Monteverde, I will not die entirely

Featuring photographic details of artist Laura Cantarella and selected archival content from the Gypsotheque Giulio Monteverde in Bistagno, Italy, I will not die entirely is an object embodying both the oeuvre of a touring exhibition and its catalogue at once.
An evocative portrait of one of the finest—and later forgotten— sculptors of the Italian 19th century, Giulio Monteverde, released on the 100th anniversary of his death, the work aims to share with an international audience an homage to the art of plaster, a material widely disregarded, both fragile and long-lasting, poor and precious, provisional and original.
I will not die entirely translates Horace’s lyrics Non omnis moriar—evoked by a Senator of the Reign during the commemoration of the sculptor’s death—and generates a reflection on different planes. By honoring the artistic heritage of Giulio Monteverde, and his uncompromising approach on funerary art—a practice at the time mostly comforting in providing a promising imaginary of the Christian afterlife—the eschatological opposition between the eternal life provided by the religious salvation through faith and the secular immortality of the artist through the legacy of his/her work finds here a space for a visual and textual interplay. Moreover, it resonates with the complex destiny of the plasters of Bistagno (hometown of Giulio Monteverde) and with the replicability of this ancient, and yet surprisingly contemporary, form of art.


The project is part of the Festival Identità e Territorio: www.valbormidaexperience.eu