In the historic center of Taranto, in the evocative spaces of the CRAC Puglia - Contemporary Art Research Center, of the Rocco Spani ONLUS Foundation, located in the former Convent of the Olivetan Fathers, sec. XIII, Saturday 14 September at 18.30 will take place the inauguration of the contemporary art exhibition "SIGNS OF LIGHT: drawing as a project", with planning tables and preparatory drawings by Carlo Bernardini, Giulio De Mitri, Paolo Scirpa, Massimo Uberti.

Conquering both artificial and natural light, making its effects and its changes in interiors and exteriors, on bodies and objects, has been a fundamental research of painting for centuries, but only in the twentieth century did artists take possession of light , artificial light, no longer painted.

The medium of artificial light is used by artists with extreme freedom, treating it almost as if it were a color to be spread on the canvas or as a plastic material with which to make a sculpture.

"Light is certainly one of the most versatile mediums, capable of involving the user in different moods and in immersive and multisensory perceptions, - says curator Sara Liuzzi, art critic and historian, in the presentation in the catalog, teacher at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin - from this principle a process of study and analysis starts in which light in art is considered from a further point of view: the design moment, or the main phase that heralds it and draws the salient features of the work that will be created. The exhibition itinerary focuses on little known, yet fundamental aspects of artistic planning: what is the genesis of a luminous work? And how does the preparatory study evolve ? (...) Creativity at the service of artistic research: this is the starting point of the exhibition, which intends to focus attention on the sign and design aspects that precede the representation action of the work, thus bringing to the fore the conceptual phase, the embryonic dimension of an idea with infinite possibilities of realization, through the constructive iter - project and process - which often changes during the research ".

The exhibition presents four artists, of clear international fame, belonging to different generations, formations and geographies, who have chosen, over the years, light as the fundamental and main medium of their artistic research.

The exhibition thus proposes a careful dialogue with the artists: Carlo Bernardini, Giulio De Mitri, Paolo Scirpa, Massimo Uberti , who with their design works redefine Light Art, a language of art at the center of which is the attention for light, as an aesthetic medium and message, as the Canadian sociologist and scholar McLuhan said: "the medium is the message", so the light works of these artists contain the message which is the content of the medium, without which these works do not they might exist.

The exhibition is structured in four spaces, each one dedicated to an artist who presents an adequate number of preparatory projects and drawings for works already made or to be realized.

The exhibition is promoted by CRAC Puglia - Contemporary Art Research Center of the Rocco Spani Onlus Foundation, in collaboration with the association "MAS - Modern Apulian Style" and the "Opere choices" gallery in Turin, sponsored by the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and AMACI (Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums), as part of the XV Day of Contemporary Art.

For the occasion, a publication edited by CRAC for the Contemporary Art Series "Art and New Media" was created, containing institutional contributions by Giovanna Tagliaferro, director of the Rocco Spani Foundation, and Gemma Lanzo, co-founder of MAS and curator of MAS Week, preface by the art historian Luigi Paolo Finizio, critical text by the curator Sara Liuzzi, biographical cards of the artists and iconographic apparatus with preparatory projects and drawings.