The exhibition “Locus Solus/Solis” by Marco Bagnoli, curated by Marina Guida, opens in Capri on Saturday 27 April at 12 noon at the Certosa di San Giacomo.
The project, designed specifically for the fourteenth-century Carthusian Church, is organized by the Turin gallery Giorgio Persano, Studio Trisorio and Atelier Marco Bagnoli, in collaboration with the Regional Directorate of Museums of Campania and under the patronage of the City of Capri.
An exhibition route in which each installation is placed in dialogue with the architecture and mystical atmosphere of the venue, creating an immersive and hypnotic experience.
Starting from the entrance, in the single aisle of the church, we find the ceramic sculpture Noli me Tangere on Mandala of all directions, followed by a monumental bamboo balloon almost six meters high The sky covers the earth supports. Continuing, on the altar we meet the Sonovasoro in alabaster, from which spreads a sound carpet that evokes the sound of a shamanic drum, while on the right of the nave we find the fourth opera, Dove Porta 2, a large alabaster painting marked vertically by a red band, made following the proportions of the golden section. In the side chapel you can see the work Aleph: sixty-four radial prints on the floor.
A special illumination of the Church will also be arranged, to allow the video projection of the work: Body of Light, a luminous balloon, and the shadow of the statue of Apollo in correspondence with the sculpture E of Delphi, placed in the side chapel of the Church, of which it is ideally the reflection.
Key concepts such as fire, flight, light can somehow “anthropomorphize” space, understood as an isolated, solitary and mysterious place.
“As if it were the metaphor of the human being, of his fulfilling himself individually, sometimes in complete solitude but at the same time in an inevitable and ever necessary and connatural relationship/connection with the deep Self, with the other from oneself, with the laws of the Cosmos.” stresses the curator Marina Guida.
Fire is the symbolic cornerstone of the exhibition. Alchemical element par excellence, in that it warms, burns, destroys, but at the same time purifies, pushes upwards of the celestial dimension, transmutes.
Through the evocative image of a hot air balloon rising up into the sky, the exhibition suggests a fascinating perspective: fire not only as a destructive element, but above all as a motor of elevation and transformation, spiritual element of awareness and knowledge and access to a new perceptual dimension.
When crossing the threshold of the church, the eye intercepts a space in penumbra, mysterious, catches a game of shapes, profiles that tend upwards and follow each other in the nave in a continuous continuation. An enigmatic path between visible and invisible, immanence and transcendence, physical and metaphysical plane.
The sound element, so important for the fullness of the project, completes the path in which the viewer takes part as a central element by inserting itself into an exhibition that is exactly like an itinerary between the real and the imaginary, an enigmatic path that leads to a condition of temporary suspension, through the use of works as tools necessary for the realization of the experience of elsewhere.
The exhibition’s double title (Locus Solus/Locus Solis) refers to a dual interpretation: the first is inspired by Raymond Russel’s novel, in the triple meaning of “lonely place”, “singular place” or “unique place”. The second title refers instead to a place of inner research and spiritual enlightenment, an indication of that Sun-gate which Ananda K. Coomaraswamy wrote about in his essay “The “E”at Delphi.
The idea of “Locus Solus/Solis” is associated with an extraordinary or fantastic place, an environment that is different from everyday reality. A different and remote territory to which we enter through the metaphysical passage that invites us to explore new conceptual horizons and to challenge the conventional boundaries of perception and understanding of the planes of existence.
Marco Bagnoli manages to convey a sense of disorientation and enigma through works that blend harmoniously with the mystical essence of the place. A journey into mystery and silence, which brings to mind the evocative memory of the now lost Dark Cave, on which was built the Certosa di Capri, which carries with it the symptom of introspection, of recollection, as it fits to an isolated fence in the original meaning of the word Certosa.
Marco Bagnoli – Biographical notes
Marco Bagnoli is one of the most significant exponents of the artistic trends that prevailed in Italy at the end of the seventies. After a scientific training, the artist develops a research that intentionally ties back to the Italian Renaissance, a cultural tradition in which philosophy and science are an integral part of the work. He participated in the Venice Biennale (1982, 1986, 1997) and the Documenta of Kassel (1982, 1992), experimenting with complex installations involving the environment with the help of multiple means of expression, from drawing to painting, from printing to sculpture. Over the years, feeding himself with continuous studies and travels, in his works he has drawn suggestions from Islamic culture, to the mystical poetry of the Persian Rumi, from Sufism, from the doctrines of Hinduism and Tao, from Pythagorean philosophy. In 1995 he exhibited with a solo exhibition at the Luigi Pecci museum in Prato. To remember the altar built between ’94 and ’95 in the church of S. Miniato al Monte in Florence by the Benedictine Fathers. In ’96 he made an installation for the exhibition “Accumulations 2” designed by Rudi Fuchs at the Zerynthia site in Paliano. In 2017, the Atelier Marco Bagnoli opens in Montelupo Fiorentino, a multifunctional space that the artist conceives as a total work of art.
Data sheet
Title: Locus Solus/Solis
Author: Marco Bagnoli
Curator: Marina Guida
Organized by: Galleria Giorgio Persano, Studio Trisorio, IOXTE
In collaboration with the Regional Directorate Museums Campania
Sponsored by the City of Capri
Inauguration: 27 April 2024 at 12.00, Certosa di San Giacomo, Capri
Until 7 June 2024
Hours 10.00 – 16.00 every day. Closed on Mondays
