Encounter and Embrace

“Encounter and Embrace” is an artistic exhibition – thematic, one of the few in Italy- that explores, throughout a wide exposition of sculptures from the 1900s, from Rodin to Mitoray until the iconic trends of the century, the multiple singularities of the human condition. In particular, many people “awaiting” for supportive words, a look of approval, an act of sharing, surround us.

The choice of the artworks embraces a set of communicating topics: path of life, encounter, relationship, distance, wait, empathy and compassion. The exhibition itinerary offers a vision of Man which is to be seen as wider and more positive, opposed to closed-mindedness, apathy, indifference. In the digital era, Humanism appears further and further away, overstepped (but not tamed) by speed and new forms of communication, limiting attention and reflection.

The sculpture becomes stimulation, introspection, research for shapes and gestures. Plastic arts exalt the complexity of volumes, recall the attention to details, aspects enhanced giving visitors the chance to flip and touch some of the artworks.

Above all, the various dimensions of the human figure arouse different observations, inviting the visitor to meditate about life, about its greatness and fragility, more than what two-dimensional art can inspire. We are forgetting tridimensionality, touch, risking to become hasty observers, less capable of understanding the dimensions of affectivity and soul.

CURATORS:
Maria Beatrice Autizi, formerly Professor of Art History and curator of exhibitions and cultural events, has a number of publications dedicated to history and art, and some historical novels, including Le stelle di Giotto .
Alfonso Pluchinotta, physician and historian of medicine with special attention to the body as a language, and to the hand as a tool in the relationship and in the formation of creative thought. Curator of art exhibitions on the representation of the body in the visual arts (History of the Breast, 1986; Incanto and Anatomie del Seno, 1997; That Unstable Object of Desire, 2009; Essentially the hand, 2012), published Senza di Loro nemmeno Io – Appunti su incontro, abbraccio, carezza (Without them not even me – Notes on meeting, embrace, caress) (Il Poligrafo, 2017) which represents the source of inspiration for this exhibition.