Antonio Bardino. Il respiro delle piante (Plants' Breath)
Antonio Bardino
Il respiro delle piante (Plants’ Breath)
Curated by Daniele Capra
Casa Cavazzini
Liceo Classico Statale Jacopo Stellini
Udine
From 20 December 2024 to 3 March 2025
Casa Cavazzini Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Udine and the Liceo Classico Statale Jacopo Stellini di Udine are pleased to present Antonio Bardino's personal exhibition Il respiro delle piante, curated by Daniele Capra. The project - realised in partnership with the Department of Culture and the Department of Health of the Municipality of Udine - is a unicum in the panorama of exhibitions in our country and stems from a synergy between institutions thanks to which contemporary art and the collective participation of students come together. In fact, it consists of an exhibition and a programme of collaborations that puts students at the centre.
The event is the first episode of Future Life, the project that will be developed over the next few years in the museum's new project room, located on the first floor of the building. It will consist of a series of solo exhibitions of the most representative artists of contemporary creativity who will be asked to measure themselves against the themes proposed by the UN's Agenda 2030. The selected artists will be asked to work focusing on the 17 goals identified by the document, in terms of environmental sustainability and socio-economic well-being.
The exhibition brings together some fifteen works on canvas created by Bardino in recent years that focus on house plants and the presence of the plant element in strongly anthropised contexts. The exhibition investigates the vitality of nature and its silent, yet vital and overpowering presence, which seems to escape human control. The plants painted by Bardino become luxuriant pieces of plant landscape, unexpected and wild clippings of nature housed in the captivity of domestic walls. The works will be hosted both at Casa Cavazzini (in the project room on the first floor and in the flat) and at the Aula Magna of the Stellini.
This is flanked by a collaborative programme with the students of the Liceo Stellini, which includes the placement of domestic plants in the museum spaces where the works are displayed, their care, and a programme of guided tours led by the students themselves during the exhibition period. This project is the natural evolution of La natura entra a scuola: le piante in classe, implemented at the Liceo Stellini under the guidance of teachers Claudio Bardini and Roberta Costantini. The initiative has seen, over the past few months, students together with teachers and ATA staff at Stellini adopt some domestic plants in classroom spaces and take care of them both during school periods and holidays. A practice of individual well-being and care for the community and the environment.
With a view to the participation and active role of students in public space, the Bardino exhibition is thus an opportunity to extend good practice to the spaces of an exhibition institution, stimulating knowledge and attendance of the museum. The students will also be involved in guiding activities of the exhibition aimed at both the young public of high schools and the visitors of Casa Cavazzini.
Antonio Bardino’s research of (Alghero, 1973) is characterised by an interest in anthropised contexts, nature and plant elements, which for the artist bear witness to forms of resilience to the fierce anthropic power through their flourishing. For Bardino - exclusively dedicated to oil painting - trees, garden or house plants constitute the rebellious characters of a third landscape that is in opposition to human presence, which is completely ignored and silenced. It is the plants that speak, that build a new world and preserve its memory for posterity with their vivid colours.
