Secretum

“SECRETUM” di ELISA ZADI

a Villa Caruso Bellosguardo

After the critical and public success with the "Cara Enfanta", the interactive pictorial installation previewed at the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato, Elisa Zadi proposes herself with another performative enterprise, this time sculptural , entitled "Secretum" and curated by Marco Palamidessi. The precious opportunity will be, in the context of the Biblioart review, the new stage of “Vitamine - energy tablets”, the traveling project that collects 466 small-format works (10 × 15 cm), coming from the prestigious Carlo Palli Archive in Prato. Sunday 3 April, from 3 to 7 pm, at Villa Caruso-Bellosguardo, in the Municipality of Lastra a Signa, the exhibition will be inaugurated by Laura Monaldi, in the presence of Carlo Palli, the Mayor Angela Bagni and the Councilor for Culture Stefano Calistri , as well as curators, museum directors, performers and musicians. “Secretum” is an interactive sculptural installation which, inspired by the archetype of the oracle, is made up of two column-elements facing each other, enigmatic and solemn; these structures, of different heights, have the shape of truncated pyramids, which deliberately refer to the structures of the obelisks. The lower column constitutes the pedestal of a terracotta vase, which contains the galbuli, rounded fruits of the cypress, a pillar between the earth and the sky, a plant symbol of immortality which in ancient Greece was associated with Apollo and Artemis. The other, higher column, constitutes the body of the actual oracle and supports a bronze sculpture at its end that portrays the face of a mysterious Goddess and has four terracotta lion feet as a base, a metaphor for divine strength. In the upper part of the pedestal we find a wooden arm that is articulated in the two ends, in which two candles are lit to illuminate the face-sculpture of the oracle, placed to witness the event and above all the reaction of each spectator at the moment of the response. . Placing itself as a physical link between man's secret interiority and his desire to fulfill himself, this oracle is made up of a base divided in half, a part dedicated to the affirmative answer and one to the negative one. Only by interacting with the installation, first by collecting the chosen galbulus from the vase and then slowly passing towards the oracle, inserting the pine cone and the inner question in the slot that is located in the middle of the column, the consultant will have, as if in front of a sort of " mouth of truth ”, an immediate and visible response at the foot of the oracle itself. If the ambiguity of the answers of the oracles was once their main and constant characteristic, the peculiarity of this contemporary oracle is to pronounce a prophecy that can only be positive or negative for each question asked intimately. “Know thyself” is, once again, the exhortation to investigate and investigate the meaning of existence. The secret is what remains, what lives between us and the oracle, the invisible mirror of our destiny.