I enter and Rose (2024) appears before me, one of the last works created by Isabella Nurigiani, an artist who died prematurely, to whom this exhibition is dedicated in homage. I move and find myself in front of Fusioni (2020), and then Uno (2023), Eternidad (2021)… and then all the others. Suddenly I find myself imagining a dense matter levitating upwards, a matter that twists on itself with thin, almost impalpable spirals, I notice an emptying of weight, and a sudden new meaning manifests itself and becomes the decisive key to understanding all of her research, a desire for lightness, which harks back to the verses of a poet of great sensitivity like Antonia Pozzi, always immersed in the fragility and turmoil of the soul ... desire for light things / in the heart that weighs / like a stone / inside a boat… so she wrote in 1934. A lightness that is not superficiality, but as Italo Calvino writes in his American Lessons … The dissolution of the compactness of the world leads to new knowledge of the world..., like that stone in the heart that must vanish. Isabella's own words establish a bridge to the past and allow us to delve deeper into the spirit of her poetics: "I embarked on a journey...which led me to a place where my imagination frees me from present space and time, to an elsewhere that pushes me beyond my limits..." Isabella experiences artistic invention as a chance to transgress the values of time and space, as the coordinates of being in the world. And precisely that desire for levity becomes the privileged vehicle for escaping the concreteness of reality, for going beyond the confines of narrative, for capturing a lightness of thoughtfulness, to borrow once again from Italo Calvino.
The works on display today testify to a harmonious journey, in which the physical weight of the materials used, from the first works in iron to those in bronze, to those in precious marble, is emblematic of an awareness of artistic practice that becomes increasingly complex, more demanding, and even more precious. For Isabella, the artistic gesture is removed from the improvisation of conception and experimental execution. It is the labor and effort required to achieve a common outcome in all her works, where the dichotomy between gravity and dynamism, between man and nature, is overcome by the unexpected and multiple metamorphoses of matter, which becomes an increasingly thin, enveloping ribbon, beyond imagined limits. The 2004 work Interpretazione spaziale, in iron and travertine, constitutes an interesting and notable point of reference for all her subsequent production. The thin iron sheet opens upward in spirals and is rooted in the travertine column, not only a support base, but an integral part of the sculpture.
A work that stands out completely from the others is the large installation Diversi from 2009, created for the exhibition "Altri Muri" (Other Walls), also at Studio Tiepolo38, marking the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is a decidedly political work, revealing a more hidden aspect of Isabella Nurigiani's research, more relevant than ever today. Once again, the artist's own words are important: "Art for me is a source of life, of energy that always suggests a different perception of physical place, social space, and cultural environment, with the desire to intervene. The passion for art has changed my world. A better, harmonious world, without wars."
Tiziana Musi
