TEMPORA VATIS TO THE VITTORIALE Chisesi pays homage to Annunzio There will also be a "secret room"

Just over a month after the closing of “Pietre della memoria. Homage to the Relative "- the summer artistic #event of the Versiliana in Marina di Pietrasanta - #andreachisesi returns to compete with Gabriele d'Annunzio. But this time he does it right in his home overlooking Lake Garda, the most visited house-museum in the World.

The Tempora Vatis exhibition, a true tribute to the inimitable life of d'Annunzio, curated by #marcelladamigella, opens on Saturday 26 September at the Vittoriale degli Italiani in #gardoneriviera (BS). Set up in the halls of Villa Mirabella - one of the buildings of the Vittoriale degli Italiani complex where d’Annunzio hosted the artists of the Vittoriale factory - the exhibition will remain on display until March 1, 2021.

For Chisesi - an eclectic artist in themes, expressions and in the use of techniques - this is a new collection that originates in his studio in Syracuse, an old hotel from the end of the 19th century that was remodeled during the fascist period, where the artist experienced sensations unexpected and found his inspiration.
The walls of the ground floor, in fact, had been covered with wallpaper from the D'Annunzio era and hid old newspapers from 1920 - "relics" of an authentic time - that the artist began to tear, glue, overlap on the back; they were shreds of worldly chronicles, conveniently used as evidence of a time now past, but not forgotten.

Taking advantage of the temporal link between the fragments of the press and the life of d'Annunzio, #andreachisesi has decided to tell the seasons of the life of the poet in this way, transposing the famous photographs of the most significant moments of his life - including private ones - on the prepared canvases with his matrem (white brushstrokes that refer to nature), and with which he shows us how extraordinary the lifestyle of the Commander was, today wrongly defined as "decadent".
Forerunner of excesses and luxury at all costs, d'Annunzio represents the only possible way to live a life in the fullness of desire and voluptuousness, rising to the sublime sensation of omnipotence.

For the occasion, the exhibition catalog will be produced, with texts by the President of the Vittoriale degli Italiani, #giordanobrunoguerri, and by the curator, #marcelladamigella. In addition to being printed, the catalog will be available on display in a digitable version, downloadable on your smartphone.

THE EXHIBITION ROUTE
Tempora Vatis, in total 68 works including sketches, drawings and works on canvas, is presented in perfect horror vacui style (occupation of every available space); the exhibition offers the opportunity to witness the dialogue established between the artist and the poet in an intimate itinerary specially designed for Villa Mirabella.

The visitor thus becomes a protagonist who is introduced into a timeless space and, as a curious guest, is placed in a position to steal the secrets of the poet and the painter, of their mysterious (certainly complicated) relationships.

By his own will, Chisesi has divided the exhibition into four main parts - in a path with the works arranged on the walls in a clockwise direction and in an apparent chaos - which trace the seasons of the year, indicated in Latin, a language very dear to the poet : Fons: the portraits of the poet from adolescence to 1920; Aestas: heroes, myths and characters dear to him, passions for ships, planes, cars; Arbores: women, allegory of the Faun, myths and passions from Dante to Michelangelo; Hiems: the portraits of his closest friends and the icons that accompanied him, including San Sebastiano, Santa Caterina da Siena and San Francesco.

THE SECRET ROOM
The so-called “Secret Room”, a sort of wunderkammer, but with red lights, full of surprises, completes the exhibition itinerary of Tempora Vatis.

In this space, in addition to a further series of works, an installation consisting of small doors, complete with handle and lock, will be placed. Almost as if they were miniature rooms, behind each door there will be a small "fusion on paper", dedicated to love rites and visible only from the keyhole. Peering at the image from the forum, at that moment the visitor cannot help but feel a bit of a voyeur, who has chosen to spy on the small-format works of Chisesi, but protected by a small wooden wall and a century of false respectability.

And that of the "secret room" will be the only opportunity to see those explicit images, since they will not be in the exhibition catalog. And anyway, at the end of the exhibition, all the images - both those "ordered" according to the seasons, and those sneaked in - will reveal frames of an existence over the top and which earned d'Annunzio the nickname of Immaginifico .

THE TECHNIQUE
Visiting the Chisesi exhibition at the Vittoriale degli Italiani, someone may be curious about the technique that the artist uses for his creations. Born as a professional photographer, son of art, and raised between color palettes and sculptures, #andreachisesi began painting at a very young age, later deciding to merge his two passions, painting and photography.

Thus the first fusions were born, a term with which he defines his technique, which no longer results from digital, but as a sort of collage between pictorial stratifications and images of characters. At the beginning, the relationship between painting and photography is not equal, since the painting and the annexes of the posters create the work themselves, and the image is added with the print at a later time.

At the same time Chisesi also realizes his works with the Matrem, from the Latin Matrem Tanacetum parthenium, a particular type of flower that grows spontaneously in nature. Those that Chisesi paints are symbols, flowers, obtained with white strokes that refer to nature, that is the most ephemeral there is on our planet.

Observing the collection on display at the Vittoriale, the collage made with the original newspapers of 1920 find the temporal connection with the image of the era transmuted together with the Matrem that evoke D'Annunzio's panism, the reinterpretation of nature through brushstrokes of white, flowers, leaves, circles and dripping water that cover the old newspapers and create temporal fissures.

This technique is in continuous experimentation, since by changing the pictorial preparation, even with the same image, the work has a completely different aspect and solution; in this sense photography returns to the service of painting and doesn’t become a guide as it has historically happened, but becomes a filter, a transparent layer that rests on the painting and holds its volumes.

INFO SHOW
Andrea Chisesi
Tempora Vatis
Curated by Marcella Damigella
09.26.2020 | 03.01.2021
Opening Saturday 26.09.2020, 5.30 pm
Vittoriale degli Italiani, Via al Vittoriale 12 - #gardoneriviera (BS)
Open every day (except Mondays in November, December, January, February and on 24 -
25 December and 1 January) from 9 to 19 (until 4.10) and from 9 to 16.45 (from
05.10.2020 to 12.03. 2021)
Entrance fee
Catalog with texts by #giordanobrunoguerri, Marcella Damigella
Production: Materiarte