Materia Prima - Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Castello di Rivara
2016

500 W

Two Kodak Carousel projectors on pedestals, chargers, wall
Variable dimensions



Materia Prima could be seen as one of the many possible outcomes of Bepi Ghiotti's work on the neo-baroque (space of) Castle of Rivara. Only one of the possible results, reasonably, determined by having to set a time limit to his tireless research. Yet, there is a moment before, at the beginning of the artist's operation on the location, in which time has already overwhelmingly taken its share as a raw material. Bepi's trained photographer eye recognizes the majesty of time, which is manifested in the traces of life and art deposited in the Castle's ambient by the passage of time.

His work thus concentrates on an attempt to resurface the essence of this space, almost sweeping away, one after the other, all the layers of recent history.

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Room after room, wall after wall, Ghiotti analyzes the geometries, listening to them breathe. Like a chemist in an ancient laboratory, he captures the light coming through the windows in different hours throughout the day. The light continuously changes, as does the perception of the architectures, thus delivering an essential experience of the location, through the artist's installation. The rooms of the neo-baroque villa, similar to living organisms, bring out the primary elements of their physiology: the asynchronous pulse of the two projectors beaming pure light, installed in the entryway; along the electromagnetic vibrations captured with ancient gestures on the cyanotypes, in the partial views of faces and landscapes that can only be imagined through scratches of light, torn away from the black of darkness,

of oblivion.

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Through this intervention, which is almost an archaeological operation on

the location, soaked in anthropological suggestions and ancient techniques,

Bepi Ghiotti reveals the heart to the audience. The viewer is led to the “source” of the identity of those rooms from the Eighteen hundreds, recovered through the artist's tenacious experience inside the Caslte and that of all its physical and unworldly dwellers. Walking through those rooms, among objects revealing the essence, one has the clear feeling of being inside a fully developing process, deeply interconnected with the ponderously conquered relationship the artist has had with the Castle of Rivara, day after day, in the resounding loneliness of those huge, empty rooms.