David Maljkovic/ Susanne M. Winterling_Fondazione Morra Greco

D. Maljkovic, After Giuseppe Sambito, 2009                                     S.M.Winterling, Installation view show, Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist

There is a psychological bond, which evokes the Freudian idea of uneasiness, in the way of understanding the physical space, a real structure such as a house or a room, as the place where emotions are materializing in their various shades.
In the sign of this idea the Fondazione Morra Greco opened the next season of exhibitions with a double solo-show of David Maljkovic (Rijeka, Croatia, 1973) and Susanne M. Winterling (Rehau, Germany, 1970), curated by Gigiotto Del Vecchio. Two are the essential key themes of the two exhibitons: the first concerns the relation between the person and the environment. The architecture becomes the mirror of a state of mind, full of charm and emotion. The second theme is the relation between the person and the history. Both shows through these issues by constructing a bipartite route, but consistent within the headquarters of the Fondazione Morra Greco, Palazzo Caracciolo d'Avellino. The itinerary of the show begins on the ground floor, in the basement, where Susanne Winterling presented some artworks, producted by the Fondazione, that has implemented a project inspired by the figure of Torquato Tasso, born in Sorrento, but also lived in Naples. Tasso was one of the owner of the Palazzo Caracciolo d’Avellino, but the other owner, Principe Caracciolo, didn’t recognize his property. This has been the reason of a long legal fight between Tasso and the Principe Caracciolo, that caused a lot of suffer to the writer, who was insane.

For the other part, at the first floor, David Maljkovic has presented a series of works inspired by the Italian pavilion of the fair in Zagreb, designed by Giuseppe Neapolitan Sambo. Both works represent a link with the Foundation that hosts them. Through this exhibition the artists introduce an issue that concerns the role of the artist in relation to history as the memory of a past event. The exhibition raises questions: can the past be deleted? Is it really possible to erase the memory of an event and a person? How healthy mind?
Susanne Winterling’s installations take place in the ground floor and in the former cellars of the palace. The intervention of the artist welcomes the viewer to entry - only note of disappointment for the bad condition of the palace - with The stairs upon the servants, a red carpet entrance. An artwork between the road and the exhibition space that marks a difference between the private dimension and the public context. With this red carpet the artist let the city broke into the Fondazione so that the exhibition space becomes a place where emotions live.

Inside the German artist presents a series of works dedicated to Torquato Tasso, author of the Gerusalemme Liberata, who died insane at the end of the sixteenth century. Tasso was the son of Portia de 'Rossi, but did not share much time with her mother because she died in obscure circumstances when he was still a child.

The Palazzo Caracciolo d'Avellino was half owned by the family and then was inherited de'Rossi to rate. But Prince Caracciolo, who took possation of an half of the property, would not relinquish possession of the villa which was long the subject of a dispute between the two. A question long and painful for Yew, recently left a shelter for the serious state of mental insane- rate was subject to states of confusion and delirium, had visions and delusions of persecution. The issue was resolved in his favor, but the Prince Caracciolo even then would not recognize the legitimate property to Torquato Tasso, who died alone and insane in Rome.
Winterling, who explores the lives interrupted by great exponents of culture, returns the memory of this event to the collective memory. A sort of final redemption of the Italian poet who suffered in life and escape marginalization, fear and madness. On the ground floor are exposed that Reflects The building itself, an installation that covers the floor and walls of the palace with a mirrored surface and A Gift for the aborted, two triangular structures which are now built from plexiglass Natural Reflection and Visual poem, photo prints color.

The exhibition space becomes the instrument through which emotions arise in connection with diseases of the space. The building is seen as the mirror of the rate of mental disorder. Like the neurotic, or to the panic the impression of space "possessed" or distortions of domestic space. Like a charm. The space itself begins to tell a story and becomes the meeting point between the size of the deep and surface. The trauma that causes the artist awakens the consciousness of the viewer. The plan of the cellars are exposed Storm, a sound installation loop, and two video installations in 16 millimeters Untitled (The Artist as Torquato Tasso) and The sparks. In the first film, played in the foreground, the artist painted and masked, while the head moves in jerks, mimicking a state of turmoil and upheaval characteristic of mads, while the second film reproduces the intermittent explosions of fireworks.
The artist intervenes in a place of historical, sociological and ethnographic, but also constitute an area U-topic. A transit zone between one place and no place, where the memory affects the present and in which we deal with conflicts.
David Maljkovic’show consist in establishing a dialogue with the history using a standardized language, but apparently sinking into a state of hallucination getting lost in memory. Maljkovic reflects on the past time of the former Yugoslavia, using architectural elements of the matrix utopian '60s and '70s and were the symbol of the communist regime and the government of Tito. In  the video installations These days, made in 2005 and Last Memories fromThese Days, 2006, shown in two halls at the end of the first floor corridor of the building, the Croatian artist constructs a narrative expanded to lose awareness of reality.

The videos were made in the construction of Joseph Sambito, the Italian pavilion of the Zagreb Fair, currently in a state of semi-abandonment, built by Josip Broz Tito as an extraordinary example of economic exchange between East and West.

The artist combines sculpture and video to create a dynamic structure that produces the state of collective memories. Characters of the films of the video-projections are young girls and boys, exacerbated by a frenzied expansion of the time, while thay are inside the hall of Sambito building. In these video-installations characters seem in a state of trance and move slowly, weakened by the passage of time, resulting in exhausting conversations. Each object symbol of power and economic exchange is reduced to a structure weak and empty.
Along the gallery rooms there is After Giuseppe Sambito, an installation created specifically for the exhibition, Maljkovic has created the sculptures, large wooden windows which contain a photograph of the sketch of the building, digitally manipulated and the branch of a palm tree. The installation is the echo of an icon the Italian Pavilion in Zagreb, a monument to economic success in the course of its history has suffered the defeat of oblivion.



David Maljkovic / Susanne M. Winterling
Fondazione Morra Greco
Largo Avellino, 17 Naples, Italy
Info: tel: +39 081 551 03 43
cellphone: +39 333 639 5093
email: info@fondazionemorragreco.com
website: www.fondazionemorragreco.com


From October 30^th, 2009 to 20^th February, 2010

Photos: Danilo Donzelli

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