The work Vucca, by Carlos Casas and produced by Ramdom is part of the exhibition:
Silenzi d’alberi is an exhibition that stems from a re ection on one of the most interesting expressions of con- temporary art: sound art.
The show’s title is a verse from the poem Serica by the famous poet Andrea Zanzotto, a native of Pieve di Soligo. is exhibition examines his poetry, which o en re ects on the relationship between human beings and nature. e author searches for this connection within the landscape, which reveals its essence not only visually, but also in sound. Communication between man and nature awakens and is rediscovered through sound, recrea- ting this intimate and primal connection.
Villa Brandolini hosts 11 international artists, united in their practice by the use of sound, who re ect on their relationship with nature, seen as both a landscape and a single natural element.
e exhibition is laid out not only by type of work, but also by period.
From veterans to younger experimental artists, the authors present works (some of which are site speci c) whi- ch together provide an overview of the di erent uses of sound in art: eld recordings, data soni cation, sound visualization, kinetic sculptures, electromagnetic induction, interactive sculptures, electrical transduction, the kinetic force of sound waves, and randomized sound.
Thee installation Curtain by Adam Basanta (Montreal, 1985), a curtain made up of hundreds of white earpho- nes, recreates delicate sounds resembling those of the wind, the rain, or the waves of the sea. e video Vucca by Carlos Casas (Barcelona, 1974) is a plunge into the bowels of the Earth, a meticulous work of eld recordin- gs that capture the ambient sounds of a cave in Puglia. In Summer of Love by Douglas Henderson (Baltimore, 1960), large owers spin around thanks to the vibrations of the speakers upon which they rest, whispering Bomb by Gregory Corso, a satirical poem about the atomic bomb, the result of man’s violence and capability to destroy his own planet. e kinetic properties of sound are also used in the water speakers of Untitled 2007-13, in which the surface of the water ripples to make di erent sound frequencies visible to the eye.
Christina Kubisch (Bremen, 1948) revives the greenhouses of Villa Brandolini by installing a jungle of multi- channel cables that transmit the sounds of a distant, exotic nature to designated headphones. To give voice to his sculpture, Matteo Nasini (Rome, 1976) uses the wind, letting nature compose a random score of its own. e technique and poetry of Donato Piccolo (Rome, 1976) mimic natural phenomena: captured in glass ca- ses, a shooting star (Oh, ho catturato un’altra stella) and a hurricane (Hurricane – Double reversible) twirl as though trying to return to their place of origin, while in mixed-media drawings the explosions of the natural elements are almost tangible. Unità minime di sensibilità by Roberto Pugliese (Naples, 1982) is an interactive installation: weather data, recorded by sensors outside the villa, are brought into the exhibition space and tur- ned into sound, thus putting the viewer in direct communication with nature. In Equilibrium Variant, the artist investigates the potential of the feedback phenomenon, also present in nature; two robotic arms, one equipped with a microphone and the other with a speaker, interact and move like two animals mating or ghting.
In Costellazione A punctatum, Tamara Repetto (Genoa, 1973) uses violin bows and pieces of wood devoured by termites to draw a pattern of signs which, inspired by the structure of contemporary music scores and con- stellations, evoke familiar sounds that recall the work of the insects.
e concert Nocturno by Edgardo Rudnitzky (Buenos Aires, 1956) is created by the randomness of re, where the heat of 7 ames activate the picks that play the chords. e installation La fontanella scintilla con i grilli sotto l’acqua by Alessandro Sciara a (Turin, 1976) is composed of playful water fountains, in which the element it- self is not present, but recreated by the sound of bronze plates activated by the curiosity of the viewer. In Natura Morta by Michele Spanghero (Gorizia, 1979), sound is generated by converting the chemical energy of lemons into electricity; contrary to the title, the artist gives the composition new life through sound.
Silenzi d’alberi aims to bring the public closer to sound art, emphasizing the importance of the auditory expe- rience, which can enrich and amplify the visual experience.
As Zanzotto wrote in his essay Verso-dentro il paesaggio (1994):
“When a nity [between man and nature] is constant and deep, then the world is no longer a spectacle to behold, to contemplate passively, but an experience to live, and above all to know, through painting.” e exhibition brings us to the next step, where the man-artist explores and represents nature, not only visually (painting), but also through sound.
For the poet, the contemplation of a single landscape can make the artist feel connected to the whole of nature: it is through the landscape that the link is created with what he calls Essere (Being). However, there is also an invitation to go beyond the tangible forms of the landscape and hear its own language, which is the sound of nature. This call is received by the artists in the show and returned in the form of multiple and intimate creations.
In this sense, the exhibition recalls and pays homage to a concept dear to the poet: nature’s ability to shape and form the individual.
When we enter the landscape (to use his words), a moment of vital connection is created and we merge with it, setting forth the importance of nature as a founding principle of man’s existence.
