… it took me much longer to learn how to walk than most people. It is a good knack to be able to walk fast, but it is a much better knack to be able to walk for a long time.
At last I went by train to San Gimignano. No seats in second class available, so I had to go to the first. They gave me a newspaper, sparkling water that didn’t sparkle and a packet of taralli (salty ring-shaped biscuits typical of the South of Italy) but they are disgusting (and it’s not easy to find disgusting taralli, normally they’re absolutely yummy). I started to read a book of this child psychiatrist and psychotherapist Stefano Benzoni, Young people don’t exist. A hallucinatory trip in the old man world, from the publishing house ISBN with an art dossier edited by the art critic Luca Cerizza. The artists are all italian: Simone Berti, Roberto Cuoghi, Lara Favaretto, Stefania Galegati e Diego Perrone.
I had found it the day after in a concept store in Tortona district, Milan, named XL Combine, where you can buy also Tom Dixon’s lights. I love it.
On the train there was anybody in front of me, sometimes I looked out of the window on the sweet hills of Tuscany. I got off on the platform and a sculpture made of spheroidal graphite iron by the english artist Antony Gormley gave me a warm welcome. I wondered if “he” came to help me with the luggage…
Making Space, Taking Place, 2004
Installation view, Poggibonsi, Italy
commissioned by Associazione Arte Continua for Arte all’arte 9 Project
In the bathroom of my b&b there were pink shocking curtains and it was very cosy.
At about 7 pm we walked towards Galleria Continua. We were sweating because of the climb and the temperature. It’s a jubilation of food in the shops and you can smell the scent of grilled meat. The two famous towers appeared, we thought about the Other Ones collapsed ten years ago. The gallery occupies a former cinema. Chen Zhen’s art works are everywhere: in the exhibition rooms, in the stalls area and in the stage of the former cinema-theatre and also in the garden where, at about 9 pm, with astonishing speed we find the tables set up for dinner around the work Back to Fullness, Face to Emptiness. Conceived in 1997 and realized after the artist’s death in 2009 for the 53rd Venice Biennale is a giant aluminium and steel sphere a table of ideograms written in red neon floating inside. All around some chairs are hang up, each one different from the others.
Back to Fullness, Face to Emptiness, 1997-2009
Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin
Photo by Ela Bialkowska
Mrs. Marisa (83 years old!) is going to cook for everyone, we are almost a hundred. At our table there are an art dealer from Bologna who lives in Johannesburg, and a fashion dealer from Milan. Tired of her job, he moved to London to study and became a psychotherapist. There is also an art critic, pretty satisfied with her job as journalist at “Resto del Carlino” magazine. At least for now. It’s an easy, fun and weird sharing.
The little children chairs turned into houses, made of colorful candles are always are amazing: a village that mixes communities from different countries and speaks about equality, coexistence, dialogue and mutual understanding.
Beyond the Vulnerability, 1999
Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin
Photo by Ela Bialkowska
It’s incredible the exhibition room set up with a long and unstable plexiglas table on which are leant on tiny architectures (also made of candles) designed by children from Salvador de Bahia in Brazil.
Un Village sans frontières, 2000
Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin
Photo by Ela Bialkowska
The moon is high, is almost full. The party is over. We’ve learnt to walk. To keep up the pace.
