OSSERVATORIO M1

“Lungo la costa maremmana, su una duna, tra cespugli d’elicrisio, baccherone, resti archeologici e gigli marini si erge una casetta in legno, sul tipo delle cabine dove ci si mette in costume, una cabina come la disegnerebbe un bambino o Carlo Carrà negli anni ’30.

Poggia su due ruote ed è decorata a strisce, come San Giovanni Fuoricivitas a Pistoia, o San Pietro a Portovenere. Accanto ad essa, su un pennone, sventola una bandiera bianca.

Dalla parete rivolta a sud, sbuca un piccolo cannocchiale, un mirino simile a quelli che si montano sui fucili. Basterà salire i due scalini sul lato opposto, entrare e appoggiare l’occhio al dispositivo di puntamento: il mirino è fisso, punta sempre in una sola direzione: l’orizzonte.”

Luca Bertolo

Luca Bertolo’s project opens the eighth season of Hypermaremma with an intimacy that only a painter can bring. It offers multiple perspectives on a single point before us, encouraging a renewed way of observing the world – our gaze often distracted, rarely settling into true focus.

It was October 12, 1492, when the Genoese navigator Cristoforo Colombo discovered the “New World,” setting his course toward the straight line ahead of him, without telescopes, guided only by instinct. Since that day, fixing one’s gaze firmly on the horizon has meant wondering what lies beyond that line and imagining an alternative future.

In this work, the theme of the horizon intersects with another fundamental motif in human history: the architecture of shelter. A necessary point of departure also for history painting, as well as for Renaissance and modern art. The structure is conceived as movable and itinerant, travelling over the course of the summer to three locations selected together with the artist while retracing some of his personal memories. A mental refuge that takes the form of an ephemeral, mobile construction –an observation cabin overlooking a world projected toward the future.

Starting from the wild landscape of Playa La Torba in Ansedonia, the work will move in June and July to La Tagliata Etrusca, before moving further along the Maremma coast to Spiaggia della puntata in Talamone in August, tracing both a symbolic and physical itinerary that reveals less iconic locations along this stretch of coastline. Unintentionally, the intervention also becomes a tribute to the history of art, evoking Caspar David Friedrich, Carlo Carrà, Giorgio De Chirico, Aldo Rossi, Giovanni Anselmo and Alberto Garutti, and perhaps offering an additional perspective on Malevich’s interpretation of Victory over the Sun, in a futurist Russia not so distant from our own.

Under the patronage of the Municipality of Orbetello

Playa La Torba, Ansedonia (from April 4 to May 31)

La Tagliata Etrusca, Ansedonia (from June 1 to July 31)

Spiaggia della puntata, Talamone (from August 1 to August 31)