Curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Alessandro Rabottini, the group show Afterimage is a meditation upon the forms in which what has disappeared persists in and around us, both materially and metaphorically. The title of the show refers to an optical illusion called ‘afterimage,’ which happens when a visual stimulus like a camera flash generates an impression on the retina that remains even after the stimulus has vanished. Afterimage is conceived as a visual poem that reflects on the coexistence of permanence and impermanence as a universal human condition rooted in our existences and bodies, as well as in objects, places, meanings and images. The spectators are invited to establish intuitive, spontaneous associations between the works, and the architecture of Palazzo Ardinghelli but also with the history of L’Aquila, a city that day after day is a testament to the correlation between memories from the past and the drive to transform. A city that manifests how the principle of metamorphosis contains that which has been, and generates what will be. Afterimage is also a tribute to the context that hosts it, an offering to multiple voices, metaphors and narratives.
inner architecture Almost like geological bodies and buildings, even images can become stratified over time, accumulating meaning and memories on their surfaces. Afterimage is made up of works where the images themselves create space or interact with the architecture of Palazzo Ardinghelli, like the textiles by Hana Miletić (space C), where photography, tactility and urban space merge; or the room conceived by Thomas Demand (room 3), where digital simulation and photography create together an architecture within an architecture, a space suspended between what is real and what can be imagined. The environmental installation by Benni Bosetto (space B) transforms an ancient tradition of local handcraft into a phantasmagoria of forms, while the work by Dahn Vo (room 2) connects with the architecture of the building and calls for a timely revision of the relationship between nature and culture. Finally, images of inhabited spaces are embodied in different materials, revealing their tactile qualities as in the diptych by Stefano Arienti (room 10) that transposes photographs taken on Gran Sasso in the Apennine mountains onto silk woven in Penne.