PAOLO SIMONAZZI – “MANTUA” CUBA

PAOLO SIMONAZZI
Mantua, Cuba

Lolletto Alley Art Factories
from October 7 to November 4, 2017. 

Mantua, Cuba is a project that grew out of an intimate and primary need: that of remembering my friend Velmore Davoli, who had visited those places in 1999 as part of an international cooperation program.
The project, in its complex and long evolution, has been enriched by the fundamental contribution of Davide Barilli, who knows Cuba well, often the protagonist of his novels and short stories.
It is precisely on the basis of these urges that a study and research are born, revealing an interference between history and legend, between a possibly Italian origin of the small Caribbean town and a Genoese brig sunk in the ocean, not far from the shores on which Mantua is said to have risen. The legend is enough to build a narrative and to seek elective affinities, seemingly improbable, between the province of Padua and that of Cuba, between objects, symbols and details suspended in a “small world” that protects its own visceral identity.
Simonazzi photographs that in which he finds a sense of belonging, regardless of geographic latitudes, namely the very idea of the province: a sultry nebula, where walls can witness pieces of history, of faith, of magical syncretism. And it was from the vision of an inscription found on an abandoned building, Bar del Olvido, that it all began. An inscription that becomes the sentiment around which the entire project revolves, forgetfulness as a red thread between Mantua, its bizarre Italic legend and the intrinsic capacity of remote places to muffle History, to transform it and make it dance on a papier-mâché theater. All this is filtered through a well-defined photographic culture, which locates its models in that important experience that from the Via Emilia reaches the American asphalt: from Luigi Ghirri to the New Topgraphers, passing through the chromaticism of William Eggleston. A culture that Simonazzi claims and actualizes in the awareness of telling a legend, something that has perhaps already disappeared even if still before our eyes. Something that must still be protected, if only to experience the pleasure of being able to take refuge, sometimes, in illusions.

Paolo Simonazzi, “Mantua, Cuba”
October 7-November 4, 2017
Vicolo Folletto Art Factories
Vicolo Folletto 1, Reggio Emilia
Hours: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays: 10:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. and 4:00-7:30 p.m.; private tours outside opening hours by appointment.

Photographic book presentation:
Friday, October 6, 2017, 5:30 p.m.
Paolo Simonazzi “MANTUA, CUBA” (Greta Edizioni,2016)
Author Davide Barilli and curator Andrea Tinterri speak
Sala del Planisfero, Panizzi Library, Reggio Emilia, Via Farini, 3

Exhibition opening:
Friday, October 6, 2017, 7:00 p.m.
Vicolo Folletto Art Factories, Vicolo Folletto, 1, Reggio Emilia