Fountains for Monferrato
A charming itinerary of “art fountains” designed and put forward by artists of three generations, with a particular interest in environmental issues. One of the most interesting aspects of the contemporary artistic panorama at international level is the attitude with which visual artists of different origin and discipline (painters, sculptors, media operators, architects and designers) today turn their attention to the environment. It is an issue, which is considered not only within a stable dimension of natural and urban landscape, but as a dynamic field of communicative relations, active on a symbolic and emotional level. This exhibition brings together the designs and proposals of artists of three generations, selected on the basis of the acknowledged congeniality of their work with environmental themes beyond specific lines of research. The event outlines a charming and varied itinerary in the Monferrato area, city and countryside where the “art fountains” are unique discoveries of functional entities. They are also symbolic-communicative inviting rest areas and signs able to set in motion a productive relationship with the urban and rural context. The widespread and diverse linear shapes of the Monferrato landscape mark an antique, as yet unresolved dilemma between nature and culture, here in agreement, in reciprocal expansion of reality and image. Water, earth and the light of Monferrato are thus clearly expressed within new figures, which do not decline the use of complex technologies of image. In any case, they have the awareness and memory of an individual and social feeling of togetherness, past experiences, which are, in an inextricable way, presence and memory. In the context of the Monferrato landscape, the research of the contemporary artists gathered here has been compelled to make educational reasons and constitutive relevances explicit. The projects all make reference to a strong social and aesthetic element of communication.
Nella pagina a fronte: “Fiore d’acqua”, di Filippo Avalle. On the opposite page: “Fiore d’acqua” (Water flower), by Filippo Avalle.
In questa pagina dall’alto: “La Giostra di Zampanò”, di Lara Favaretto (primo premio ex aequo); fontana di Mauro Staccioli (primo premio ex aequo); “Fluidofiume”, di Mauro Ghiglione. On this page from the top: “La Giostra di Zampanò” (Zampanò’s merrygo-round) by Lara Favaretto (joint first prize); fountain by Mauro Staccioli (joint first prize); “Fluidofiume”(Fluid river) by Mauro Ghiglione.
53