesta 12 – she exhibited the installation Monaci, curated by Danilo Eccher, at the Real Albergo dei Poveri, followed by the solo exhibition Domus at the Palacio de Gaviria in Madrid. In 2020 the Galleria Magazzino in Rome hosted her solo exhibition Si può illuminare un cielo melmoso e nero? In 2021 she presented her solo exhibition “Ulteriori gradi di libertà nella città che resiste” at the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan, curated by Andrea Viliani. NOMAS FOUNDATION Nomas Foundation is an interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary non-profit research centre that reflects on the aesthetics of sociocultural, political, economic, historical and scientific languages starting from the device of contemporary art. A space of inclusion and participation, the foundation is committed to building inside the public sphere through contemporary art relational forms that are capable of cancelling out any discrimination in terms of race, gender, class, age and ability; the values of Nomas Foundation aspire towards social justice, economic equality, impartial access to education, sustainable development, impartial access to resources, social mobility and civic commitment.
