BUNKER / CHAPEL

Photos by Fabio Barbieri

With Francesca Sganzerla, a young Italian artist who lives in Zurich, Spazio Thetis has begun a new and interesting experimentation. Until today, artists collaborations were developed by promoting work through exhibition, performance and installation. All of the works shared a common relationship with the surrounding space, but were in all cases temporary. Last year however, we began a new collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, and we have been driven to realize one of these works in our container installations.

This year, maybe because the characteristic of Spazio Thetis is that of experimentation, we have been even more daring. A small bunker in our park - which was completed during the fist decades of the last century - has been the object of this new and interesting project: the attempt to give a new definition to an unusual space and of difficult interpretation.

Francesca Sganzerla has worked a lot on it, finally deciding to completely change the symbolic perception of the space. This has led to a very new and interesting interpretation, creating at the same time both a mystic and sacred place.  Bunker/chapel is a courageous project by a young and brilliant artist, positioning itself well in our space and conversing with the already present works by international artists, Beverly Pepper, Pinuccio Sciola, Mimmo Roselli, Giovanni Rizzoli.

Antonietta Grandesso, 2007
Organizer Spazio Thetis

On entering the gardens at the Spazio Thetis, one immediately has the impression of being in a space that can tell many stories. It’s a space where, in a mysterious and spellbinding atmosphere, you’ll unexpectedly find the presence of a historical bunker, hidden among the vegetation. Artist Francesca Sganzerla reflects on this architectural form and replaces it with a place for the inner experience.

This traditional structure of the “casamatta” (a house reinforced to defend a strategic industrial system) respects the typical cylindrical form, buried at half its height with a dome at its top, and has willingly been left unaltered. The highlight of the piece reveals itself through a narrow entrance corridor, at the foot of the stairs, inside a small circular edifice. Here it seems a place of meditation, or prayer, and suggests a different order to the story. From an entrance painted in a white that seeks and reflects light from the external surrounds, the visitor accesses an ambient place brightened by light reflected from the gold-leaf dome. Meanwhile, the walls, acceding to an inner pull, have been treated with layers of acrylic – white, yellow, ochre, rose and green grey – staining and scratching in a minimal style, adding and placing in relief the imperfections and signs which already existed on the walls. A candle holder in worked iron - donated by the church of San Polo on behalf of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari – is the singular object which recalls a human presence, with a tacit invitation for offerings and participation. Aesthetically, this is a strong element, by absorbing the light, and preventing vertigo from a gaze that follows the vertical rhythm of the narrow windows that dialogue with the external surrounds. Outside, on the walls, there is a date inscribed that can be read only during certain hours of the day, when the light hits the incision: July 1944.

The architect, urbanist and philosopher, Paul Virilio, in a research project exploring these reinforced constructions which were erected during the Second World War in Europe (Bunker Archéologie, 1975), has already proposed that these spaces have the power, like modern monoliths, to impress the viewer, like “small temples without religion”. It is in this sense that Francesca Sganzerla acts on the perception of space and concentrates on a universal spiritual dimension. The solid cement architectural exterior protects a sober, but precious interior, which maintains the signs of its history as if it had always been a place of contemplation.

Francesca Colasante, 2007
Curator

Spazio Thetis in collaboration with the Galleria Michela Rizzo

Arsenale, Venice (IT), 2007

Presented in occasion of the Venice Biennale, 52nd International Art Exhibition