Senza titolo, invisibile, dove le stelle… Giovanni Anselmo

“Senza titolo, invisibile, dove le stelle si avvicinano di una spanna in più, mentre oltremare appare verso Sud-Est, e la luce focalizza… As is often the case with the works of Giovanni Anselmo, the lengthy title of the Venice exhibition is a long sequence, almost a short story, which describes the works we encounter. Above all, however, it is a succession of landscapes that open onto our imagination like windows. Anselmo is not presenting new works in Venice but the space in which he is showing them is new: the singular space at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia restored by Carlo Scarpa in 1960. Conceived by the Venetian architect entirely in stone, marble, cement and faux marbling, the exhibition and cultural meeting space is a unicum studied and planned in the minutest detail. Above all it is an architectural system designed in relation to the uniqueness of Venice, capable of dealing with the tide when it is too high. The architect designed a channel along the entire perimeter that the overflowing water can run into. It is an unusual space which constantly has to synchronise with the natural elements of the lagoon, changing its axis, following its breath. […] In keeping with this imperturbable artist and the radical spirit of his research, the project created for the Fondazione Querini Stampalia is precise, rigorous, linear and immense and completely respects the space designed by Carlo Scarpa, itself considered an installation which the artist contends with directly. Anselmo has designed invisible coordinates within which to reconsider the whole area, bearing in mind the intimate relationship and connection between the space and the cardinal points of the earth’s axis. In the four works he has proposed, the artist puts into play time, energy, the force of gravity and magnetism; he refers to the finite and the infinite, the invisible and the visible, the whole and the detail…” – Chiara Bertola