Marco Bagnoli Seventy-Two Names - Italian Garden Park in the Ambrogiana Medici Villa, Montelupo Fiorentino
July 8, 2022
Marco Bagnoli Seventy-Two Names - Italian Garden Park in the Ambrogiana Medici Villa, Montelupo Fiorentino
Project made with support of the Italian Council (IX edition, 2020), a program for the international promotion of Italian art by the Contemporary Creative General Director at the Ministry of Culture (MIC)
The Lord entered the dye works of Levi and took seventy-two different colors and threw them into a vat. He drew them out perfectly white and said, “This is how the son of man has come as a dyer.”
—The Gospel of Philip
Seventy-Two Names – Italian Garden, a site-specific work by Marco Bagnoli, opened on Friday May 20, 2022 in the park surrounding the Medici Villa Ambrogiana in Montelupo Fiorentino, for which the Museo della Ceramica di Montelupo, with a project by the Fondazione Museo Montelupo Onlus, received a 2020 Italian Council award through an international competition sponsored by the Contemporary Creative General Director at the Ministry of Culture to support and promote contemporary Italian art in our country and around the world.
The origins of this work by Marco Bagnoli go way back. Th idea first came to the artist in 2010, after a trip to Iran, and has since undergone many transformations.
Whereas in his first creation, made for the garden in the Italian Pavilion of Auroville (an Indian city built on the vision of the mystic and philosopher Sri Aurobindo), plants surround a fountain in the middle of the garden, in his subsequent project for the garden of Isfahan, in Iran, he replaced plants with vases.
Though the formal aspect has changed, the composition still revolves around a quincunx, a group of five points, four of which form the sides of a square with a fifth point in the middle. This harmonious arrangement, which Bagnoli often uses, has led him to make an “original” garden at the Villa Ambrogiana, a symbolic representation of the earth at the moment of creation, a suspended place where things have yet to cast shadows and are restored to us in all their purity.
Seventy-Two Names – Italian Garden contains 72 blue, green, and copper ceramic vases fired three times. At the center of the quincunx – which appears to remain empty – sits the ideal shape of an asymmetrical vase, the scraps of which were used to make the 72 vases displayed in a quincunx in the garden.
Seventy-Two Names – Italian Garden also has a fundamental acoustic component, a kind of voice that emanates from the vases and intones the words of the Persian poet Rumi:
And I asked, “What should I do with my heart?”
He said, “Tell me what’s in it.”
And I answered, “Sorrow and bitterness.”
He said, “Let your heart be. Its wound is the hole through which the Light will enter you.”
The voice of the poet is brought to life by the craftspeople and other various collaborators who represent and embody Tuscany’s special gift for arts and crafts.
Thanks to this poetic recitation, the vases are transformed into sonovasori (talking vases). Sonovasoro – an anagram of vaso (vase) and sonoro (sound effect) – is a keystone of Bagnoli’s work, one he first made for an exhibit in Valencia in 2000. The music of the performance is by Michael Galasso.
While the complex artwork was being prepared in kilns, Giulia Lenzi in collaboration with Okno Studio filmed an art video featauring, choreography by Catherine Galasso at Marco Bagnoli’s Atelier and at the park at the Villa Ambrogiana, with the active participation of the craftspeople who made Seventy-Two Names – Italian Garden. The video is an integral part of Bagnoli’s project – indeed it helps transform the work into a “stage production,” another pivotal theme dear to Bagnoli. It will be projected onto the wall of the Medici Villa Ambrogiana and presented at conferences in partnering museums: the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato, the Ceramics Museum in Montelupo Fiorentino, the Magazzino Italian Art in Cold Spring, New York, and other prestigious centers and cities belonging to the AICC or Associazione Italiana Città della Ceramica.
A catalog for Seventy-Two Names – Italian Garden was put together by the Fondazione Museo Montelupo, edited by Giuliano Serafini, and created by barmilano by Alessandro Scuto. It includes an essay by Pier Luigi Tazzi, who, before he passed away, injected the project with a lot of enthusiasm.
Being placed in the park at the Medici Villa Ambrogiana helps enrich the city’s contemporary art path, a project launched with Materia Prima, produced by the Foundation, and inaugurated in 2016 with the participation of Ugo La Pietra, Loris Cecchini, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Fabrizio Plessi, Lucio Perone, Gianni Asdrubali, Bertozzi & Casoni; over the years it has enjoyed contributions from Andrea Salvatori, Mario Trimarchi, Antonio Aricò, and Luce Raggi.
Seventy-Two Names – Italian Garden will become part of the collection of the Museo della Ceramica, a cultural institution that, alongside the Fondazione Museo Montelupo, champions the use of ceramics in contemporary art by, among other things, sponsoring artist residencies. In addition to ceramics, Marco Bagnoli works with glass, another important material for craft production in the area.
The inauguration, which kicks off Buongiorno Ceramica (May 20-22), a series of events around the country, will take place in the park of the Medici Villa Ambrogiana, near Montelupo’s Archaeological Museum, on Friday, May 20, 2022. The evening begins at 9pm with a welcoming ceremony, followed by a performance and screening. The artist will be present. Free entrance. On Sunday May 22 there will be an organized walk along the town’s ceramic art path and in the park at the Villa Medici. The walk will begin at 10am at the Museo della Ceramica and will wind up at approximately 11:30am in front of Marco Bagnoli’s work. For information and reservations, please contact us at 0571 1590300 or info@museomontelupo.it.
The video shot during the making of Seventy-Two Names – Italian Garden and the exhibit catalog edited by Giuliano Serafini will be presented on June 29 at 6pm at the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato and on July 15 at 9:30pm at the Fornace del Museo di Montelupo, in via Giro delle Mura 88. On August 18 at 6pm (Italian time), Magazzino Italian Art in Cold Spring (NY) will publish the video of the inaugural performance on their website.
Info atelier marco bagnoli
atelier@marcobagnoli.it | www.marcobagnoli.it
Museo della ceramica di Montelupo
Fondazione Museo Montelupo Onlus
Tel. +39 0571 1590300 | info@museomontelupo.it | www.museomontelupo.it
Press Office
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