La Piazza
Magazzino Gallery - Roma —
2024
29/05 - 27/07
The title refers to a central place for towns’ and cities urbanistic. From the times of the Greek agorà, social and political life of communities revolve around squares. A place created by men for men, whose centripetal force reflects itself in the furnishings that often decorate them. Equestrian monuments, fountains and obelisks that celebrate deeds and undertakings of a humanity that has guaranteed itself wellbeing and freedom through control and oppression.
In this exhibition Francesca Leone offers a reinterpretation of an archetypical place, with a project conceived for the gallery spaces, in which emerges a reflection about man and its conflictual relationship with nature, and how the constant expansion of urban centers could coexist with an always stronger desire and necessity to connect with the natural environment and its protection. A circular room hosts a structure with an ambivalent soul between an obelisk and a massive vegetal element, which seems to expand and take control of its surroundings. The square to which Francesca Leone refers to has lost its meaning as a meeting place, and has transformed itself in a place of oppression, defined by uncertainty, restlessness and mystery. It is mysterious, indeed, the dominant element of this piazza: its solitary presence reminds of a big cactus, a plant capable of growing in hostile environments, which is contextualized in such a way that generates disorientation and discrepancy. The chosen materials contribute to feed the misunderstanding: often used in Leone’s works, recycled materials create an oxymoronic relation with the strange vegetal universe that they represent; a universe in which new flowers can blossom from scrap, rusty tubes and taps. A landscape made of steel and dark shades in which Nature tries to take its centrality back.
