He inaugurated the 19/07 and will continue for two months until 18/09/2024 Archeology of the Present, Renzo Francabandera's solo show at the Archaeological Area of Sodo – Cortona. The archeology of the present deals with studying the material traces of contemporary society: analyzes objects, the structures and landscapes that are part of today's daily life or that have recently been "rejected". This solo show by Renzo Francabandera hosted in the wonderful context of the archaeological area of Sodo in Cortona was born from the artist's most recent creative suggestions. It is based on the idea of restoring value and meaning to abandoned objects found by the artist in different urban contexts, with the aim of better understanding the behaviors and signs of contemporary society, through a methodological approach that refers to traditional archaeology: starting from research and the collection of materials, Francabandera follows up with a stratigraphic-emotional excavation, which is based on the analysis of the finds, which are then reassembled to create landscapes, events that are the fruit of the artist's imagination, but which often start from real experiences and experiences. In recent years the artist has collected abandoned postcards, photo albums found among paper waste, shreds of posters. He superimposed his graphic-pictorial practice on these findings to create new spaces of the imagination, fantastic environments, stories and events imagined from a perspective that is often no longer anthropocentric. The protagonists of this narrative are therefore the environments, emotional, real and imagined, which mix in these creations to dialogue with a space, like that of the archaeological area, also through site-specific creations, who want to directly connect with some of the works that refer to the ancient history of this territory. “Archaeology of the present represents for me a dynamic and constantly evolving field of investigation, which wants to contribute to providing food for thought on how we act on our sensitivity, on how we preserve memory and how we experience nostalgia in our time. Studying the present with an archaeological approach allows us not only to document and preserve shreds, traces of the present or the recent past, but also to reinterpret, to reassign a meaning different from the one that generated them, capable of communicating in a new way with the gaze of the observer".
The exhibition is made up of two creative nuclei:
POSTERS FOR AN ARCHEOLOGY OF THE PRESENT: they are the works exhibited and visible from outside the reception structure for visitors to the archaeological area. They are affixed to the large windows of the building, as manifestos of the contemporary, some large creations, made in 2024 by the artist precisely on the occasion of this event. The works are made of poor material, paper tablecloths, pieces of posters recovered by the artist and amalgamated with pictorial technique, to create invented landscapes, that knead the present, perfect past and remote past
POSTCARDS: a wide selection of its creative core CARTOLINE is hosted inside the structure, made between 2021 and the 2022, exhibited in various exhibitions in Italy, from Bologna to La Spezia. Some of these works have become in projected format, scenography of the show Anima Mundi, directed by Monica Felloni, produced by the Teatro Stabile of Catania, which features artists with and without disabilities.
Credits of the exhibition
production: rumorBianc(O) in collaboration with: MAEC Museum, Municipality of Cortona, Etruscan Academy
first look and presentation: Mara Preachers
graphics: Erica Ferrini
thanks: WE HAD (AION, journey, Coop Culture), Chiara Renzi, Michela Mastroianni
with the contribution of CR Firenze Bio Performer Foundation,
BIO NOTE ON THE ARTIST
Painter and scholar of contemporary artistic languages, lives and works in Bologna. He is actively involved in his creative practice with live painting and body painting and creates illustrations and covers for publishing. Known for its historic habit, as a critic of the performing arts, to create live drawings during shows and performances, he has exhibited his theatrical drawings in prestigious venues such as Ca' Giustinian for the Biennale Teatro in Venice, the PAN and the Maschio Angioino of Naples, the Palazzo dei Priori in Volterra, the Piccolo Teatro and the Officine Ansaldo in Milan and with his theatrical designs in 2024 it will be on display in Vicenza at Palazzo Thiene and in other prestigious locations. His research outside theatrical spaces, in recent years, led the artist to investigate the abandonment of personal memory within the urban landscape, prompting him to recompose, between real and imaginary, new pieces of “nobody's memory” by reusing “rejected” or abandoned paper materials: photo, posters, postcards, diary. Palazzo Fieschi in Genoa, the Dialma Ruggiero in La Spezia at the Risorgimento Museum and Palazzo d'Accursio in Bologna, up to the spaces of the archaeological area of Cortona, these are some of the exhibition venues where his works have been exhibited. He holds workshops and training projects on contemporary languages and performance art throughout Italy. Professor of Languages of Art and Digital Media at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, he taught Aesthetics of Movement and Body Languages at the University of Turin. He writes for numerous newspapers and cultural magazines (Hysterio, and PAC www.paneacquaculture.net among others) and has numerous publications on the performing arts to his credit. He collaborated for the entertainment section with the cities of Cagliari and Siena for the candidacy as European Capital of Culture 2019 and numerous European projects dedicated to the performing arts.