SHUL by ROBERTO PACI DALÒ
shul by ROBERTO PACI DALÒ
curated by Davide Quadrio
Duration: 2018 October 27 – December 30
Opening: 2018 October 27, 16.00
Venue: Pinacoteca Civica – Merenda Palace, Forlì, Corso della Repubblica 72
About the Exhibition
The project sees the creation of a site-specific architectural installation inside the Merenda Palace. Embroidered rugs, ritual objects, sound installation, standards, paths of light and architecture readings contribute to the creation of an immersive and sensory space. The place dedicated to the exhibition is the is the main hall of the civic art gallery, the Pinacoteca, that is completely dedicated to the work. The large space houses large paintings of the seventeenth century. Shul gets in this way connected with the works of Guido Cagnacci and Guercino and relates to them through a peculiar use of the light.
Shul (שול) means Synagogue in Yiddish and corresponds to the Hebrew-Italian custom to refer to the synagogue as a “school”.
The project is based on images collected and published for the first time by Giulio Busi in his volume Qabbalah Visiva (Einaudi 2005).
“This book attempts for the first time a history of mystical drawing in Jewish tradition. It is a surprising atlas of the Jewish imagination, an exploration into a territory still not fully considered by philological studies, yet fundamental for the creative flow of religion, philosophy, mysticism and aesthetics […] With their diagrams, the Kabbalists fixed on the paper the proportions of the divine architecture of the skies. The harmony of forms seeks to capture the mystery of creation: the game of the sefirot, the cosmic war between good and evil, the outbreak of sin and the enigma of divine clemency is translated into spatial relationships, and often coagulates in places and words, in which Jewish writing is combined with acute formal inventions “.
Shul is a hybrid secular sacred space that brings together elements of the synagogue, evoking other cults as well as other worlds. A place where objects relate to a multi-channel electroacoustic composition that surrounds the audience.
Shul – comments Davide Quadrio – continues Paci Dalò’s research of the ritual and religious world. Not necessarily synonymous, the – religious – ritual and the – artistic – gesture in their religious manifestations are at the center of a complex process made up of measuring the space, building introspective universes, looking and searching for the divine.
Shul, in this installative version, traces the space with light and sound, bringing the viewer to a hybrid place of the soul. The place of harvest and story. A sacralized space, protected and fragile of which history has precisely shown its complexity and contradictions, resolved here in a sonic voice and in Kabbalistic drawings that make the Jewish tradition a universal and spiritual connection point.
On May 18, 2018 – exactly 600 years from an important conference that brought together in Forlì delegates from the Jewish communities of central and northern Italy – the artist presented in the Church of St. James, in the complex of San Domenico, the Niggunim performance built around a concert and stage set-up. Niggun (niggunim in the plural) means in Hebrew: “air” or “melody” and it is a form of Jewish song or melody sung by groups of people. It is a technique of singing, often with abstract repetitive sounds instead of a formal lyric. The niggunim are especially important in the liturgy of Hasidic Judaism that has developed its own spiritual forms in the devekut (the mystical joy of intense prayer).
The same performance was expanded and subsequently presented as a site-specific with the title Niggunim Nobori – curated by Davide Quadrio – on the beach of Marzocca of Senigallia within the project Maritime Property. Km-278 starting a collaboration with the artist and designer Andrea Anastasio.
About the artist
The Italian artist Roberto Paci Dalò (director, composer/musician, visual artist) is a pioneer in the relationship between art and digital technologies, investigating in particular the relationship between design, sound, theater, cinema and radio. Naples 2015 Award for Italian language and culture, received the esteem and support of artists like Aleksandr Sokurov and John Cage. He presented his works at the Venice Biennale, Kunsthalle Wien, Power Station of Art Shanghai, Fundaciò Joan Mirò Barcelona, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels, Ravenna Festival, Wien Modern, Ars Electronica Linz, Locarno Festival, MQ MuseumsQuartier Wien, Charlottenborg Copenhagen, ZKM Karlsruhe, SH Contemporary Shanghai, Vienna Opera. He leads the Giardini Pensili group co-founded in 1985. Member of the Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft of Berlin and the British Cartographic Society, he teaches Interaction Design at UNIRSM where he founded and directs Usmaradio.
Special event
Roberto Paci Dalò Klezmer Orchestra 1988-2018 – 30 years of Yiddishkeit with the oldest Italian ensemble of klezmer music founded in Jerusalem in 1988 – Secret Show, November 24, 2018.
Info
Culture and Tourism Service T 0543 712627
musei@comune.forli.fc.it
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: @MuseiForlì
Official Hashtag: #SHULpacidalo
Images and texts: www.giardini.sm
Press office
Municipality of Forlì, Press Office: T 0543 712317 stampa@comune.forli.fc.it
Marcolini Gallery 3883711896 info@galleriamarcolini.it
Credits
Roberto Paci Dalò Shul, curated by Davide Quadrio
October 27 – December 30, 2018 Palazzo del Merenda, corso della Repubblica 72, Forlì Production: Municipality of Forlì – Department of Culture; Culture and Tourism Service, Arthub, Hanging Gardens
In collaboration with: EDA Italia, Galleria Marcolini
sukkah realized with the collaboration of Claudio Ballestracci
post-audio production: A_LAB Trieste
