The Italian Institute of Culture in New York presents my personal exhibition by Italian artist Marionanni (Bizzuno, 1955), curated by Beatrice Caprioli. Inaugurated on November 12, the exhibition brings together works that span over fifty years of activity, offering a look on a unique artistic research, developed between art, architecture and design. Instead of following a chronological path, I investigate the insights that directed the artist’s work, showing how his constant research on light continued to generate new forms of expression.
For marionanni, the original function of an object has never represented the limit of its possibilities. The deep knowledge of materials, optical phenomena and lighting techniques is the foundation of an inventive approach, through which family structures acquire unexpected properties. The rigour of the designer and the imaginative freedom of the artist live without hierarchies, creating a language that escapes traditional distinctions between disciplines. In the center there is an inexhaustible curiosity for the possibilities of light, understood not only as an instrument capable of making visible the world, but as an expressive matter able to transform its perception.
“With me we want to bring to the United States the strength and originality of contemporary Italian creativity”, says Claudio Pagliara, director of the Italian Institute of Culture of New York. “marionanni, the writer of light, transvades the boundaries between design, architecture and art, transforming light into a language capable of opening new perspectives. Through the collaboration with Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute, the Institute is a bridge between this research and important American institutions, creating opportunities for exchange with students and teachers. This is how we intend to accompany Italian creativity in the world: giving visibility to its protagonists and building relationships that can generate new ideas and collaborations”.
Among the works on display, visions (2024), with Biancamaria Nanni, reinterprets the traditional screen through an articulated game of paper, light and shadow. The finely carved surfaces allow bright configurations that extend beyond the object, attenuating the boundary between its physical structure and the surrounding space. In doremiluce (2016), thin suspended metal rods react to the touch, activating a composition of sounds and bright projections. Each gesture gives rise to a new sequence, in which musical notes and forms of light develop in mutual relationship. The installation thus transforms a seemingly simple interaction into an intimate sensory experience, placing the visitor at the center of an evolving composition.
These works form metaluce, a fundamental concept in marionanni’s artistic philosophy, through which light emanates from its instrumental function to assert itself as an autonomous means of expressiveness. Besides its ability to illuminate, it acquires its own presence, capable of generating images, changing the perception of space and urging imagination. A concept that accompanies the artist from the first experiments to the most recent achievements.
“What fascinates me with marionanni is the way in which his extraordinary mastery of light becomes a form of artistic freedom, allowing him to overcome the original function of an object and discover possibilities that otherwise would remain unexplored”, says Beatrice Caprioli, curator of the exhibition. «Presenting mine at the Italian Institute of Culture in New York takes on a particular meaning in a city where light has contributed to shaping not only architecture and urban landscape, but also artistic and cultural history, from visual arts to theatre, from cinema to photography».
The exhibition will remain open to the public until 15 January 2027.
L’articolo Fifty years of experiments with the light of the artist <i>marionanni</i> proviene da IlNewyorkese.
