“Can the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas?” This was the title of a lecture given by Edward Lorenz in 1972. Based on the theories of a meteorologist, Lorenz published a paper for the New York Academy of Sciences in which he argued that a flap of wings would be enough to alter the present weather conditions. A seemingly insignificant movement, like the beating of an insect’s wings, can thus trigger a chain of movements of other molecules until it causes something unpredictable, like a hurricane, thousands of kilometers away.
Alessandro Assirelli, Andrea Mario Bert, Butterfly Effect, exhibition view, Spazio SV – centro espositivo San Vidal, Venice, 2023. Courtesy the artists and No Title Gallery
Metaphorically, also everything that we tell and say today will affect the tomorrow. In the exhibition “Butterfly Effect”, artists Alessandro Assirelli and Andrea Mario Bert tell us how all things are intrinsically interconnected, and they do so by taking the visitor on a journey in which the exhibited pieces develop in a series of consequential events. Each work is a piece of a tale, and the heart of each tale is its movement towards the following work. A movement that moves us, changes us and leads us to a place we were not before. Therefore, every story aims at causing an effect on the viewer, at triggering a reflection, a change. Every day something in our lives changes but that alteration does not show itself to our eyes until we tell or are told about it. Assirellli and Bert’s works give substance to this by narrating a journey that oscillates between colour and form.
Alessandro Assirelli, Andrea Mario Bert, In un angolo non poi così nascosto dell’universo, 2023. Mixed media on frame, 14 x 28 cm. Courtesy the artists and No Title Gallery
The butterfly effect is however also present in the individual works: “Ungraspable ideas externalize into graspable forms”[1], this is the principle governing the dialogue between the two artists. An inevitable relationship between form and colour as if they were two equal and opposite tensions that influence each other. Bert’s works have an intense chromatic expression, an intimately pictorial dimension that translates into matter in Assirelli’s meticulous works. The sculptures reveal the cyclical nature of events, the secret relationship that is created between human being, animal and nature. The represented bodies are metamorphoses, they dictate a new definition of the human, in complete harmony with the cosmos. In fact, Assirelli’s sculptures are placed in unpredictable places and shapes, they walk butterflies, they fill, they scale surfaces and become the absolute protagonists of actions and their repercussions.
Alessandro Assirelli, Andrea Mario Bert, E poi voliamo, 2023. Oil and pigment on canvas, 40 resin sculptures, diameter 50 cm. Courtesy the artists and No Title Gallery
Alessandro Assirelli, Andrea Mario Bert, Infinito, 2023. Plaster, oil, resin sculpture, fly, diameter 10 cm. Courtesy gli artisti e No Title Gallery
The works constantly dialogue among them and with the viewer, offering constant food for thought. Bert’s blue sky fills our gaze as we approach to look at Assirelli’s sculptures. The exhibition leads us into another, almost dreamlike world, in which time appears dilated and in which the connection between past, present and future events is revealed to us. On the way out, the exhibition leaves questions in your throat: are we also the architects of our own changes? And how do we influence those of others and the society ones?
Ylenia Modolo
[1] August Macke, “The Masks”, in “The Blue Rider” by W. Kandinsky, Franz Marc, p. 59, SE, 1988, Milan.
Info:
Alessandro Assirelli, Andrea Mario Bert, Butterfly Effect
curated by Francesco Liggieri e Christian Palazzo
a project by No Title Gallery and Spazio SV – centro espositivo San Vidal
9/03/2012 – 14/03/2023
Spazio SV – centro espositivo San Vidal
Campo S. Zaccaria 4693, Venezia
spaziosv.com
notitegallery.org
Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, she subsequently attended the School for Curatorial Studies in Venice. She writes about contemporary art with a particular eye towards emerging artists and experimental research projects.
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