{"id":1388,"date":"2021-12-01T14:39:38","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T14:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2021-12-01T14:39:38","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T14:39:38","slug":"le-piazze-invisibili-invisible-squares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/2021\/12\/01\/le-piazze-invisibili-invisible-squares\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Piazze [In]visibili – Invisible Squares"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Roma04 001<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Le Piazze [In]visibili \u2013 Invisible Squares<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Curated by Marco Delogu<\/p>\n

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Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building, University of Kent<\/p>\n

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6 \u2013 17 December 2021 and 17 January \u2013 18 February, 10am \u2013 5pm. Free entrance.<\/p>\n

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Private View: Friday 10th<\/sup> December 5-7pm.<\/p>\n

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When the first lockdown hit Italy in the Spring of 2020 the country\u2019s famous piazze<\/em>, the bustling squares at the heart of its civilisation, fell eerily silent. Empty of the usual crowds, the piazzas became \u2013 \u2018perhaps for the first time in our lives\u2019, writes curator Marco Delogu in the exhibition catalogue \u2013 \u2018imaginary places \u201cseen\u201d like this previously only by the great artists and the minds who designed, planned, built and adorned them\u2019. Delogu reacted to this extraordinary situation by coordinating a team of forty photographers and writers to document and respond to the nation\u2019s temporarily unreal squares. The project involved a complex challenge as during lockdown the photographers could only go outside alone and \u2018subject to explaining the reason to the relevant authorities\u2019 while \u2018for many writers it was difficult to achieve the necessary concentration\u2019. The writers and photographers – \u2018piazza partners\u2019 – worked both in dialogue and independently of each other yet for each piazza \u2018the results coincided surprisingly\u2019.<\/p>\n

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The title of the exhibition Le Piazze [In]visibili<\/em> (Invisible Squares<\/em>) alludes to Italo Calvino\u2019s famous novel Le citt\u00e0 invisibili<\/em> (Invisible Cities<\/em>). While he was Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London, Delogu had met the architectural historian Joseph Rykwert, visiting him in his house in Hampstead where he was shown a first edition of Calvino\u2019s Invisible Cities<\/em> (1972) with a dedication acknowledging the inspiration of Rykwert\u2019s The Idea of a Town<\/em>(1963). Rykwert has contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue pointing out that while lockdown impoverished Italy\u2019s piazzas it also provided a rare opportunity to \u2018see their complex geometries, their bare bones, and therefore their very structure\u2019.<\/p>\n

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The exhibition is an initiative of Italy\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and is shown at the University of Kent thanks to the generosity of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. Luigi Di Maio, Italy\u2019s Minster of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, writes of the subject of the exhibition that \u2018we are aware that we are facing great challenges, but nonetheless believe that we have the ability to rise to them and draw the impetus needed to overcome them from our sights firmly set on the future\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Students taking Kent\u2019s MA Curating have worked to adapt the exhibition for installation in Studio 3 Gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Le Piazze [In]visibili \u2013 Invisible Squares \u00a0 Curated by Marco Delogu   Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building, University of Kent   6 \u2013 17 December 2021 and 17 January \u2013 18 February, 10am \u2013 5pm. Free entrance.   Private View: Friday 10th December 5-7pm.   When the first lockdown hit Italy in the Spring … Continue reading Le Piazze [In]visibili – Invisible Squares<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1075],"tags":[36693],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1390,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studio3gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}