ARS MEMORIAE
ARS MEMORIAE
Desideria Burgio, Camilla Marinoni, Chiara Tubia, Federico Clapis, Leonardo Meoni,
Andrea Guastavino
On the occasion of the 10th edition of the Week of Cultures, contemporary art enters the museum
spaces of Palazzo Branciforte in Palermo, renovated by the architect Gae Aulenti with a masterful
architectural recovery.
The project, promoted by: Week of Cultures; Sicily Foundation; Sicily Art & Culture, curated
by Zerial Art Project, presents the site-specific collective exhibition of Desideria Burgio,
Camilla Marinoni, Chiara Tubia, Federico Clapis, Leonardo Meoni and Andrea Guastavino,
Ars Memoriae, from Saturday 25 September to 17 October 2021, at Pawnshop of Santa Rosalia of
Branciforte Palace.
The Pawnshop of Santa Rosalia is a place that still preserves the memory of a past and full of
emotional intensity. The suggestive wooden structure, which housed the pawn shop, is made up of
shelves up to the ceiling, guardian of the sacrifice of the Palermitans. The exhibition, entitled Ars
Memoriae, wants to tell the power of the imagination and how it is able to consolidate memory in a
livable and visitable dimension. Ars Memoriae is a work in Latin by Giordano Bruno, published
in Paris in 1582. The goddess of memory, Mnemosine, is the mother of the nine Greek gods who
preside over the arts. For Bruno it is the tool of knowledge and representation of reality. The place
that represents that unity from which ideas emanate. Memory is in general the ability to keep track
of information relating to events, images, sensations of external stimuli experienced and related
responses, recognizing them as past states of consciousness. The term also indicates the very
contents of the experience as they are evoked, both the set of psychological and neuro-physiological
mechanisms, which allow you to record and subsequently recall information. The idea that unites
the six artists, through six site-specific installations, organized within the rooms of the Pawnshop in
Santa Rosalia, is the search for a depth in their work that acts as a search engine and technical
language.
Desideria Burgio, with the installation Oggi come ieri declares the intertwining of time and our
memory as a container of identity, often deformed by our past. Memory, therefore, becomes a
deposit of conscious traces, a significant link that is built between present and past, the choice of
what to take with us in the future. Camilla Marinoni reflects on the concept of exchange,
subsistence and use of natural resources as a primary and absolute source to guarantee the survival
of human beings. The work entitled Misericors consists of seven embroidered loaves, linked to the
indissoluble relationship between money and food and between food and life. Work becomes a
memory of what was once the function of the Monte dei Pegni and a warning against the
consumerism of society. Chiara Tubia, presents the installations I dreamed I was a butterfly and
Yab-yum: the artist reflects on the exploration of social patterns and memories apparently structured
over time in relation to the infinite possibilities of Being with the One. His work is based on a path
of inner research that from the unconscious aims to reach a higher and more cognitive level of the
self, becoming the vehicle of a universal and profound message. Federico Clapis, with the work
NFT Everlasting Memory reflects on how memory is an existential knot: past and future come
together united by a sense of lack. Virtual projection and technology, recurring themes in his works,
become a contemporary metaphor to investigate our timeless emotional states. Leonardo Meoni
presents the video Wind builds up the stand. Projected on a large circular panel, scenes from a
chaotic mosaic of natural and urban landscapes are observed that narrate overlapping and memories.
The circular movement modifies and stratifies past experiences, continually giving a new face to
situations. Memory operates in Andrea Guastavino’s works as a magical notebook where the
succession of superimpositions and cancellations records the artist’s experience in his intimate
navigation within an anonymous photographic archive of the beginning of the century. The
installation is accompanied by the sound intervention of Andrea Lovo.
Art is the instrument of remembrance, which can be celebrated only through the creative power:
“Fantasy (not without the act of the cogitative faculty) will be able to reach such a kind of
conversion that the cogitative (not separated from the act of fantasy) will make all things powerfully
memorable. ” (Giordano Bruno 2008, part II, XII, p. 150).
ARS MEMORIAE
Desideria Burgio, Camilla Marinoni, Chiara Tubia, Federico Clapis, Leonardo Meoni, Andrea
Guastavino
25 September – 17 October 2021 Palermo
Palazzo Branciforte – Monte dei Pegni di Santa Rosalia
Largo Gae Aulenti, 2, 90133 Palermo PA
Tel: +39.091.8887767 – +39.091.7657621 (ticket of fice)
www.leviedeitesori.it
Opening hours:
From 25 September to 17 October – from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Saturday and Sunday- from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
TICKETS
€ 7 (full ticket)
€ 5 (reduced ticket: groups of at least 15 people, over 65s, af filiated categories)
The archeology collections (ground floor only): € 3 (swithout guided tour)
Free entry for schools and children under 18 years
For information or reservations
www.palazzobranciforte.it
Instagram:
@desideriaburgio @camillamarinoni @chiaratubia @federicoclapis @leonard_meoni
@andreabenedettoguastavino @settimanadelleculture @zerialartproject @palazzobranciforte
@fondazionesicilia
