Exhibitions, in Perugia 'Extra' with 18 contemporary artists

Fondazione Perugia presents 'Extra Segni antichi/Visioni contemporanee', a major project that has the dual objective of enhancing and publicizing the recent acquisition of approximately 1700 parchments from the Albertini Collection and at the same time showing its ongoing vitality in dialogue with eighteen contemporary artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Emilio Isgrò, Maria Lai, David Tremlett, Gianni Dessì and many others, creating new and unexpected combinations. 'Extra. Segni antichi/Visioni contemporanee' is the latest project by Fondazione Perugia which, after the exhibitions dedicated to Antonio Canova, the comparison between Perugino and Burri and the reflection on the theme Nature/Utopia, presents an original exhibition proposal to bring the ancient and the contemporary into dialogue in an exhibition that can also be considered double, since it investigates the relationship between image and sign, icon and words.

Curated by Marco Tonelli, the idea for this exhibition was born in 2024 when Fondazione Perugia acquired a selection from the Albertini Collection consisting of approximately 1700 parchment covers dating from the 13th to the 15th century. These are valuable documentary coverings, finely decorated and painted on parchment covers that wrapped ancient municipal, notarial and administrative registers, belonging to podestàs, captains of the people, judges and mayors of the Municipality of Perugia: inside them appear lists, texts, judicial notes such as testimonies of accusations, reports of damage to crops and livestock, registers of supplies and distribution of foodstuffs.

On one parchment in particular appears the word Extraordinariorum, which comes from the Latin term of the imperial age cognitio extra ordinem to indicate legal norms outside the traditional schemes and then passed into the use of the current language to describe something unusual, unexpected, exceptional. Hence the idea of ​​creating something extra-ordinary such as the juxtaposition of a selection of about 100 of the parchments with more than 40 works by 18 contemporary Italian and international artists, according to criteria that are sometimes very stringent, others merely evocative, others still iconographic or typological if not thematic and material or that connect word and image, understanding the image as a word, visual puzzle or speaking figure. "With EXTRA, Fondazione Perugia reaffirms its commitment to the protection and enhancement of historical heritage, but also to the construction of new languages, new visions, capable of restoring meaning and vitality to memory, making it a living heritage" – says Alcide Casini, President of Fondazione Perugia.

The idea behind the exhibition is to create references that, without making the ancient parchments clearer and more legible, update them in a temporal return between the past of the find and the present of the contemporary work of art; therefore, to see the ancient with an (a)historical gaze and observe the present with a perspective linked to tradition, in an exchange between past and present that makes art always contemporary and that re-actualizes the ancient image at a perceptive level. "There is such a wealth of symbols and signs linked to heraldic science, but also so many possibilities for contemporary art to make us observe with new eyes aspects that are not only formal, but also material (lacerations, tears and stitching of parchments) that are often considered only defects and wear caused by time - says curator Marco Tonelli - This is how Extra wants to display, with a particular installation that highlights connections and relationships between ancient finds and contemporary art, the extratemporal condition of art in close contact with documents of history and material culture, which in this case regulated the life of the city of Perugia between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance".

The parchments are not always easy to read, but they can be appreciated for their flow and composition, and their formal and iconic value is unquestionable. The exhibition is therefore divided into five macro-areas - Figurations, Abstractions, Motifs, (Re)writings and Symbols - of comparison and dialogue with contemporary artists who create a path that reflects the history of images in their relationship with the word. In 'Figurations' the heraldic coats of arms with figures of rampant lions, griffins, swans with intertwined necks, oxen, birds, dogs, unicorns and many others are found together with the hyper-realistic ceramic works of Bertozzi & Casoni, the provocations of Wim Delvoye who are inspired by heraldry, the paintings of Gabriele Arruzzo and the timeless inventions of Luigi Serafini, always a figurative artist who has been able to create alphabets and iconic visual languages.

The themes of the coats of arms are often shielded motifs with multi-colored bands and geometric motifs, which in the section dedicated to Abstractions are expanded by the assonances with contemporary art works by artists who have made the geometric element, iconographic research and the very concept of word/image their poetics such as Maurizio Cannavacciuolo, David Tremlett and Beverly Pepper. Also on display is the original work of one of the two official posters of Umbria Jazz, created by David Tremlett on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the summer edition and the thirtieth anniversary of the winter edition of one of the most important jazz events in the world: also in this case a virtuous network between the cultural institutions of the Umbrian territory.

Among well-defined iconographies with animals and human figures and among well-structured geometric shapes, there is also an autonomous space made of isolated elements or elements that can go beyond the semantic or ornamental meaning: lines and colors that constitute the zero degree of representation and that are found in the room dedicated to the Motifs in which the parchments are compared with the graphic signs of Domenico Bianchi, Gianni Dessì, Alighiero Boetti and Giorgio Griffa, artists who have created autonomous and abstract images starting precisely from the reiteration of the sign.

However, there are also compositions that use recognizable iconographies and forms to create mysterious and therefore fascinating coats of arms, of which we have lost the origin or meaning but of which we recognize the power of the value of the Symbols: these coats of arms find an almost direct parallel with the images of Ugo La Pietra, with the creations of Luigi Ontani, with the large sheets of Mimmo Paladino and with the works of Joe Tilson, all of which manage to reactivate the ancient symbols and speak with a new voice, as if they were signs of our time, giving body to the idea of ​​extra temporality of the history of art.

Finally, in the (Re)writings section, the corporality of the object as such comes into play: many of the parchments have been overwritten over time, reused, pinned in the margins, and present deletions and second thoughts, stitching to repair tears and lacerations, but also leaving holes and signs of wear and tear visible. A material and visual aspect therefore emerges that enhances their physicality and their scriptural evidence, their being real books that tell in filigree the story of the city of Perugia at a very specific moment in time and which finds confirmation in the iconic deletions of Emilio Isgrò, in the fragments of texts and images of Gastone Novelli and in the works of Maria Lai, never simple embroidery but sewn writings.