Florence is revered as home to some of the world’s most important art. Labelled by many as the cradle of the Renaissance, pieces from Botticcelli’s Venus to Michaelangelo’s David attract flocks of tourists on a daily basis.
Queues to get into the likes of the Uffizi, Palazzo Strozzi or the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, stretch far and wide across the city. However, are people so desperate to say they’ve seen these treasures, that their hit and run tourism blinds them to some of the city’s hidden artistic gems.
This is exactly what I’ve tried to discover over the past few months, keeping an eye on cultural publications and listening intently to word of mouth recommendations, it’s led me to some fantastic music, cultural and artistic events.
In a city so saturated with camera flash tourism, these conversations between students and locals can be the catalyst in scratching away the sightseer facade and revealing the city’s true contemporary identity. So when a classmate invited me to a gallery opening, tucked away in the intriguing Santo Spirito neighbourhood, I tried my hardest not to bite her hand off.
The gallery in question, Chiasso Perduto, is an interesting concept space. On a small side-street, hidden at first, a descending stairwell carved into the wall catches your eye. It’s this stairwell that opens up into the galleria’s subterranean cavern space. Not your normal white cube space, the natural flow of the wall’s curved and rough shape bounce off its organically shaped ceiling to create an antithetically raw yet welcoming atmosphere.
Owners Francesca and Sandra kindly shared their vision for the space with us, a journey that had started six years ago. The space was inherited and converted to the gallery space it is today by the pair, but its past owners the Machiavelli family tie it uniquely to both the past and present art worlds in Florence.
As such, not every artist can have the honour of portraying at Chiasso Perduto, a long and thoughtful procedure goes into picking the artists. Picked on roughly a bi-montly basis the artist always arrives to a blank canvas. The natural shape of the space can then inspire them, the owners accompanying the artist on every step of their journey, as opposed to the often colder nature of white cube space galleries. The aim is to maximise the creativity of each residency, and is probably why most of their recent artists have produced projects so uniquely different.
The artist and residency in question that we were lucky enough to get an opening glimpse at was Maria Xagorari, a visual artist from the islands off Greece now based in the high peaks of Switzerland. Her work entitled Acque Sconfinate or Endless Waters, seems a testament to Maria’s tight bond between the emotions she feels and finds through nature. With this in mind the distinctive natural form of the gallery partnered with the influence of Maria’s past and present homes seemed a perfect match.
The gallery instantly drew me in as I entered into its cavernous white walls, Maria’s work visible from the off with a mixture of video art and physical work applied directly to the surfaces. The combination of these methods gave life to the space, forcing you to switch your gaze as a spectator. It felt unpredictable and yet tied very strongly to the same theme of water, in the words of Maria water’s natural flow and forces but also its at times erratic nature mimicking the movements of life.
Motifs of shipwrecks, boats and chains were strewn across large depictions of waves and the ocean, creating a feeling of intensity but also arguably reflecting the human attempt to slow this tide, suspending themselves in time. Maria herself was arguably the greatest semblance of this though, floating through the flowing walls by her depictions of waves with a sense of kinetic energy.
As she stopped by various spectators to explain her artistic process or motivations it was almost as if she became the motif of the boat herself, a pillar of trust to the unknown as the residency description itself explains. The holistic nature of the gallery tied intrinsically to her Greek heritage, and its mythology, but also her history of travelling. At times the wall-drawings catch your eye out of the large blank white spaces, as if much like the space we were submerged on a subterranean level.
It was evident that Maria has taken inspiration not just from her affinity for the sea but also through its depiction in literature and beyond, after all she put the piece together whilst in landlocked Switzerland. Poetic quotes were discreetly placed through the various wall drawings and videos, poetry translated through the gaze of Maria to give the gallery a truly multimedia feel. Maria’s visual conception linked to her inner emotions lines and intentions through these: “In the still of starry nights, shivering bones shimmering light, flood me with tears, flood me with life”.
Maria’s installation felt raw, and the video art complimented the drawings well, a feat that can be hard to achieve. It allowed the spectator to compare their own emotions and visual imagination of the work alongside Maria’s own vision, creating an engaging experience.
Patience was a necessity for the installation, as the mystery of Maria’s work unravelled through the space - the main wall drawing in particular. A large rolling wave formed of black and white constant circles, ranging in shape and intensity, another metaphor for the cyclical comparisons between life and the movement of water. They say the human eye’s natural reaction is to try and find faces or familiar shapes in the abstract, and in the case of this wave it was true, really sparking one’s imagination.
It was truly the centerpiece, but as a result the other pieces did at times risk feeling lost. Nonetheless, this on the other hand worked well with the space allowing for smaller pieces to be connected by one larger work. Perhaps reflective of the constant connection of us all by a wider flow of life, even with apparent physical space between us.
In the case of Maria the ocean in the installation therefore acts as a perfect metaphor spanning the life between her base of Switzerland and origins amongst the Greek islands. A feeling of tense suspension and flow state all at once.
The gallery was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and is a testament to both the owners Francesca and Sandra, as well as the artist Maria. A night full of thought, imagination and curiosity moulded by the innovative space and the residency that brought it alive.
The local wine and snacks provided for us on opening night only further swaying our positive opinion. So, for any young art or culture enthusiast take this as a sign. Yes, Florence has a bounty of historical art gems right at your feet, but if you take the time to dig further a new and inventive world of art is flourishing quite literally beneath the surface.