The importance of ties, born of empathy and purity.

This sentence would be enough to make a valid synthesis of the exhibition "Connessioni" that Antonella Vitali has created in the space of Latteria Moderna, hosted by Mario Teleri Biason, from 29 October to 21 November 2021.

The nine works on display speak clearly in their simplicity of form and power of colour: every person has an intrinsic need to create links and establish "connections" with other individuals. No man is born to be closed in on himself, but he is naturally driven to reach out to others, even when current events would push him in the opposite direction, towards solitude and alienation.

It is precisely in the days of forced isolation that Antonella has matured the idea, already implicit in her, of speaking - through her art - of the natural obligation for people to establish 'connections', even when they are physically distant, separated from us, even in another dimension. Thus, images such as "Connessioni", the work that gives its title to the exhibition itself, take shape on the canvas, where in a full and calm background, characterised by five backgrounds, a chain of small coloured squares stands out, symbolising the many identities that come together to make contact with one another.

This idea of union is reinforced in "Coincidenze" where, with great purity, the crossing and overlapping of yellow and blue lines determine the ideal representation of an encounter. This is a crucial theme in "Abbraccio", "Ascolto" and "Maschera", albeit with different declinations. In "Abbraccio" two very solid and static polygons approach and face each other, only to find themselves united by a yellow segment that crosses them, holding them back with difficulty in their momentum of union.  In "Ascolto" we celebrate the empathy and the consequent understanding reached between two entities stretched so much towards each other that they seem to brush against each other. In "Maschera", against a bright pink background, bordered by two black bands at the sides, there are two overlapping rectangles, one black and one red. The thought immediately runs to a face, marked by a clear dividing line and a strong chromatic difference, like someone who at the same time conceals or reveals what he wants. After all, what is everyday life if not a performance on an imaginary stage?

For the artist, the border, that threshold within which each of us has been confined for many months, is not a limit, but takes on the contours of a neutral space into which to penetrate, perhaps only with the force of thought. With this in mind, "Oltre la finestra", "Veduta" and "Da qualche parte" were created. "Oltre la finestra" tells of the journey one can make beyond one's own space. The exploration of other places can take place in the real or in the imaginary. Today this can take the form of a gesture, yesterday it was only a "correspondence" at a distance, made possible by a window; yet in every step towards our fellow human beings, beyond the grid of our borders, we are in the life of our neighbour. Those fluid brushstrokes, those irregular polygons, broken up and in various colours, bear witness to the infinite range of emotions that come into play when we are "connected" with others, even if only through a volatile, perforated cerulean wall.

The window allowed the imagination of the "new recluses" to establish a connection with the outside world and Nature: a still image of that action is immortalised in "Veduta", a view of the lagoon city, to which Antonella is intrinsically linked. The static contemplation of the landscape is counterbalanced by flight, both real in order to reach someone, and ideal in order to grasp with the mind who is elsewhere: this is how "Somewhere" materialises on the canvas, with great clarity, where in an upside-down world three irreverent rectangles of colour are immortalised as they flee towards a destination unknown to us.

With "Connessioni" Antonella shows what she believes in: the search for the other and the need to establish links. Her message is dressed in full, solid and compact colours, because the drive towards the other is joyful and at the same time certain and iterated, as shown by the decisive, pure and essential lines that struggle to contain the explosion of colours, to whose research Antonella has always been and continues to be particularly attentive.
The "connections" create fruitful encounters not only on canvas but also in life, as witnessed by the artistic collaboration born on this occasion with Marco Muzzolon, set designer and ten-year friend of Antonella. Their shared feelings have led to this artistic dialogue.

In fact, Marco is taking part in this exhibition with a selection of works dedicated to the theme of human relationships and their survival: common objects are "humanised". Houses come alive with arms to leap towards the other, chairs acquire hands to welcome and here no one feels alone, because they are connected to the other by a subtle and rough but tenacious fil rouge, because, to paraphrase Borges "I performed an irreparable gesture, when I established a bond".

Elisa Domenichetti

(Art Curator)

See the exhibited works