The “Fenice” architectural studio hosts the exhibition “Litanies and Confessions,” a collection of wooden sculptures by the artist Paolo Frattari
A deconsecrated liturgical procession of eight wooden female figures awaits us. A tall candle rises above each head, its lighting marking the beginning, the middle, and the end. Condescending, enveloped in a sacred litany, we follow the feminine procession that leads us inside what was once a church where man sought comfort and communed with God.
Carved from fir wood, a gigantic face gazes at us immovable: it is Paolo Frattari's Confessionale. An incredible, two-meter-tall physical presence. It is the guardian of our sins, our inner God who welcomes us without judgment but acts as a mirror to our ego. He gazes at us impassively, awaiting the confessor and the confessee.
Kneeling beside the head, the confessor speaks through the small holes in his temple. The confessor, seated, embraced by the wood, listens patiently. But in this embrace, the confessor and the confessing merge because the Confessional is the "I" that breaks down. Thus, in secret, the conscious and the subconscious whisper to each other, recounting the darkest sides of our lives, of our progress.
The work is the culmination of forty years of study, work, and thought by the artist.
"I look at bodies, I study them, I caress them, I let the forms settle within me. Removing and removing again, in the perpetual search for what we are."
