With its freshness, dynamism, sounds, and rediscovered balances, the arrival of spring irreparably disrupts that (e-)stasis of muffled torpor – both comforting and fragile – of nature drowsy in winter. Gregorio Botta’s solo exhibition, curated by Elena Dal Molin, offers at Atipografia an experience of contemplating the ongoing process that is thawing, as a metaphor for dedication in the field of culture and, more generally, in the aspects of life.
Gregorio Botta, “Disgelo I”, 2024 and “Disgelo III”, 2024. Installation view at Atipografia, Arzignano, ph. Alberto Sinigaglia, courtesy Atipografia
Opening the Disgelo exhibition at Atipografia is Aprile II, a wax box with an alabaster lid inside which a spring is born. The faint sound of flowing water captivates the ear from the very first steps into the exhibition space and becomes a hypnotic backdrop throughout the visit. Then, suddenly, a deafening crash: the thaw has occurred, the alabaster surface has shattered and the water has begun to flow again with its vital force. A video depicting waterfalls near Rome, Gregorio Botta’s adopted city, is projected onto the reinforced concrete wall closing the room to the south: during the visit, periodically, this sonic force will compel us to interrupt our contemplation of the other works, bringing us back to the beginning of the journey and making us internalize the concept of the eternal return of spring, giving it an unprecedented connotation. As we proceed with the visit, it unexpectedly becomes something unsettling, shaking our senses and thoughts, forcing us to set them aside in search of a new balance. It is an almost violent operation, yet there is no doubt about its communicative effectiveness: it conveys the precariousness of the physical state of thawing – its uncertain, evolving, somewhat undefined, and, above all, cyclical nature – interpreted throughout the exhibition path starting from the material essence of each work we encounter. This device amplifies the concept of thawing, loading it with a broader and more universal metaphorical sense, in harmony with the philosophical vein inherent in each of Gregorio Botta’s works.
Gregorio Botta, “Disgelo”, installation view at Atipografia, Arzignano, ph. Alberto Sinigaglia, courtesy Atipografia
The contemplation of nature is the matrix that this artist-philosopher never tires of bringing back into his works. His art is composite and perfectly balanced, both physically and conceptually, often taking the form of installations that unite a variety of materials and sensations, translating them from the natural environment into the reflective context of the art gallery. The materials used are numerous and varied, but they can be grouped into three main categories based on their function. To create the atmosphere, we find water – the main sound element and absolute protagonist in Angelo della sorgente – and light, which in the architectural space of the gallery designs the exhibition path, leading us out of the shadows. To convey the sense of the concreteness of reality, there are stones, which constitute the weight grounding the reveries provoked by the works, and iron, which serves as their support and structure. Finally, there is a triad of elements that respond to light with different transparencies: glass with its sharp perfection, alabaster with its inflexible geometry, and wax with its enveloping protection. The installation La danse, an evolution of the 2018 work Sisifo, summarizes all these elements, crowning the main exhibition space. The condemned figure has found a companion for his senseless torment; equally fragile – it is a glass beam too, acting as a balance between the weight of a stone on one side and a wax cup on the other – but, at times, for three revolutions, it accompanies it in complete harmony. As we wait for those three perfect revolutions, time dilates to make space for a thought that cradles and soothes us.
Gregorio Botta, “Disgelo”, installation view at Atipografia, Arzignano, ph. Alberto Sinigaglia, courtesy Atipografia
And it is precisely this last element that unmistakably characterizes Gregorio Botta’s works, a legacy of the encaustic technique he learned during his academy years. In the series of panels titled Disgelo I, II and III, several sheets of rice paper soaked in wax are layered to conceal sprigs of maidenhair fern, a spontaneous plant whose tips resemble an ear of wheat and seem ready to bloom and spread their seeds once the fragile frozen layer has completely melted under the sun. More than any other, these works manifest their connection with the exhibition space in which we admire them; the choice of an extremely thin and almost transparent paper recalls the essence of the place where the gallery is now housed, which was once a printing workshop. The treatment of the paper, permeated and strengthened by wax, also includes its encaustic coloring, with shades of gray and orange akin to the old plaster of the building’s walls, indicating how the identity of that place will never fade. Just as the paper material now has a new form, preserving its fragile and delicate soul with a plastic armor that seems like a second skin, so too has the cultural activity that Elena Dal Molin has carried out since 2014 in Arzignano given a new guise to the essence of this place, which has always been dedicated to the dissemination of culture. An invitation, then, to discover Atipografia, a project in the making, aiming to be a fresh spring breeze for the Vicenza area, offering a space for reflection and artistic enjoyment beyond time, with Disgelo until April 24, 2025.
Info:
Disgelo. A solo exhibition by Gregorio Botta
curated by Elena Dal Molin
27/02/2025 – 24/04/2025
Atipografia
Piazza Campo Marzio, 26
36071 – Arzignano (VI)
www.atipografia.it
I am an art historian who grew up in the Asolo hills and who has always been immersed in contemporary art thanks to the family business, of which I currently manage the Itaca Gallery exhibition space. I consider art a polyphonic key to reading the reality that surrounds me and this cognitive value, combined with the satisfaction I derive from its fruition, is what guides my projects.
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