The Town with No Name. Photo Exhibition by Bernardino Sperandio

IL PAESE SENZA NOME is a project resulting from the collaboration between the Commune of Trevi and Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary on the occasion of Festivol, the annual festival which Trevi dedicates to the privileged relation with a territory rich in history, culture and top-of-the-range food products. It is just in this frame that Sperandio’s photos acquire a special importance. In fact they not only summarize the deep bound between man and the context around him, but above all they are a journey into the current reality by means of a meditation on cultural, economical and social roots of present Umbria.

Bernardino Sperandino catches the transformations in action in his land and makes them an universal pattern. Without any rhetoric he testifies the country civilization giving space to industrial urbanization. He also plays new social mechanism up with surgical precision as they come to life in the shopping centre. All this is carried out with an extreme lucidity without giving in to temptations offered by naturalism and folklore. On the contrary, in order to convey the right perspective to this path, there are three parts to the exhibition. Each one is characterized by a thematic nucleus with different sizes and technical characteristics. So the black-and-white section Ammeén shows the remains of the rural houses in the evocation raised by the name. The state of abandonment reveals a change in use, the negligence left to waste and however the suggestion of the evidences left by a previous daily routine is a strong recall to that rural civilization which was the engine of Umbria society. From here we pass to the second section called Intervallo, images with a fake colour. An ironic reference to the TV ads of the Sixties. A theory of sheds and modernity cathedrals in their day off and then rendered in the fullness of their epic essence, both modular and reproducible. When they are closed, seen in their solitary greatness, the social stream is catalysed by the shopping centre. In Domenica aperto, the third section, there are colour photos taken during closing time in order to convey the paradox of a society marked by the word “consumer goods” through the deafening silence of advertising writing. Three different moments seen in their full inactivity. The absence of man and silence dominate their atmosphere so to invite us to pause for reflection hovering between what is not yet past and what is no more present: the thin boundary-line where the false modernity of photos is treading.

During the whole length of the exhibition the didactic workshops for adults, children and families will be active after request. The activities are part of the permanent didactic section of Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary, Officina Pallucco, opened on October 9^th on occasion of the 6^th Day dedicated to contemporary art.

Subject: solo photo exhibition
Author: Bernardino Sperandio
Curator: Maurizio Coccia
Implementing public authority: Commune of Trevi
Organizing and logistics: Cultural Association Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary
On the occasion of: Festivol
Organization office and coordination: Matilde Martinetti, Mara Predicatori
Opening: Saturday October 30^th, 12.00
Dates: October 31^st 2010 – January 9^th 2011
Location: Centre for Contemporary Art Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary, Via B. P. Riccardi 11, 06039 Trevi (Perugia)
Visiting hours: from Thursday to Sunday 3.00p.m.-6.00p.m. – free entrance
Technical sponsor: Totem (Perugia)
Catalogue: Fabrizio Fabbri (critical text: Maurizio Coccia)
Information: Centre for Contemporary Art Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary, T/F +39 0742/381021, info@officinedellumbria.it, info@palazzolucarini.it, https://www.palazzolucarini.it/