CAMPO VOLO

Saverio Tonoli Adamo

SELBSTBILDNIS

blank, via Reggio 27, Torino
curated by: Progetto Diogene
sabato 26 marzo, ore 17

Many, many years ago, on a fine, clear day, the floating city appeared in the air in full
public gaze, hanging like a hot air balloon.
Above the city several layers of clouds rolled, and at the foot of it heaving sea waves roared. There it was, the floating city; suspended in mid air neither rising up, nor dropping down. When a light breeze came along, it would slightly sway for a brief moment and then become completely motionless. How did this happen? Only the grandparents of our grandparents witnessed this incredible event. It was a marvellous and yet terrifying experience. When they remembered it would distress and overwhelm them just as it did way back when it happened. Above their heads there were layers and layers of colliding clouds, a sky full of lightning and roaring thunders everywhere. In the sea sailed a great number of pirate ships, waving skull and crossbones flags and relentlessly firing cannon shots. Suddenly the floating city came down from the layers of clouds and remained suspended in midair. Many years passed by, and after a while, our great-grandparents passed away along with our grandparents, one after the other they slipped into eternal rest while the stories they had transmitted slowly became obscure legends. Their descendants then decided to live in the floating city, slowly adapting to its conditions. Legends about the city slowly faded away until most of the citizens convinced themselves that the city would have remained that way forever; afloat in mid air neither rising up, nor dropping down and when the wind blew, the city would slowly dangled like a swing. Years and years went by just like this.

(From “Marvels of a Floating City”, by Xi Xi, 1998. Translation by Anna Martinelli)

Saverio Tonoli (Bergamo, Italy 1984) enquires the alienage of presence along with the reconstruction of new ways of research as tèchne of the imaginary. By forcing the visual language, the distortion of the pre-existing, meant as a developing root, becomes the vacuuming goal for the creation of spatial thoughts finally creating a potential line for an out of the ordinary projection. Creation becomes research. The origin of a shared unreal urban landscape is represented through the conversion of something ordinary into a geometrical reality of impossible beauty. (Progetto Diogene)

Venue: blank, via Reggio 27, Torino
Realization curated by: Progetto Diogene per e/static
Opening: Saturday 26th march 2011 at 5 pm
Info: +39011235140 estatic.it progettodiogene.eu

Giovanni Morbin

Lid

blank, via Reggio 27, Torino
curated by: Progetto Diogene
friday 5 november, 21.30 – 23.30

– I only tell you what you need to know. The rest is for me to worry about.
– twelve stages, huh? And how many more to go?
– there are thirty-three in all.
– If I get through the next twelve as fast as the first ones, I’ll already be in the home stretch.
– you won’t, I promise you. However much you think you’ve suffered so far, it’s nothing compared to what lies ahead.
– the birds don’t suffer. They just spread their wings and take off. If I got the gift like you say, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a breeze.
– because, my little pumpkin-head, you’re not a bird-you’re a man. In order to lift you off the ground, we have to crack the heavens in two. We have to turn the whole bloody universe inside out.

(Paul Auster, Mr Vertigo, Faber and Faber, 2006)

When Progetto Diogene group was invited to curate the 4th edition of campo volo, we chose to collaborate with the artist Giovanni Morbin (Valdagno, 1956). Over the last few years he has been exploring the nature of form and image through an analysis of everyday objects as an ideal artistic rearrangement of the world.

The dialogue generated together with Progetto Diogene begins with the need to train oneself before spreading to include the sharing of original needs and working methods. (Progetto Diogene)