PRÉSENTATION

From 12 September to 11 November 2020

Mémoire de l’Avenir – Humanities, Arts and Society
accueillera une exposition
de Riccarda Montenero
Intitulée

Riccarda Montenero –

Rue de l’Espérance, a photographic project by Riccarda Montenero realized between 2015 and 2017 and presented from September 12 to October 10 at Mémoire de l’Avenir.

Riccarda Montenero is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts of Lecce and the University of Turin in Architecure. The gardens of the Royal Palace of Turin are home to two of her large-scale works. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad, as well as in film and video art festivals. She regularly collaborates with artists and intellectuals on publications or multidisciplinary artistic projects.
In 2011 her work was presented in the Italian pavilion of the 54th edition of the Venice International Biennale, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi. She works in photography, sculpture, digital art and 3D film. Her artistic projects are positioned in a humanistic approach, through which she seeks to bring out the invisible and confront us with the violence they face.                                            Riccarda Montenero lives and works between Paris and Turin.

Rue de l’Espérance (Street of Hope)

This project, composed of 90 images, deploys a narrative under tension, led by real or staged characters and a quasi-painterly photographic work, which takes us through the most important themes of the artist – those related to the passions of the soul and the body, but also those related to discrimination and violence.

The human body is the fundamental subject of Riccarda Montenero’s photographic work. It allows her to represent time, passing, drama and action at the same time. In Rue de l’Espérance, the artist shows us twisted bodies trying to escape or latent bodies giving the illusion that hope has left them. The body, treated as both object and subject, allows her to make tangible emotions and feelings, often torn between creative and destructive forces – Eros and Thanatos.

Mainly in black and white, sometimes in (dark) colors, her photographs also include autograph drawings taking archaic forms, which, for the artist, symbolize the depths and meanders of consciousness. In the same way, often in a spectral way, words, graffiti, fragments of murals photographed in the streets of Paris are superimposed on the photographs. The different levels of depth that she brings to her images allow for a singular immersion in her work.

From the street, only these plastic and graphic elements seem to be present. From the observation of her works comes the feeling of an enclosed space where the drama unfolds.

Riccarda Montenero’s project began on rue de l’Espérance, located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, notably around its graffiti. However, one cannot get rid of a symbolic reading of this name and question the idea of hope that the artist seems to want to bring. Riccarda Montenero’s work is born above all from an encounter with the other and the observation of our relationship to otherness. If the artist, through her works and her questioning, often brings out the darkest aspects of this relationship, it is in order to carry a voice towards new paradigms of living together.

Very sensitive to the fate of the most vulnerable, injustices and violence, Riccarda Montenero considers the role of the artist as an important role of involvement and awareness of our social realities.

The artist also likes to surround herself with other languages and universes to dialogue with her works. For this exhibition, she has invited the director Teresa Scotto di Vettimo who will present a short film “A True Way of the Cross” with the actor Olindo Cavadini. An incisive look at the work of art in general and Rue de l’Espérance in particular.

Riccarda Montenero also invites Magali Nardi, cabaret singer and composer, whose work invests themes dear to the artist (such as passion, seduction and love) to present a performance around her character Betty Jane.

An evening will be dedicated to the film and performance on October 3rd starting at 6pm.

The book Rue de l’Espérance 2015-2017, published in 2020 by Prinp Edizioni D’Arte 2.0 – with texts by Isabelle de Maison Rouge, François Salmeron, Laura Manione, Maria Erovereti and a humorous text by Teresa Scotto di Vettimo – will be signed by Riccarda Montenero on the evening of the opening on Friday, September 11th.