Externally unchanging microcosms, ordered by archaic balances between land, people and animals: this is how villages, forests and the countryside appeared before the arrival of frenzied modernity. But what remains today, we ask ourselves as we walk through the “caruggi” (alleyways), of that civilisation?
In the wild cradle of the Apennines, Leonardo Meoni’s widespread intervention – which translates elements and forms typical of Castelvecchio into an artwork, the narrow passages opening onto the squares, the coloured stained-glass windows, the work of the farmers – intends to bring a light, as Montale would say, to rediscover what has vanished over time.
Se si resta sul posto, a title that recalls the sophistication of Ettore Sottsass, is an invitation to pause in order to relate to silence: a presence that dominates every nook and cranny and an indispensable guide on the voyage towards this rediscovery; deciphering the story, however, requires total contact with the location, not just a mere transit. The works, which draw nutrition from the culture of the territory in order to induce it to blossom anew, thus take on the appearance of compulsory stops that compel the gaze, disturb the pace, ask for silence as if they were a secular Via Crucis. All this in a free circular path, not unlike the layout of the city walls. In the upper square Una luce temporanea (A temporary light) is installed: a narrative “window” presenting a pastoral scene, switched off during the day, illuminated at night. In the lower square we find Passaggio (Passage): two walkable galleries that invite us to observe the exterior through hand-painted glass windows and direct the view to the village and the open, silent valley. In the “Negozietto” – a small disused shop – we finally meet Radicale (Radical), an iridescent velvet that muffles and absorbs the atmosphere, and carries motifs made with peasant tools that evoke stories of work in the fields, of the land, of a return to the origins. This is an encounter that serves as a reminder that sometimes the protagonist of a village is neither the architecture nor the community, but rather the silence and everything that it surrounds and preserves.

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Opere esposte:

01. Leonardo Meoni, Una luce temporanea, 2023. Iron, backlit painted glass 250 x 270 x 300 cm.
Piazza Torre

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02. Leonardo Meoni, Passaggio, 2023. Iron, wood, painted glass, 270 x 150 x 600 cm.
Piazza Cavour o Piazza delle Erbe

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03. Leonardo Meoni, Radicale, 2023. Mixed technique on velvet, 200 x 250 cm.
"Il Negozietto”, Via Roma.

Leonardo Meoni (Florence, 1994) lives and works in Florence and New York. He studied at the Art Institute in Siena, the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. He has exhibited in several solo and group shows in Italy and abroad, including: Place Holder, Amanita, New York (USA, 2022); Ars Memoriae, Palazzo Branciforte, Palermo (IT, 2022); Break-in. Temporal displacement, The Address gallery, Brescia (IT, 2022); Cancellare Senza Permesso, Spazio Amanita, Florence (IT, 2021); Outside of Inside of Outside, Safavi House, Isfahan (IR, 2021); and Sentences, Museo Novecento, Florence (IT, 2018).