Carla Fendi Foundation and Festival dei due Mondi, art and science meet in Spoleto. Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi

The intertwining of art and science woven by Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi that binds Fondazione Carla Fendi to the Festival dei Due Mondi explodes in Piazza Duomo in Spoleto through the ARTIFICIAL ARTECHNOLOGY project which hosts the work from 24 June to 10 July Fatigue Fragment No. 26 by Daniele Puppi and the installation REALITY? by Gabriele Gianni. Science and technology are topics introduced by President Venturini Fendi within the themes of interest of the Carla Fendi Foundation as interpretative forces of reality and inevitable vehicles for understanding current events and developments that man has applied to the various arts. Retracing the reasons that make the union between art and science central to the activities of the Carla Fendi Foundation, the president tells the link between the Foundation, the Festival dei Due Mondi, Daniele Puppi and Gabriele Gianni, delivering a key to the works that the artists will exhibit this year at the Festival dei Due Mondi.

What are the objectives of the Carla Fendi Foundation and what are the artistic activities it gives the most prominence to?
«The objectives are many, all present in the statute of the Foundation that deals with culture at 360 degrees, carrying out cultural dissemination activities, restoration of cultural heritage, funding for scholarships also addressed to young stylists. These are objectives designed by Carla Fendi and reinterpreted independently by me. I also thought of introducing science, which could be considered a humanist subject, so there is ample space dedicated to scientific dissemination. The foundation tries to privilege art that has technological applications because it is the art of our time, but also music and literature, in fact in the past I brought to the scene texts by Isaac Asimov who was a science fiction writer and one scientist, capable of predicting today’s world. In general I have learned to consider scientists the new stars of the future ».

Work fragment N. 26, Daniele Puppi

What do you mean when you talk about science to be contemplated as a humanist subject?
“There are many humanist disciplines that derive from science, such as music, mathematical scales, today also art and technology. Today we are facing an epochal turning point because scientific technology interacts with man, even with man’s body, on a daily basis and at an incredible speed. Furthermore, science makes it possible to generate discoveries which in turn stimulate and allow other discoveries in various fields such as medicine, generating benefits on human life ».

What are the points of connection between the Carla Fendi Foundation, the Festival dei Due Mondi and science?
«Spoleto is the most prestigious festival in Italy so it has a kaleidoscopic function to present artistic works of various kinds. The artistic director of the Spoleto Festival, Monique Veaute, is a woman who ranges from the most classical tradition to the contemporary and experimental world. It has always seemed normal to me that such an important festival would also take a look at what is the new world, that of today, which concerns us personally and which we will leave to our children ».

How was the interest in digital born?
«From my personal curiosity for current issues. I was born in creativity, in the world of fashion, cinema, art, the more time passes the more I am fascinated by topics that I do not know and for this reason it is interesting to explore the world of science. There were also some fundamental encounters in my life that I had when I was a girl like the one with Stephen Hawking, a romantic figure who fascinated me a lot. I also invited him to the Spoleto Festival, but he died shortly before, so we invited his daughter Lucy Hawking ».

Reality? Gabriele Gianni

What is the relationship of the Carla Fendi Foundation with the two artists Daniele Puppi and Gabriele Gianni?
“We are gods main partener of the festival of the two worlds, where we present installations, that is, we give commissions. This year there will be Fatigue fragment No. 26 by Daniele Puppi, a talented artist who tries his hand at all that is technological and that I have known and admired for many years. We will also present the 3D installation of Gabriele Gianni who is a good director and designer, he creates the animations of his films. Gianni leads the viewer through a mystical path in an augmented technology that blends with the spirituality of the place. I came into contact with him following a targeted research, aimed at experiencing something new. I wanted to create docufilms that narrated the biography of various scientists, Gabriele with his animations was very suitable ».

What kind of dialogue does Puppi establish, through his works, with the Spoleto spaces?
«Puppi’s work is a gigantic hand that seems to come out of the theater and hold it back, I like to see it as a hold that protects the past, or rather the culture that comes from the past and that’s where the present culture is born. The Caio Melisso Spazio Fendi theater is a seventeenth-century jewel in this Piazza del Duomo in Spoleto that speaks of the Renaissance. It is extraordinary to insert a contemporary hand in this context. It is a poetic propeller. However, it leaves free interpretation, everyone sees something different in it. Here is preservation of the humanist culture. They are the keys of the past that give us the possibility to open the doors of the future ».

Beyond Spoleto, what are the next projects in the pipeline of the Carla Fendi Foundation?
“We are opening a very interesting area in one of the largest scientific research centers in the world, but I will reveal the rest when we open it. Furthermore, I am thinking of writing a book on Carla’s patronage, since she had the peculiarity of living off her own resources, making art and culture accessible to all, without the ultimate goal of advertising commercials ».

Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi

Carla Fendi Foundation and Festival dei due Mondi, art and science meet in Spoleto. Maria Teresa Venturini Fendi – INSIDEART talks about it