ON/OFF like the light switch that illuminates a room or the button that darkens a screen, or like “on line/off line,” meaning successful connection or no connection with the Internet, and consequently the world. But it is also an intermittent relationship between light, form, and space, if it is true that the theme of light runs through the entire history of art as a tool of investigation and discovery of form, space, and matter.
The exhibition ON/OFF originated with the idea of combining works of artists belonging to several generations of Italian and international art, placing their works in the same relationship that is created between the two poles of transmission of electrical energy. Thus, art is like an excellent conductor of light and energy, two forces that can change the world, matter, and life. Joining works that were already part of the collection of Federica Coen and Vittoriano Spalletti, or that were conceived at VistaMare on occasion of the previous exhibition Camera Italia, other works have been added that use light as a symbol, metaphor, or simple material.
STEFANO ARIENTI + VEDOVAMAZZEI: the artificial light that illuminates the most personal memories, and the synthetic light that makes the gilded world of glamour shine. From the private mythology of the affections of Stefano Arienti to the collective mythology of the star system and the glossy magazines of vedovamazzei.
MARTIN CREED + JOSEPH BEUYS: A dual intersecting reflection on the role of art and the artist in society who passes through different periods: from the Utopian power of Beuys with his idea of “social sculpture” as the active and participatory transformation of the collectivity, to the disenchanted irony and subtle, dissimulated humor of Martin Creed.
CARLOS GARAICOA + MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO: Reality amplified through its own fragmentation. The precariousness and poetry of the candlelight imaginary city of Carlos Garaicoa are refracted and multiplied in Pistoletto’s mirrors: the world that surrounds us is not as unified as it might seem, the possibilities are always multitudinous.
FABIO PALMIERI + ALBERTO GARUTTI: The light that illuminates a hidden dimension, the dimension of personal feelings and intimate and domestic atmosphere. The secret and the surprise discretely concealed in the work of Alberto Garutti become blinding in the attempt by Fabio Palmieri to bring the light of his Naples into a Pescara interior.