Nico Vascellari: MELMA

Next opening: October 3, 2023
Piazza Della Signoria
Palazzo Vecchio
Museo Novecento

From June 24, 2023, Forte Belvedere hosts MELMA, an exhibition by Nico Vascellari curated by Sergio Risaliti, director of the Museo Novecento, promoted by the Municipality of Florence and organized by MUS.E. MELMA is the first stage of a large-scale project by the artist for the city of Florence.

After the major exhibitions by Jan Fabre, Giuseppe Penone, Antony Gormley, and Eliseo Mattiacci, Forte Belvedere is once again devoted to the work of a single artist in its entirety, from the ramparts overlooking Florence to the interior of the Renaissance Palazzina.

The exhibition (until October 8, 2023) includes a selection of new works conceived for this occasion and produced in different media, such as video, sculpture, collage, installation, and sound. In the external spaces and in the garden, nine aluminium sculptural works from the series Horse Power (2023) are installed on the ramparts, while the videos Fossil of Experience (2023) and Horse Power (2019) are presented inside the gunboats, and the work Falena (2022) is displayed on the façade of the building. The interior rooms display over thirty works of various registers, which offer a broad overview of Vascellari’s work, with a focus on the relationship between man and nature, existence and transcendence.

“The title of this exhibition can serve as a viaticum. Mire (Melma) is indeed similar to mud, filth, slush.  Literally it means earth saturated with a lot of water, like that which deposits on the floor of a river, a swamp, or a lake. […] In the figurative sense, though, it means abjection, corruption and moral animalization. […] Mire can also be interpreted in a moral sense and refer, at the same time, to the quality of our individual life and that of contemporary society. […] In the poetical intentions of Nico Vascellari, there is no desire to express a moral judgement. Man is slimy and yet, there is something angelical about him. […] And so life is one and the same thing with death, for in the end, there is only corruption and regeneration without end. […] The body of a bird furrowed by death fills with water and offers solace to other creatures of the air and of the earth. A horse and a stag have something divine about them that mechanics has not. But new centaurs may exist, hybrid forms of an animal and industrial nature. While technology animalises man and destroys the planetary balance, art produces wonder, generates poetical forms in order to regenerate our sensitivity and give us back to nature, bending technique to the service of a mild harmony among the living.” —Sergio Risaliti

MELMA will continue in October through a performance and two installations involving some of the city’s most prestigious artistic heritage sites. For the first time, Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio and Museo Novecento will simultaneously host the works of a single contemporary artist, including a new installation for the Arengario, a performance conceived for the Salone dei Cinquecento, and a series of works in the former Leopoldine building. The whole project takes into account the peculiar relationship between Renaissance and Contemporary, and that between the public space of the square and the political place par excellence represented by the Salone dei Cinquecento of Palazzo Vecchio.    

On October 3, 2023 a site-specific installation will be inaugurated in Piazza della Signoria, following installations by Jeff Koons, Jan Fabre and Urs Fischer in recent years. The installation conceived for the Arengario of Palazzo Vecchio is a poetic and delicate action at the same time, inspired as much by Renaissance images—reminiscent of Sandro Botticelli’s flowering meadows—as by the verses of Poliziano and Pier Paolo Pasolini. On the same day, Vascellari will present a performance designed for the Salone dei Cinquecento that reflects on the conventions and codes of nonverbal communication. Finally, at Museo Novecento, the artist will present a selection of videos.

Many thanks to Cristina Fogazzi, whose gracious contribution granted free admission to visitors of the exhibition at Forte Belvedere.

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