«When I make art, I always try to show that nature is both inside and outside of us». It is a perfect synthesis of the multifaceted artistic creativity of Brigitta Rossetti (born in Piacenza in 1974 and spent a large part of her life abroad) who, thanks to a careful curatorship by Alberto Mattia Martini, presents the last decade of her artistic career at the Sala Mostre of Musei Civici in Piacenza and, with individual works, in other locations in the area. Met by the writer for an artistic promenade in the heart of the path, L’ultima Eudaimonìa, Rossetti is keen first of all to show the wealth of subjects and actors who have collaborated in various ways on the project. Public institutions, foundations, galleries, private and credit companies, consortia have contributed to creating a quality installation that is well above the level of a ‘small city’, designed by the artist together with the curator Martini, the gallery owner Giovanni Bonelli and the architect Stefano Orsi.
Brigitta Rossetti, “L’ultima eudaimonia”, installation view at Musei Civici di Piacenza, photo Andrea Rossetti, courtesy of the artist
But what is eudaimonìa for Brigitta Rossetti and why are we faced with the last one? «It is something unattainable, but towards which we must always strive. In fact, the word has two souls within itself: the good, eu, and the daimon, the demon and fate. And so by last we mean the final goal to be reached to obtain happiness as the purpose of life in its essential connection with nature». A nature that, it must be said after having observed the works exhibited at the Civic Museums of Piacenza, the key location of the exhibition, presents itself with countless guises that range from the romantic to the ritual, from the suffering to the resilient, from the contemplative to the meditative, and still small elements here and there of a deceitfully stepmotherly nature. Rossetti also uses many expressive media, the result of a university career that touched on literature, art, multimedia and, retroactively, the constant dialogue of a woman born and grown up in the countryside, «immersed in nature, its smells, its colors and its sounds».
Brigitta Rossetti, “L’ultima eudaimonia”, installation view at Musei Civici di Piacenza, photo Andrea Rossetti, courtesy of the artist
The range of materials used by the artist in her creative process is very wide: acrylic, ink, expanded polyurethane, wood, absorbent paper, glass, plasterboard, organic elements, cotton paper, bitumen, tables, a chair and natural pigments, which find their place, in a multifaceted way, in graphic works, installations and medium-large canvases that are added to the photographic, video art and sound works, sometimes contaminated by poetic and moving recitations of the artist herself. In this multifaceted universe there is the artist’s dialogue with herself, there are losses and findings, there is the need to bring back into fashion convivial rituals that have now disappeared, there is the awareness of the finitude of time and there is, in central and preponderant dynamics, the element of nature.
Brigitta Rossetti, “L’ultima eudaimonia”, installation view at Musei Civici di Piacenza, photo Andrea Rossetti, courtesy of the artist
The works are just over thirty and therefore, in this contribution, we proceed to a necessary anthology of what emerges with greater force. Vanitas is certainly an installation that attracts attention: two triangular and specular tables on which are placed objects in organic material separated by a wall of plasterboard and acrylic on absorbent paper – almost a technical feature of Rossetti – which, in addition to performing an engaging aesthetic function, symbolize the fragility of our existence. We observe Vanitas and, at the same time, we listen to the typical sound context of those who are at the table to feast: it is Lunch, a sound work that invites us to a moment of the day at risk of extinction. It is useless to look for a clear figuration in the works of Brigitta Rossetti. If there is a recognizable element in the large spaces covered in acrylic (often on the usual absorbent paper) or in the large photographic and vertical spaces, this element is the flower (or a hint of a flower), in a declination that proposes elements of still life in a modern key. Another element of visual recognition is constituted by some full-bodied pigmentations on the surface, pigmentations that simultaneously create discontinuities and correspondences in the act of observing.
Brigitta Rossetti, “L’ultima eudaimonia”, installation view at Musei Civici di Piacenza, photo Andrea Rossetti, courtesy of the artist
The above is fully present in the two pictorial cycles entitled Lost Spring and above all in the grandiose cycle that gives its title to the exhibition, L’ultima Eudaimonìa, appropriately placed at the end of the museum exhibition path. In these cases, Rossetti’s artistic urgency bursts forth with force, almost a vital cycle that the artist places on the canvas (energy in the creative process, delicacy in its realization). They are large canvases that capture the gaze and immerse us in a dual reaction, reflective and emotional, on the necessity of the relationship between man and nature and on the many vibrant layers (Layers is the title of another canvas by Rossetti) of the human soul. The monumental Farnese complex that houses the museum rooms, having been born as a citadel and fortress, has round towers at the corners. In one of these, Brigitta Rossetti offers a sample of her (also) multimedia education, with a performative video, made up of the artist’s gestures and words. Rituals is an eleven-minute video composed of six acts in which we seem to immerse ourselves in the artist’s dreamlike universe, in the «creative void when there is nothing yet», in a coming and going around a chair of an almost vestal who meditates on some personal objects from the past. Conceived in site-specific mode, the projection on the rounded wall of the tower perfectly matches the space of the movements in the video with the real one.
Brigitta Rossetti, “L’ultima eudaimonia”, installation view at Musei Civici di Piacenza, photo Andrea Rossetti, courtesy of the artist
We cannot leave this place without stopping in front of the large installation that, appearing almost rough, perfectly refers to the title given to it by the artist. Under construction, originally conceived as a wall, is composed of a dozen wooden bases of different heights that, here too in layers that include expanded polyurethane and absorbent paper, is proposed as a set of works from urban windows. The window is an element that plays an important role in Brigitta Rossetti’s poetics: just as there is an inside and an outside of the self and of one’s own conscience, so there is an inside and an outside when our visual space is occupied by a window. As it has already happened before, here too the visual aspect, embellished by a very interesting wall triad of Giardini pensili (Hanging gardens) (graphic works and cotton print), dialogues with the sense of hearing thanks to another sound installation that refers to the chirping of cicadas (the title is Song of chicadas).
Brigitta Rossetti, “L’ultima eudaimonia”, installation view at Musei Civici di Piacenza, photo Andrea Rossetti, courtesy of the artist
A few hundred meters from the Museums, together we visit three other exhibition venues, each of which features a work. Palazzo Ghizzoni Nasalli is private, but the owners’ willingness to open up to what is moving in art is now a must here in Piacenza. In the elegant and neoclassical lemon house we find ourselves in front of another piece from the Lost Spring project: the canvas confirms the strength of an artistic expressiveness capable of expressing the sublime and the beautiful. In the city venue of Mediolanum, we come across Bon Voyage which, as the artist tells us, «is a piece of an ongoing project that wants to bring me closer to slightly more urban colors». Finally, along the right nave of the Lombard Gothic Basilica dedicated to San Francesco, the theme of the Giardini pensili returns magnificently set up, with a triptych composed of almost imperceptible and reticular rectangles that dialogue perfectly with the liturgical silence of the place. The exhibition is accompanied by the digital catalogue of the same name, curated by Alberto Mattia Martini.
Info:
Brigitta Rossetti. L’ultima Eudamonìa
5-23/10/2024
Musei Civici di Piacenza and other locations
www.comune.piacenza.it
I am Giovanni Crotti and I was born in June 1968 in Reggio Calabria to be reborn in June 2014 in Piacenza, the city where I live. My income is guaranteed by digital consultancy, and I then spend it largely on art and letterature: I have been and am a content curator and organizer of cultural events for artists, galleries and institutional spaces, as well as a writer of exhibition reviews, creatives of every era and books.
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