“It takes a While to Learn to Talk the Long Language of the Rocks“, is new solo exhibition at Galleria Tiziana Di Caro by Giovanni Giaretta – Paduan artist, born in 1983 -, moves along the delicate boundary between science and imagination, geology and visual narrative. The Padua-born artist, who has long explored the tensions between image and perception, returns to question the relationship between matter and time, delving into that liminal space where nature becomes storytelling and the objective fact opens itself to poetic interpretation.
Giovanni Giaretta, “It takes a While to Learn to Talk the Long Language of the Rocks”, exhibition view, 2025, Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, ph. Danilo Donzelli photography, courtesy Galleria Tiziana Di Caro and the artist
Giaretta invites us to decipher an ancient, almost inaccessible language – the language of rocks – through a body of work that transforms the most solid, silent materials into animated, almost spectral presences. The exhibition takes its title from Ursula K. Le Guin’s poem “A Request”, but in adding an “s” to the word “rock,” Giaretta shifts the meaning from singular to plural. In this small but deliberate act, his poetics is revealed: a constant oscillation between the real and the possible, between what is given and what can still emerge. The video “Shapeshifters” (2025) lies at the core of this process of translation. Here, rocks become shifting bodies, illuminated by beams of light that reveal their cracks, transparencies and reflections. Using colored gels and close-up shots, Giaretta transforms the material into a narrative surface, where every imperfection tells a story and every fracture becomes a portal to another dimension. The rocks appear and vanish in a montage that unfolds like a “visual symphony,” immersing the viewer in an experience where the boundaries between image and spectator dissolve. These stones – by nature static – come alive with a temporal tension, caught between the eternal and the transient.
Giovanni Giaretta, “Molte centiaia di Ma”, 2024, aluminum, 12,5 x 12,5 x 8,5 cm, ed. 1/3 + 1 ap, 2025, Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, ph. Danilo Donzelli photography, courtesy Galleria Tiziana Di Caro and the artist
This reflection on time and matter continues in “Lasting Ghosts” (2025), a series of silver gelatin prints on baryta paper, made from thin sections of rocks. In optical mineralogy, such slices are typically used for microscopic analysis, but Giaretta focuses on the flawed ones – discarded due to cracks or glue stains – reframing them as artifacts of a different narrative. Rendered useless for scientific purposes, these imperfect samples become aesthetic objects, their blemishes transformed into ghostly traces, portals to alternate visual worlds. Giaretta’s practice here unfolds in full force: he doesn’t merely document but activates the material, transforming it into a threshold between the visible and the invisible. The sculptural element “Molte centinaia di Ma” (2024) deepens this dialogue between artifice and nature. Inspired by a small sculpture at Naples’ Mineralogical Museum – a satyr’s head with a quartz crystal protruding from its mouth, attributed to Antonio Canova – Giaretta recreates and enlarges the figure, casting it in aluminum. The original satyr, partially “completed” by the natural intrusion of quartz, becomes in Giaretta’s hands a hybrid being, blurring the lines between organic and inorganic, human intention and geological chance. The work reflects on the impossible collaboration between human time and geological time, where the slow formation of minerals intersects with the fleeting gesture of the artist.
Giovanni Giaretta, “Lasting Ghosts”, diptych, 2025, silver gelatin print on baryta paper mounted on dibond, 49,7 x 31,8 cm (each), 2025, Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, ph. Danilo Donzelli photography, courtesy Galleria Tiziana Di Caro and the artist
This exhibition is not only a visual exploration of matter but also an investigation into the act of seeing. Giaretta challenges viewers to reconsider how we observe, how we assign meaning to what we perceive. His works function as optical devices that turn the mundane into the extraordinary, giving voice to what we usually consider silent. In his vision, rocks are not inert objects but witnesses to a time scale that far exceeds human comprehension.
Giovanni Giaretta, “Shapeshifters”, 2025, video loop, HD, 16mm digitized, 2025, Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, ph. Danilo Donzelli photography, courtesy Galleria Tiziana Di Caro and the artist
“It takes a While to Learn to Talk the Long Language of the Rocks“ is ultimately an invitation to slow down and tune into deeper frequencies. Giaretta urges us to let go of the need for immediate understanding and instead be guided by the images, sounds, and stories embedded in matter. In an era dominated by speed and visual superficiality, this exhibition stands as a resistance space, where slowness becomes a critical tool and matter speaks its own profound, forgotten language.
Info:
Giovanni Giaretta. It takes a While to Learn to Talk the Long Language of the Rocks
15/02 – 26/04/2025
Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Piazzetta Nilo 7, Napoli
www.tizianadicaro.it
Art Curator and Art Advisor, graduated in Visual Arts and Cultural Mediation, with Master in Curatorial Practices, born in 1995, lives in Naples. He collaborates with Galleries and Independent Spaces, his research is mainly focused on Emerging Painting, with a careful and inclined gaze also on other forms of aesthetic language.
NO COMMENT