How can sound be concretely represented? Is its elusiveness as profound and insurmountable as it seems? The works of Jacopo Mazzonelli (Trento, 1983) are certainly highly relevant to this field of inquiry. Sound, on display at the Lercaro Museum in Bologna, is represented in Persistence in a simultaneously concrete and conceptual light, creating an evocative synthesis that actively interacts with the viewer.
Jacopo Mazzonelli, “Persistence”, 2026, installation view, ph Marco Parollo, courtesy Galleria G7
Entering the exhibition space, one notices several organ pipes, upended and hung from the smallest to the largest within the room. Observing these floating presences, the viewer is accompanied by a sound, a lasting and evocative sound that echoes not the vibration that the musical instrument would create, but rather that of a channeled flow of air, a constant and prolonged current that traverses the spaces. The sound can give the impression of emanating from the hanging objects, creating a sense of disorientation. These, however, are silent and decontextualized. Their inversion induces the viewer to distance themselves from their original setting, the church.
Jacopo Mazzonelli, “Persistence”, 2026, installation view, ph Marco Parollo, courtesy Galleria G7
With the mouth of the instrument pointing downward, the instrument is secularized, revealing its structural essence. This essence is the basis of several of the artist’s other research projects. Having studied music for many years, Mazzonelli represents the physical characteristics of musical instruments by deconstructing them piece by piece, interpreting and representing them in the clearest and most intimate way possible. What is created is a true semiotics of the musical object that, while uprooting the instrument from its intended use, preserves its essence. The pipes hanging in the exhibition, despite being silent, speak of a sound that does not vibrate but is given by the object’s form. A sound that is felt with the eye, a sound that is both concrete and conceptual, a sound that is observed.
Jacopo Mazzonelli, “Persistence”, 2026, installation view, ph Marco Parollo, courtesy Galleria G7
Another essential feature of the installation is its direct and spontaneous connection with the viewer. By approaching and walking among the hanging objects, one is confronted with the recollection of sound. The structure of the elements, such as shells or other closed or semi-closed objects, is not entirely silent; it creates a subtle reverberation. This, in turn, is influenced by the installation sound, creating an alienating sensation that amplifies the impression of the sound emerging from the aesthetics of the object itself.
With Persistence, one can observe in the exhibition the extension of the sound produced by the instrument analyzed and deconstructed by the artist. The sound is made concrete by the object that produces it. This provides an image that not only prompts reflection on its form and use (through a studied secularization) but also creates the most synthetic and essential representation of the sound it would produce, prolonging its existence even after its use has ceased.The exhibition features two critics, Charles Moore and Saverio Verini, who, with their essays, offer a profound and analytical vision of the artist’s poetics and the installation.
Info:
Jacopo Mazzonelli, Persistence
texts by Charles Moore and Saverio Verini
21/01/26 – 08/03/26
Museo Lercaro
Via Riva di Reno 57, Bologna
www.raccoltalercaro.it
Always connected to the art world, Samuel Tonelli attended the course in Art Education and Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and furthered his studies with the two-year master’s program in Education and Cultural Mediation of Artistic Heritage. After gaining experience mediating in various exhibitions and teaching art history at the art high school in Bologna, he developed a passion for art writing, which he sees as a powerful means of expression capable of opening up visions, broadening horizons and enriching the understanding of diverse perspectives on reality.
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