Empty

Last Wednesday, my art history course took a delightful detour. Instead of going to an archaic abode of Renaissance and Mannerist art per usual, we visited a modern art exhibit in Palazzo del Governatore at Piazza Garibaldi and the Chiesa di San Marcellino. A show entitled 'Naufragio con Spettatore' (Shipwreak with Spectator), it displayed the work of the eccentric contemporary artist, Claudio Parmiggiani. He utilized iron, paint, smoke, anchors, books and other forms of multi-media representation to show unusual, yet deeply meaningful messages through visual ironies. Not a single work title was displayed nor were there any descriptive plaques. The beauty and vivacity of the exhibit is renewed with each instantaneous interpretation by each individual viewer. By adding this component of mystery in the meaning, the artist successfully breathes life into each piece.

This is a picture of the work constructed inside an old abandoned church. Chilled to the bone by the extremely low temperature of the space, as well as the eerie calm of a ship placed indoors, I stood in awe of both the scale and ambition of the piece. It is a real, life-sized sail boat, placed on piles of thousands of books. Thousands and thousands of piled pages of words. I could smell the freshly aged paper when I walked in. The symbolism could be seen as pessimistic or optimistic. 

Though I believe the artist looked at this work as a symbol of hopelessness, I interpreted in a more optimistic manner...

For when the sails of Humanity become tangled in harsh winds of Society, Man is ultimately able to keep afloat with the unyielding support of pure Knowledge and Wisdom.

The installation on the interior of the museum space was set up within numerous conjoining rooms that were entirely bare. Empty except for one single work in each, the rooms were painted stark white. The artist wanted only natural light to be used, so the windows were all uncovered and the minimal electric lamps were created to emulate sunlight. The gray tile floor of the museum, located in an old palace in the center of Parma, was the perfect contrast to the bright simplicity of rest of the exhibition space. This theme of contrasting textures and contradicting ideologies would remain a theme throughout the show. 

For instance, this light chalk statuette of a woman, with a delicate butterfly shrouding her genitals, is placed opposite a large, old-fashioned dark wooden cello case (like a coffin) with multiple butterflies swarming like flies on the inside. Without the instrument inside, it has lost all meaning and its proper funtion. The statue's focus on life, pristine beauty, and youth is dramatically contrasted with the heavy, eerie 'memento mori' of the splintering and weathered wooden case often used for burying dead in past centuries. 

Another multi-media work with a nautical theme, made years before this installation was even imagined, is this toy-like, tri-part work. Similar to the ship on the books within the church, but on a significantly smaller scale, this has strikingly similar imagery. However, it brings the role of Man directly into the equation through the placing of the chalk cast of the disembodied head wedged in between the boat and the books. A possible interpretation...

Man is the Foundation for forward movement, or Progress, but only when He rests on Reason. 

One of my favorite of Parmaggiani's works was a small lead sculpture of a anatomically correct heart. The heavy, lifeless model of this vital organ is placed on top of an open book. However, the book has blank pages. There are no words. Since the heart is made of iron, and therefore not real and pumping, it is not functional and therefore not actually even effective for its purpose within the work. Without putting One's real, authentic Heart into anything...nothing Productive can result. Hence, the blank pages. So One's book will always be empty and therefore void of all meaning, if One refuses to put the Passion and Heart into all creative endeavors...in this case, writing or intellectual expression on the page.

Though I could literally go into the political, intellectual, societal, and social commentary that thrilled me with each passing work of art in this exhibit, I won't. I couldn't provide proper visual aid, considering many of the works were made new, solely for this installation in Parma.

However, I will leave you with one of my favorites of the show. One which will be remaining once it leaves the space. It is an entire small room, located at the end of the exhibit. The artist began with freshly painted white walls. He then installed shelves and arranged numerous books of all shapes and sizes upon them. He proceeded to close off the opening to the room and allow a fire to burn in the center over night. This left the most remarkable silhouette of soot behind. I could still smell the sulfur and smell of charred paint. The black ash that smoked from the fire now covers the walls in the pattern of books on shelves, showing only a ghostly negative of what used to be.

Over all the show was eerie, magical, and shocking in its ironies and intellectual intricacies. It renewed my faith in modern art and allowed for a interesting break from the classical works of Italian masters.