Ágrapha
Virginia Lorenzetti is a researcher. Her work does not propose any doctrine or enforce constructed images. Instead, it shows a path she travelled in her research, which remains open, pointing toward an infinity. It is an authentic statement that talks about Being, which does not finish in the communication but participates in what is known and, at the same time, alludes to the unspoken. We must remember that the work of art, recovering a Gadamerian definition, is an exemplary, non-methodical experience of Truth and an encounter between the meaning and the understanding. The language of art lends itself to understanding precisely because it establishes a relationship with something non-linguistic that allows one to go back from the word to what the word means, showing precisely the boundary space of the human intellect. The outcomes of Virginia's research remain silent, á-grapha (non-written), like the verbal doctrines that Plato did not deem to be fixed in writing. "Writing is like painting, words and images cannot answer the reader's or observer's questions or shed doubts or deny false interpretations" (Phaedrus); they are a univocal, fixed image that calls to mind but does not impose any practice, any discipline, any áskesis, precisely, "research".
In this exhibition, the many works are like so many variations of the same subject; they cohabit, interweaving an enthralling and secret plot in space. Working with simple materials, paper, canvas and colours that she obtains from plants or other natural elements, the artist also recovers a technical - but never rigid - dimension of art making that gives her work a total cosmic harmony. Technical research proceeds by the degrees of the logical-intellectual process, and Virginia proceeds together on the formal and aesthetic levels. The research into materials that she has been carrying out for years has led her to experiment with paper and its transformations (which, despite her explorations of other materials, remains her favourite medium) and colour of natural derivation, both characterised by fragility and ephemeral immanence in space and time.
by Angelica Speroni
Ágrapha
curated by Andrea Romagnoli
with a text by Angelica Speroni
5th July - 6th September 2024
Rome, Italy
Ph. credits: Giorgio Benni
Ephemeral Matters
In painting, things, people or situations are often ‘immortalised on canvas’, but do they really last forever? Aren’t most works exposed to decay and eventually forgotten? Virginia Lorenzetti certainly doesn’t believe in eternity and dedicates her art to the opposite: ephemerality. Ephemeral Matters, the title of her solo exhibition, can be read in different ways: as ‘fleeting material’, ‘fleeting issue’ or also as ‘the fleeting is important’. All of which are welcome interpretations. Lorenzetti explores questions of evolution, transformation and renewal of the visual language both technically and conceptually.
A perpetual venture to immortalise the ephemeral. Her works mostly consist of delicate compositions of dyed papers and fabrics. Using self-made natural pigments and focusing mainly on oxidative processes, she dyes folded papers with different textures and grammages. The folding and colouring create two-dimensional patterns with smooth colour gradients. Images that seem as though they have captured only the shadow of a moment.
by Liam Floyd
Ephemeral Matters
curated by Liam Floyd
6th June - 14th July 2024
Dresden, Germany
Ph. credits: Ludwig Kupfer, Noemi Durighello
Beyond the glitch
Stefan Lenke (born in Jena in 1976) and Virginia Lorenzetti (born in Rome in 1998) are characterised by complexity on many levels, skilfully framed within individual works. Their works are united by the visual rhythm of comparable themes and the use of similar visual strategies.
Small disturbances of harmonious structures in Lenke's works meet the harmonisation of arbitrariness in Lorenzetti's and lead to a common dialogue.
Their works surprise individually and collectively through apparent contradictions and overlaps; they stimulate the eye and the mind of the viewer. Melancholy meets joy and somewhere between the layers you get a barely tangible question - where does form translate into feeling?
Duo-Show with Stefan Lenke, as part of the institutional project Kunstknallen, HfBK Dresden.
Art thrives on cooperation, and this is exactly what the KUNSTKNALLEN exhibition project of the HfBK Dresden intends to do, naturally also in cooperation with the BIAS art space. The BIAS in Dresden's Neustadt district is not only hosting the project in terms of space, but also thankfully supporting it with its infrastructure.
Eleven tandems of current students and graduates of the HfBK Dresden will continue to cooperate in ten exhibition projects and one performance project.
Beyond the glitch
BIAS Bias FLINTA* Project
29th February -9th March 2024
Dresden, Germany
A bassa voce
Virginia Lorenzetti's work, thoroughly and lyrically abstract, is characterised by continuous experimentation with techniques and colours. It is a search for subtle and delicate formal balances, in which stringent design and a certain amount of coincidence complement each other concerning the outcome: a controlled risk, but one that adds a margin of freedom and unpredictability to the works.
Folded and dipped in colour, in multiple baths, oxidised, sometimes even with graphic interventions, the papers support and emphasise soft, palpitating, almost atmospheric effects; in a continuous movement, the surface seems to breathe, animated by complex and skilful nuances of light. Space expands and dilates, revealing an unexpected depth. Paper is the artist's favourite medium, due to its delicacy and flexibility; a very light, fleeting and precious quality of paper, often used by superimposing several layers on each other. She uses natural dyes, produced mainly by herself, to create intriguing and continuous chromatic vibrations, transfigurations of moods, natural visions or interpretations of poetic texts. Behind and beyond the abstract substance of the images, the titles of the works tell us about the probing of natural and interior worlds evoked by enveloping textures, in which graphic and pictorial research are deeply in dialogue with each other.
Lorenzetti has gone through different modalities of operation, always characterised by a search – sometimes brought to a perfectionistic level – for measure and harmony, a balance capable of poetically conveying the purity of a vision and its emotions. The works result from continuous testing and experimentations until the right combinations, the right frequency and intensity, both luminous and chromatic, are achieved. And it is enough to recall the refined artist's books she has created - here we see Numero della nebbia and A bassa voce - where the poetry resonates amplified by a concert of signs and impalpable shades of colour.
Perhaps this almost classical dimension of the image, this provisional, fragile and ephemeral moment in which all the elements balance each other, is the dominant note of this precious work, which is already heading towards new horizons.
by Beatrice Peria
A bassa voce
curated by Beatrice Peria and Marina Bindella
28th March - 5th April 2024
Rome, Italy