It is called “Vacant” and is the sound installation by the artist Danilo Correale, conceived for the spaces of the Church of San Severo al Pendino. The work, which offers the user a kaleidoscopic analysis of applause, will be inaugurated on Wednesday 19 June 2024 at 6.30 pm, thus opening the 2024 contemporary art program of the Municipality of Naples. Curated by Vasco Forconi, it can be visited from 20 June to 6 July 2024.
The work proposes an analysis of applause, an archetype of non-verbal human interaction traditionally associated with the end of an event (sporting, political, cultural, liturgical) of particular collective and emotional importance. Upon entering the church the visitor is greeted by thunderous applause which resonates throughout the space and which initially seems to suggest a moment of celebration, joy and euphoria (as if it were addressed to those who cross the doors of the church). This applause, however, lasts too long, almost infinitely, resulting in it being absurd and at times hypnotic, progressively instilling in the spectator a sense of doubt and perceptive ambivalence. With Vacant, which in Neapolitan dialect means “empty” or “end” and in English “empty” or “absent”, Correale traces a phenomenology of the end by leveraging the intrinsic cultural power of applause. What happens when a symbolic event ends, the spotlights go out and we suddenly return to normality? The underlying hope is that art can actively change the individual, but which art and which collective event will really be able to change us? Will we be able to take advantage of the teaching inherent in a symbolic event and make it flow into an assumption of individual responsibility? These are some of the reflections that the artist, in a veiled manner, tries to arouse in the public through an incisive and only apparently dematerialized work, an apparition that intervenes by exalting the architecture of the church. This work, designed for both individual and collective enjoyment, insinuates itself into the distracted flow that characterizes the frequenting of the Historic Center of Naples, offering a sound and then perceptive-sensory interruption capable of poetically suggesting wide-ranging questions, inviting us to reflect on the responsibilities of the individual in a broader process of transformation of reality and society.
Vacant
Artist: Danilo Correale
Curator: Vasco Forconi
Opening: 19 June 2024 at 6.30 pm
Exhibition: 20 June – 6 July 2024 | Monday – Saturday from 9am to 7pm
Free entry
