SUTURA 2 February 2023 – 3 May 2023
The exhibition If the future was an object in your hand was born from the dialogue with SUTURA and the Istituto Fisicoterapico Torino on the theme of the hand: a tool for relating to others and to the world, with functions that mark the difference between humankind and animal, the hand has taken on a great symbolic value throughout history, to the point of being considered the guardian of signs that indicate possible plots in the lives of individuals.
In her performances, her videos and her works, Francesca Grilli guides the public in the observation of signs that build a trajectory of dialogue towards their own intimacy. In her artistic research, time is a key element: it identifies a rhythm, records a duration, identifies the capacity for resistance, symbolizes the experience. The actor of time is the body, a body that accompanies our life and speaks to us through a sophisticated perceptive system. The body is also the instrument of contact that allows us to feel the other, to participate in the experience of the other by recognizing ourselves in a common feeling. Talking about the hand is a way of describing our relationships: the hand takes, the hand gives; the hand offers, the hand refuses; the hand opens and closes; tighten and release; defends, welcomes, hits, caresses; speaks and is silent. It therefore becomes the symbol of social bonds, of the thousand forms in which interpersonal and intergenerational bonds are expressed.
Life Line is a canvas approximately 3 and a half meters long, installed in the stairwell of the IFT. It recalls the sign of life that each of us holds in our palm, a clear and mysterious sign at the same time, which puts us in contact with the tension between destiny and free will, ambiguity and the scientific nature of data. The work transforms the lines of several palms into a sort of single constellation, as if to create a connection between the finiteness of the life that we hold close and its infinite projection into the existence of matter. Hand#1, Hand#2 and Hand#3 are the result of meetings that the artist had with the IFT community, invited to tell their story through their own hands. The three canvases are light and semi-transparent surfaces that recall the idea of a skin, of a border between inside and outside. Through post-production work, each palm is the result of the overlapping of several hands and brings the intimacy of the individual into contact with the identity of a community.
If the future was an object in your hand is a photographic diptych in which two hands present an object: a feather and a watch. The feather is offered on the palm of an open hand. Maybe she just leaned down, maybe the hand is about to push her up. The clock is held by closed fingers, fingers that perhaps will open or perhaps will tighten further. In addition to the theme of time and the perception of life, in this work there is a reference to the gift as a symbolic and ambiguous gesture between freedom and constraint, generosity and loss, social manifestation and spontaneity.
Five bronze sculptures from 2018 are then on display in the exhibition: the works Soap, Brush, Comb, Suit, Pants record traces of the memory that the objects carry and return, focusing on the presence of gestures and the movements of the body in space. The traces are imprinted through touch, grasping, letting something fall. Daily gestures, which seem to breathe in the form of sculpture.
The interpretative nuances and dichotomies present in the works immerse us in a kaleidoscope of reflections that question our political and poetic position in the space and time of life. SUTURA is a research and promotion space for contemporary art that intercepts and interprets the relationship between health and culture. It was born from the will of Virginia Moniaci and the Istituto Fisicoterapico Torino, from its history and from the deep connection with scientific experimentation. SUTURA is curated by qwatz. The challenges of medicine, the relationship with our senses, the many stories that manifest themselves within the clinics are observed by the artists to build imaginaries, relationships, listening.
Thanks to the Umberto Di Marino gallery for their collaboration.