The Biblioteca Marciana will light up on the evening of April 7 with a light performance and a multimedia installation by Venetian artist Federica Marangoni
A place that safeguards culture, a symbol of Venice designed by a Renaissance starchitect, hosts the exhibition of the Venetian multimedia pioneer Federica Marangoni.
Murano glass, pixels, neon, and LEDs engage in a dialogue with the sixteenth-century architecture of Jacopo Sansovino’s Biblioteca Marciana, alongside late Renaissance masterpieces and precious books. From April 8 to November 27, 2022, the large site-specific work Memory: The Light of Time/Memoria: Luce del tempo, curated by Roberta Semeraro and Viana Conti, retraces the key themes of the Venetian artist within the spaces of the Biblioteca Marciana in St. Mark’s Square, Venice.
“Reading is a risk” is the red neon warning placed above the entrance to the reading room, guarded by The Archive of Memory, the large book on LED screens that declares the importance of reading and freedom in many languages, enveloped by the technological flames of violence that destroy culture and history.
“Memory is the common thread of creativity,” says Federica Marangoni. And it is from the red Filo Conduttore (Common Thread) that years ago wrapped the Ca’ Pesaro museum on the Grand Canal that Federica resumes, this time with a laser, the theme of the connection between institutions, also applauded by Emma Ursich, General Secretary of The Human Safety Net, the Generali foundation that requested this exhibition to open the celebrations for the reopening after 500 years of the Procuratie Vecchie in St. Mark’s Square.
The event will be crowned by a light happening in St. Mark’s Square on the evening of Thursday, April 7, at dusk.
Between glass, video, and neon, the exhibition reveals a worldview (Weltanschauung) that reminds us of the words of Andrea Emo, the Venetian philosopher who inspired the large, recently inaugurated site-specific project by Anselm Kiefer at Palazzo Ducale, located directly opposite the Biblioteca Marciana and open until October 29, 2022.
Memory: The Light of Time is a linguistically complex work, distributed across several pieces that unfold through the library in temporal and multimedia spaces, conceived within a cyber context as a sign, a trace of light, which the artist dedicates to Venice.
The exhibition at the Biblioteca Marciana
Upon entering the access corridor to the Marciana’s internal rooms, the glass book The Archive of Memory serves as the archetype of all those pages upon which the history of a wounded and offended humanity flows amidst the red flare of a fire. In the entrance hall, the warning Reading is a risk stands out, referring to the novel by Ray Bradbury and the film Fahrenheit 451.
On a desk at the entrance of the Sansovino Reading Room, a golden pile of Murano glass books announces that All that glitters is not gold, and oxidized, engraved iron marks the traces of the artist’s notebook pages where words of blue light flow. The Filo Conduttore with red Flex LED, which extends horizontally along the long bisector cutting the hall in two, graphically draws a straight line, representing the continuity that runs through the artist’s life and work.
The word ART, legible in the center of the space and reversed as ‘TRA’ on the mirror below, indicates the relationship and interaction between subjects, time, and place.
Following the architectural rhythm of the balconies, the aphorism Words Thread of Time/Parole Filo del Tempo is installed on the central windows of the reading room in blue Flex LED, a graffiti of light whose intermittent illumination alternates with that of the monumental and emblematic Continuity.
Towards the exit of the Reading Room, Performing hand is a projection on large LED screens of a hand writing-the-writing: words of light on dark backgrounds symbolizing the conflicting coexistence of a linguistic Babel of values and anti-values, rights and prohibitions, freedom and censorship.
The video animation Dripping Rainbow/Bleeding/(He)Art is dedicated to the attack of September 11, 2001. New York is a city very dear to Federica Marangoni, who was featured there with the performance The Interrogation in 1980, along with the world premiere of her film The Box of Life, at MoMA in New York.
Federica Marangoni
Born in 1940, Federica Marangoni is a Venetian artist and designer. For over fifty years, she has worked in the world of electronic video art, blending the languages of video-visual media with the material qualities of Murano glass and neon lighting through installations, sculptures, and performances.
She works internationally, following a precise professional and cultural path that has led her to explore all sectors of communication in an eclectic and interdisciplinary way, alongside her artistic career as a sculptor, founding her design studio, Fedra Studio Design, in Venice in 1970.
From 1976 to 1989, she was a teacher in the Department of Art and Art Education at New York University and still holds seminars and courses in Venice during the summer with glass workshops.
She has exhibited in many cultural centers across the USA, Europe, and Japan.
Memory: The Light of Time
Biblioteca Marciana, Venice
From April 7 to November 27, 2022
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 10 AM to 5 PM. Free admission by writing to memory.marciana@gmail.com.
Official hashtags:
#FedericaMarangoni #MemoryMarciana
Article by Lucia Pecoraro and photos by Paolo Luca @paololucavideo.
