In the fortieth anniversary of his first personal and in the year of the Jubilee the artist Roberto Floreani presents the exhibition ‘Thresholds: time of the first – time of then’the result of its most recent research by the powerful spiritual message. “A precise sign of my human and artistic path,” says Floreni to Adnkronos.
Starting from 8 March until 8 June 2025, the Diocesan Museum of Vicenza will host the complete cycle of the artist’s new works, a site-specific project with highly suggestive ideas thanks to the contamination with the historical section of the museum and the installation presence of a series of rugs created by Floreni for the occasion. The ‘constellations’, the ‘lunari’ and ‘rhythms’, pictorial series of the last five years are also on display: over 60 works (photo).
The large installation of 21 works that is evolved since 2013 presented at the International Center of Palazzo Te (MN), then in 2014 on the main floor of the Gran Guardia (VR) and in 2016 at the Civic Museums of Padua, where, from time to time, it was integrated with the latest evolution of Floreni research and which therefore also presents the current insertion of some ‘thresholds, therefore relevant. A sort of work in progress that at the same time tells the thematic evolution of the research and a flow of the artist’s life.
The ‘threshold’, explains Floreani, declares the function of the work itself, which represents a ridge that separates the time of the first (the project) – from the time of then (the realization completed), directly similar to the founding idea of birth, of creation. Aspects, both theological and philosophical, which give the exhibition an explicit reference to Jubilee 2025.
For Floreni, the work can contain a spiritual message: its research in the sphere of the abstitute and depth leads to a reflective dimension that proves to be an antidote to contemporary materialism.
The works of the ‘threshold’ series, thanks to their material refinement, highlight the exclusive pictorial technique of Floreni, characterized by a wise stratification that reaches up to 30 overlapping levels and which gives the work an extraordinary depth. But the ‘thresholds’, with their geometric rigor, notes the artist, are also a declaration of continuity with that ‘Italian way to abstractionism’, inaugurated by the ‘iridescent interpenetrations’ by Giacomo Balla in 1912, fully responding to the intuition of the philosopher Jean Baudrillard who celebrated the privileged topicality of the abstraction precisely by virtue of his “heroic history”.
Roberto Floreani, ‘thresholds: time of the first – time of then on display in Vicenza – Photogallery
Roberto Floreani, a reference abstractionist in Italy, is passionate scholar and expert in Futurism, essayist, writer and performer. 2024 saw him protagonist as the curator of the exhibition ‘Pop/Beat – Italy 1960-1979. Free to dream ‘in Vicenza and the magazine Artuu Magazine crowned him artist of the year.
On March 8, the ‘threshold’ exhibition at the Diocesan Museum in Vicenza is inaugurated. What is the genesis of this new research?
“I think it is the achievement of an intermediate point significant. It is a research that began in 2019 and consolidated during the isolation from Covid – says Floreni to Adnkronos – a period that also served me to write the essay ‘abstraction as resistance’, which enriched the theoretical awareness of my work. Without this step I would not have been able to make the ‘thresholds’ a complete sign of my human path and artistic “.
The subtitle of the exhibition ‘Time of the first – time of then’ is also relevant?
“The subtitle refers above all to the meaning of the work itself – explains the artist – in the contemporary the construction and meaning of the work are losing their value and giving weight to the passage of the time recalls the primary function of the work that represents a ridge that separates the time of the first (of the intention) and the time of then (of the realization). Historically, referring to the work the unusual term of creation, important and full of meanings, is also used. At the center the meaning of the work and its creation “.
Does this claim of the centrality of the work has to do with the forty years from the first staff?
“Of course, I believe that every artist should manifest in his projects the profound meaning that motivates him to conceive them, from the beginning,” says Floreani.
Why are the choice of continuously with Josef Albers ‘tribute to the square’?
“It is part of that theoretical enrichment of which I was talking about. On the one hand the awareness of being part of that ‘heroic history’ cited by the philosopher Jean Baudrillard, assigning to the abstraction a recognition of privileged reliability in the contemporary; on the other hand feel able to face the cornerstones of the history of the abstraction without hesitation – he underlines – in the case of the homage to the square ‘ Continuation of that research, where the squares do not overlap but allow their crossing, enriching them with meaning from the philosophical and theological side, exactly in the spiritual direction to which Albers himself agreed.
The concept of ‘threshold’ is evocative of countless possibilities. From fear to the Autudia to overcome one’s limits and conventions imposed to discover that Oltre ‘, from the pleasure of waiting in that limit that you can also choose to never cross until the decision to remain’ on this side if that ’opens it is frightening or simply does not interest us. You often refer to a message of spirituality, what does it mean?
“I have persuaded that the work may be a vehicle for a spiritual message – he says – and in this I do is reiterate one of the central aspects of abstraction since its origins. Spirituality that has been declined by the abstractionists (Balla, Kandinskij, Arp, Mondrian and many others, to date with Peter Halley and Sean Scully) from different sides that range from theosophy to anthroposophy, from anthroposophy, from anthroposophy, Jewish cabal up to Albers’ theology.
In the abstract work you know in the end everyone sees a little what they want, or rather what at that moment that specific work arouses in us as we are in that precise moment of our life. What would you like to ‘hear others?
“With the necessary premise that every artist paints for himself, or at least it should do it without too many attention to the market, without doubt the abstraction is the most democratic art form in the list of the arts – says Floreani – because it allows each user to fall into a private observation that is independent of nature, based on sensations of others of an emotional nature. Observation that the users himself can activate or not, An inner analysis “.
Often of new works and the new research of artists there are talk of continuity, evolution or breaking point. How do the ‘thresholds’ place themselves?
“In the intentions – says the artist – I see my works as continuity from the original message of the ‘iridescent interpenetrations’ of Balla from 1912, which therefore also respond to the meaning of ‘heroic history’ attributed to the abstraction by Baudrillard”.
What’s beyond the ‘threshold’?
“The tree of the ‘threshold’ has the same importance as the later-he underlines-and it is part of that awareness that allows you to evaluate time as a sort of extended present, where the importance of the past allows a present-like present-time present, in order to build a future that responds, at least in part, to our intentions. The overseas of us does not depend on us and must be equipped to shape the surprises”.
The exhibition is by Msgr. Francesco Gasparini, with the support of Fondazione Giuseppe Roi and with the patronage of the Province of Vicenza, City of Vicenza, Biblical Festival, Consortium University of Vicenza, Olympic Academy, Sacred Art Gallery of Contens, FAI – Delegation of Vicenza.