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SABRINA MEZZAQUI
ciò che la primavera fa con i ciliegi
21 May - 27 August, 2011

ciò che la primavera fa con i ciliegi is the title of the new solo show by Sabrina Mezzaqui at the Galleria Continua in San Gimignano.
Mezzaqui’s work is inextricably bound up with writing. The artist simultaneously explores different languages – figurative art and literature – producing genuine visual poems in which the written word and the image blend together harmoniously. Through a reflective, selfimposed, process-based discipline, and a meticulous practice alternating construction and deconstruction, Mezzaqui manages to revitalize and render concrete in images and objects the substantive detachment from words. Literature is therefore the privileged focus of her work, both as medium and message. The patience with which she builds every single work transforms the physical time of her work into the time of an apparently eternal instant, in which every word has its own space and in which space itself is formed by experience, by the steps taken and by the journey made with those words.
“They are new works, almost all of paper, some in embroidered fabrics, conceived for the small side rooms of the gallery. They do not occupy much space, but have taken a lot of time to make, by hand, by lots of hands. Almost all of them were inspired by books or poetic texts.
The methods used to transform and manipulate the books are the now-usual ones: cutting of the lines of the text, the making of origami shapes from the pages of the book, the hand copying of the writing, the embroidering of letters... Each book finds the form or image most suited to its content. The lines in Arabic from the Qur’an become a small prayer mat.
The precious words of Etty Hillesum and Mariangela Gualtieri are embroidered in gold letters. The pages of the Tao of Physics take on the form of mechanical mechanisms assembled by forces in equilibrium. How many times the handsome Prince Myskin is described as an ‘idiot’ in Dostoyevsky’s novel. And then there are the notebooks embroidered with notes from much-loved texts: ‘The house’ by Marguerite Duras, ‘Lightness’ by Italo Calvino and Gregory Batson’s metalogue ‘How much do you know?’
There is a failed work: a sheet of ice inscribed with the word ETERNITA’, an image lifted from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, in which the young Kai is forced to write ‘eternity’ in the ice, this being the only way he will be able to become master of himself, of the world and of a pair of new skates. But the child can’t do it...
Counterbalancing this impossibility is the amorous declaration of Neruda: “I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees”, which is also the title of the show and of the photograph of the joyful blossom of a wild tree.
The exhibition was prepared in spring and has breathed in blossom or beauty or happiness. The etymon of the word ‘felice’ [‘happy’] means ‘fertile’, ‘nourishing’, ‘fecund’ (this ‘fe’: the same root as ‘femminile’ [‘feminine’]).

The works on display are accompanied by a silk-screened book-catalogue, with a run of 100 (numbered and signed) copies, which brings together the notebook images realized over the last two years (many of which are in the show) and citations from the books used, an account of the threads of thought running through the works.”

Marzabotto, 2 May 2011
Sabrina Mezzaqui

Sabrina Mezzaqui was born in Bologna in 1964, and lives and works in Marzabotto. She has shown her work extensively in Italy and abroad. Recent exhibitions include: Arte e Design - Vivere e pensare in carta e cartone, curated by P. Biscottini, Museo Diocesano, Milan (2011); Cosa fa la mia anima mentre sto lavorando? Opere d’Arte Contemporanea dalla Collezione Consolandi, curated by F.Pasini and A. Vettese, MAGA, Gallarate (2010); La scultura italiana del XXI secolo, curated by M.Meneguzzo, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Milan (2010); Linguaggi e Sperimentazioni (Giovani artisti della collezione AGI, Verona), curated by G. Verzotti, MART, Rovereto (2010); Libri d’artista dalla collezione Consolandi 1919-2009, curated by G. Maffei and A. Vettese, Palazzo Reale, Milan (2010). Amongst her solo shows, there are: Forse noi siamo qui per dire: casa, ponte, fontana, brocca, albero da frutti, finestra, L’Ozio, Amsterdam (2010); La realtà non è forte, Sala Gandini del Museo Civico d’Arte, Palazzo dei Musei, Modena (2010); Equipaje de mano/Bagaglio a mano, Istituto Italiano di Cultura - MOCA, Buenos Aires (2009); Mettere a dimora, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, SI (2008); Come acqua nell’acqua, Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples (2007); C’è un tempo, GAM - Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin (2006); Sabrina Mezzaqui, One Severn Street, Birmingham, UK (2005).

Thanks to:
Antonella Albertazzi, Grazia Bandini, Giuseppe Barile, Paolo Bascetta, Roberto Camatta, Carlo Alberto Canobbi, Cinzia Corsi, Paolo Degli Esposti, Silke De Vivo, Debora Domenichelli, Claudio Faccioli, Antonella Fiocchi, Patrizia Izzo, Jo Lolli, Ruggero Pini, Riccardo Sivelli, Elena Volpato
S.M.