Friday 21 June opens at the Brunelleschi bookshop of theOpera of Santa Maria del Fiore the photography exhibitionLUCIA BALDINI. The gaze of the wayfarer/The gaze of the wayfarer” In presence of Antonio Natalicouncilor of the Opera, Lucia Baldini and the two curators of the exhibition, Vincenzo Circosta And Giuseppe Giari.
Lucia Baldini began her artistic career in the 1980s collaborating with festivals and theater and dance companies, in particular with Carla Fracci for over twelve years. Subsequently she becomes passionate about and documents the world of tango. With Carlo Mazzacurati she began working as a still photographer in cinema. For years you have been carrying out a project linked to the dream.
In this new project, the photographer compares herself with the monuments of the Cathedral of Florence, offering us a dreamlike and poetic vision. On display is a selection of thirteen images, in black and white, part of a larger work.
“Lucia Baldini’s images – explains Antonio Natali – although truthful, take on a metaphysical appearance. They appear as visions of a world that we would like, and which seems lost. As in a dream, women and men pause or walk alone inside the ancient and noble architecture that makes up the courtly heritage of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. […] They are figures that move inside the inventions of great artists or stop at the center of floors decorated with cultured abstractions, finding in that secluded journey the peculiarity of their soul together with the freedom of thought, finally freed from the conditioning that standardizes and they level; while there, a stone’s throw from them, the people, who have submissively submitted to the market’s warnings, crowd together without even seeing anymore, entrusting to external electronic memories what the heart once knew how to keep for a long time. […] Only those who, in the din of a chaotic and thoughtless traffic jam, are capable of listening to the voice of their own personal chords, will perceive the underlying poetry of those works”.
“Florence, the Cathedral and its monuments – states Vincenzo Circosta – an essential destination for travelers of the past and, now, a victim of today’s mass tourism. In this context of difficult usability Lucia Baldini, through her photographs, manages to do, through the lens, an extraordinary work of abstraction. In a sort of forced gathering of individuals the individual manages to isolate himself from the mass by becoming a person. A sort of fleeting solitude that makes him dialogue with the monuments. Suspended in this sort of not loneliness he becomes a man again and not a crowd, free to read and interpret the work of art in front of him in an intimate and personal way”.
“In the heart of teeming Florence – declares Giuseppe Giari – the space dedicated to the exhibitions of the Brunelleschi Library is proposed as a kind invitation to slow down, to steal a little time from time, to discover an area dedicated to vision, reflection, ‘art. Having now reached the third appointment, in an environment that the Opera di S. Maria del Fiore wanted to tailor and tailor for small thematic exhibitions, the large wall offers itself in a discreet manner to those who want to pay attention to it. In full harmony with this vocation, Lucia Baldini’s work that we exhibit here, born from a happy meeting and designed for these spaces, perfectly reflects the spirit of this place”.
Info
LUCIA BALDINI. The gaze of the wayfarer/The gaze of the wayfarer
Brunelleschi Library, Antica Canonica di San Giovanni
Piazza San Giovanni 7, Florence
21 June – 31 October 2024
Open every day from 9:00 to 16:45
Free admission
www.duomo.firenze.it
www.luciabaldini.it
