Time, space and movement. This is the thematic spiral around which Lo spazio della durata (The space of duration) is articulated, a solo exhibition by the artist Clarissa Baldassarri at Linea in Lecce, open until 26 February 2022. The exhibition opens the exhibition programme of the space dedicated to photography and contemporary image directed by the photographer Alice Caracciolo.
The exhibition project comes to life out of Baldassarri's reflection, born more than a year ago during the first lockdown around the formless aspect of the time component. What is time? What dimension does it have? Where are we in relation to it and where is it in relation to us?, which accompanied the investigation and gave rise to the body of works exhibited last September at Gian Marco Casini Gallery a Livorno.
The map of Italy entitled Entropy is one of the works on display, a geography of Italian municipalities arranged in space without any regional boundaries to emphasise how, at a time of total standstill, a different space-time experience was experienced but united by shared actions.
From this work, Clarissa Baldassarri has reflected a lot on the theme of object-identity, focusing on the experience of movement in space through travel. In particular, she was interested in the material of polystyrene not only for its competitive characteristics but also for its usual use.
"I was fascinated by polystyrene because I saw the possibility of short-circuiting its usual use, i.e. the relationship between protected object and protection. Styrofoam is usually used to protect objects during transport so that they arrive in one place intact. So I was interested in overturning this relationship and giving a new, almost objective identity to this specific material".
In the exhibition in Lecce, Clarissa Baldassari brings forward the baggage of reflections and sensations in which polystyrene is at the centre, as an object that coexists in the space of the exhibition through the photographic and sculptural-installation medium.
"To excavate, to deconstruct, to fragment a form, not to erase or destroy it, but to look at it from another perspective: to see through the microscopic state of matter and enter into the enduring reality of time. Repeating an action seemingly indefinitely implies losing oneself in its temporal duration."
The exhibition Lo spazio della durata presents a photographic work documenting the sculptural object still in its intact form before the erosive action of crumbling; and a sculpture testifying to the repetitive and processual gesture of the erosive action that led to the crumbling of the polystyrene material.
Through the coexistence of different temporalities, the artist wants to cancel the idea of beginning and end, eliminating the distinction between before and after, between past and future, offering a change of several perspectives of the gaze and the name of the same material object.
BIO:
Clarissa Baldassarri (Civitanova Marche, 1994) lives and works in Naples. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata, where she began her first experiments with PET leaf and plexiglass, creating a series of works including Blind Limit, a work that won the Quarelli Art Prize in 2017, becoming part of the permanent collection of the Roccaverano Park. In the same year he continued his studies in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, where he developed the project Eikona -a series of altars and votive shrines- which problematises the phenomenon of the idolatry of the image. Eikona is the focus of the artist's first solo exhibition, held at the GMCG Gallery in Livorno in 2018; the work in the exhibition Sindone n°2 won the "Art Tracker" Special Prize of the 2019 Combat Prize. In recent years she has experimented with digital techniques using scientific measuring instruments, developing as a project for her master's thesis the solo exhibition Auxiliary, in the Church of San Giuseppe degli Scalzi (NA), curated by Marianna Agliottone and Rosaria Iazzetta. With the work Sound data logger he won the "Menzione Speciale Arte Accademia" of the Ducato Prize 2020.
In September 2020 he is among the 20 artists selected for the project "Una boccata d'arte" curated by Fondazione Elpis, with the support of Galleria Continua. In 2020 he inaugurated Entropia, his second solo show at the GMCG gallery, and on the occasion of Art Verona 2020 he was one of the winners of "Level 0", a prize that foresees the inclusion of the artist in the future programming of the Fondazione Morra Greco in Naples. In 2021 she takes part in the collective exhibition Ora, at the Embassy of the Holy See in Palazzo Borromeo (RM) curated by White Noise Gallery and at Art Verona 2021 she wins the "Level 0" prize, this time selected by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (TO).
