“UNsTABLE”-“ENVIRoNMENTS” IS A DUAL EXhIBITION OF VITToRIO COrSINI, IN-BETWeEN GALLErIA FARSETTI IN MILaN AND ARTE IN FABbRICA IN FLORENCE, EXPLoRING NEW WaYS OF LIVING ThE SPACE AND FINDInG THE HOuSE A SHeLTER FRoM THE UNCERTaINTIES OF CONTEmPORARY TIMeS

Text by: Fiammetta Cesana

As a theatrical piece of work, the exhibition of Vittorio Corsini is held in two acts. The first one of his solo, “Unstable”, has gone on stage at the Galleria Farsetti in Milan from 5 to 14 of April, marking the contemporary art’s debut of the space, renowned so far for its 10th century collections. Then till 30 September, the second act, “Environments”, is taking place in Florence at the industrial aerea of Arte in Fabbrica. The two different institutions have collaborated for the first time to enact this dual show curated by Marco Scotini, whose combined titles, “Unstable-Environments”, reveal the sense of the plot engaging Corsini’s creations. 

The Tuscan artist, focusing on the theme of inhabiting the space as a mental archetype, was protagonist of several collective and solo exhibitions during the last three decades, including the 1998 “Corpo fragile” in Siena, the 2004 “Mosca cieca” in Florence at Salone Villa Romana, the 2011 “Pittura Concetto Materia” at Galleria Giacomo Guidi in Rome, the 2017 “Andar per porte” at Palazzo Archinto in Milan.

“IN THE JOURNEY TO
MILAN LEONARDO
HAS LOST THE DOG
FREDIANO BECAME ANGRY
SO MUCH SO THAT
THE GALLERY
FARSETTI HAS SUSPENDED
THE ACTIVITY”

With this provocative statement stick on Farsetti’s backdoor, now turned into the main entrance, Corsini immediately announces visitors that something has happened: it’s time for great changes for the historical Milanese space. Once entered, in fact, the spectacle we witness is surprising and  quite disorienting. No more impressionist, realist or expressionist artworks occupying the space with their majestic presence, but A4 white sheets are wholly covering the walls, where a scaffolding stands huge, but still fragile, at the center of the small room. Looking more like a work-in-progress arena than an actual opera, it is the first image offered by the artist to reflect the cumbersome instability of today’s architectural and social equilibrium. 

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Unstable Environments_Vittorio Corsini_Galleria Farsetti_Milan
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The scaffolding, visible from different heights by climbing the stairs up to the room’s balcony, shows on its top a neon light, which is the only mutual piece between the Galleria Farsetti’s and Arte in Fabbrica’s exhibitions.

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The neon is a recurrent element in Corsini’s art tale: upstairs, brightly monocrome paintings incorporate a neon light segment, acting like a vertical horizon, perhaps a mystic portal, that attracts the gaze towards different perspective and awareness over reality. 

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Then, glass as well as crystal made houses, leaning on the scaffolding’s floors, evolve the discourse of contemporary fragility, which seems to invade also the structure and the whole essence of our own home. The mise en scene by Corsini so, overturning the gallery’s classic identity, exhibits a variety of characters playing the ephemeral, delicate and unstable foundation of both public and domestic realm we all inhabit. With this show, he seems to have suddenly brought to the gallery the modern age’s revolution over the concept of space and time, which are no more taken as absolute and objective but as consistently changing entities that require our capacity to always explore different points of view.

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Moving to a completely different “theatre”, Arte in Fabbrica welcomes us into the next chapter of this twofold art script. This time we are surrounded by the wide rooms of the textures’ and furnitures’ fabric founded by the Florentine Gori brothers. Become a reference point for costume designers and scenographers, they have been able to gather production department and exhibition space in the same building, creating a continuum between art, life and work. 

Visitors indeed can come freely and only during the warehouse’s working hours (10pm-1pm / 3pm-6pm), witnessing employees in action while enjoying the installations and artworks on display. Here Corsini’s cherished concept of home finds the perfect atmosphere, since the family-owned fabric, born from the very villa of Gori’s father, is integral part of both their private and professional life. For the artist the house is a symbol of encounter and union, and now it is represented as a red-hued rotating construction, hanging on the ceiling, with a light inside that, diffused through the warm color, gives a sense of cosiness and welcoming.

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Then, a blue sculptures, not identifiable straightaway, turns out to be the actual blueprints of Gori’s houses. 

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Walking ahead, a painting of a forest, resembling the lush nature which surrounds the fabric, stands with a neon light at the center, opening once again a different vision on the significance of our living spaces.

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That of Vittorio Corsini is journey into an extensive environment, ranging from the public to the private till the inner one, where the constant of fragility pervades different cultural realities and urges people to question the way they experience their daily ambients. White papers cover and erase the assumptions of the past about the space’s meanings, while neon lights uncover new possibilities of thinking about nearby architectures: the exhibition investigates the uncertainty of contemporary world, where, nevertheless, the warmness of home grants a safe, enlightened, harbor from these unstable blind times.