The melancholic state of inert matter, better known in painting under the title of Nature dead or, better still, Vita silente , as Giorgio De Chirico preferred to call it, declares an opposing state of mind and announces the denial of any possible future, in the affirmation of a memento mori .

The deadly sins, which form the background to the precarious state of human life, correspond to the passions, to the undisciplined instincts of the intellect and give shape to an artistic language that looks at the theme of Vanitas as a warning, almost a caricature contracture that extinguishes every edifying intent within the grin of death, and its main witness that art expresses in the configuration of the skull.

The language of art is one of the few that seems to have applied a profoundly different aesthetic to the space of representation. A linear aesthetic in that the artist is authorized to create a delimited «field» situation within which the spectator can reflect himself in the fruition of the work. In fact we are therefore faced with a real "action", an intervention carried out in the space/scene, for a conceptual subdivision of the usable area that it will occupy. In the same context we must consider the occupation of this space as a project of horizontal and vertical stratifications which tend to upset the scene and modify its vision.

In this weaving, the five works from the prestigious Merlini collection , which the collector presents in Bologna on the occasion of Art City 2023 , remain emblematic for the construction of a fascinating mise en scéne which mirrors all the peculiarities of the Vanitas .

The authors chosen for this investigation: Franco Francese, Ennio Morlotti, Renato Guttuso and Gianfranco Ferroni , in the different typologies of the pictorial language, organize a multiple representation that unwinds in the parallel planes of the space/scene determining a complex network of possible interpretations.

ART WHITE NIGHT - 4 February 2023 Performance by Massimo Tagliata - accordion 5 pm and 6.30 pm Free admission by reservation: www.raccoltalercaro.it