On the 9th of May the solo exhibition of Francesca Piovesan, entitled “IN-VISIBLE”, will christen the new Gaggenau Hub in the Heart of Milan. Sabino Maria Frassà, the new art Director of this “temple” of art and design coinceved a series of 4 contemporary art exhibitions to speak about riflections and distorsions. Thus Francesca Piovesan is going to present 16 artworks made of mirrors and woods, taking inspiration from the secular experience of Murano’s glasses. Francesca Piovesan reflects on how difficult it is to really know ourselves and the world around us. For this reason she sees art as an instrument to acquire knowledge and overcome the increasing ontological relativism which leads us to impose our “self” on anything different from what we are. His latest work cycles, “Gli Invisibili” (The Invisibles) and “Gli Specchianti” (The Mirroring) show her vision of art as an instrument of knowledge. They are made re-interpreting the Venetian mirror with an original meaning and sculptural dimension. Francesca Piovesan questions the society based on the image, the appearance and the idea that “looking at myself in the mirror, I know and I understand who I am” (Colli). The artist tries to go beyond what the mirror reflects, imposing her presence on the viewer. She photographically develops her image inside the mirror, thanks to the visual reaction produced by the silver coat and the mineral salts left by her body on the glass before the silver bath. In this way the reflection of the viewer overlaps and mixes with the other, the artist’s body imprinted on the mirror. This process that does not permit an identification in the mirror is brought to the extreme in her latest cycles of works, Gli Invisibili. Here everything The artist’s body, the viewer’s body and the surrounding environment – seem to disappear in the golden light of the very works.
This process towards knowledge produces pain: it is not easy to leave the reassuring, and historical egocentric vision of the self and of the world to embrace an empathic vision in which the self is indissolubly linked with what is around it. In front of these works the viewers feel both puzzled and attracted. They are afraid they will no longer be able to recognize themselves but they are also fascinated by the reflection of themselves and of the light of Piovesan’s works. The upset provoked gives the viewers the possibility to lay bare, without masks in front of the mirror showing their fragility and weakness and in-utility. Only when you are alone you are no one and only when you perceive this void you can understand the essence, the transcendent and invisible image of I- God.
The artist looks at herself in the mirror to know herself. She does not recognize herself in the reflected image and so she starts to accept the fact that time only passes for human beings, not for the world which will go on. In spite of all Francesca Piovesan’s works are, under this point of view, great kaleidoscopes by means of which it is possible to overcome the relativity and the nihilism of out times. Each of us mirroring him/herself in her magic mirrors does not disappear, but is reborn enriched by what is around. As Pirandello said “I die every moment and I am born again, without memories. Alive and whole, no longer within myself, but in everything around me.” Francesca Piovesan was born in Aviano nel 1981. She works and lives in Aviano and Venezia. After working in the field of wall painting conservation, she graduates from the Venice Art Academy. She won the CRAMUM Prize in 2015 and she was selected among the finalists of the Fabbri Prize in 2013. In 2017 she had her first solo exhibition, “NOI” (“We”) curated by Sabino Maria Frassà at the Studio Museo Francesco Messina, Milan. She had been taking part to International art exhibition since 2008, including ‘Nuovi Orizzonti in Laguna’ in Buenos Aires nel 2009, ‘La Fine del Nuovo’ at the Mestrovic Pavilion in Zagabria, ‘Oltre’ at the Italian Cultural Institute of Budapest in 2015, ‘Scusate il disturbo’ at the PAC Museum in Milan in 2015 and Art in Port – Coexistence : for a new adriatic Koiné (hold in Italy, Albania, Croatia and Montenegro from 2014 to 2015).
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