The Diocesan Museum, recently reopened with a new layout and with the exhibition dedicated to the two hundred years of the Diocese established at the behest of Maria Beatrice d’Este Cybo, enriches its cultural offer in the month of December by hosting Soul flashesthe personal exhibition of the sculptor Loriano Aiazzi curated by Niccolò Lucarelli with the patronage of the Municipality of Massa and the technical sponsorship of the Tuscan companies Signal srl, NWG Italia and Villa Rainone.
The exhibition is conceived as a dialogue between ancient and contemporary art under the banner of spirituality, which develops within the elegant rooms of the sixteenth-century Palazzo dei Cadetti, in a juxtaposition between the approach to the sacred of ancient art and the investigation contemporary of Aiazzi; an exhibition to reflect on how the need for the sacred has always accompanied human existence. Along the way, the Madonna of the Triptych of San Pietro in Bagnara, a valuable fifteenth-century work by Bernardino del Castelletto, dialogues with the bronze Maternity of Aiazzi, celebration of the figure of Mary and, by extension, of all mothers; continuing, the painted wooden San Rocco, datable to the early sixteenth century, meets the golden muscularity of the San Giorgio caught in the act of brandishing a sword, while in the chapel the Depositionone of the most intense subjects of the sacred tradition that Aiazzi has specially created for the event in Massa, finds a natural place on the altar, ideally the spiritual heart of the Museum.
Ten works on display, a deliberately small number, in respect and enhancement of the Museum’s collection and its atmosphere, suspended between past and present, between ancient documents and valuable masterpieces.
Don Emanuele Borserini, director of the Museum, welcomes Aiazzi’s works as follows: “In the wake of the dialogue with contemporary art, which has long been qualifying for us, we are pleased to welcome Loriano Aiazzi’s works to the spaces of the Diocesan Museum. By inviting friends who already attend our initiatives and all those who wish to encounter beauty through different artistic expressions, we wish to offer an opportunity for growth and reflection on some important topics, not least the relationship between art and faith today”.
The apex of the exhibition is the crucified Christ, close to the heart of the observer for the suffering, woody carnality that he expresses, for his being a man among men, a brother of the least. The solid juniper of rugged Corsica becomes the sculpted page of an ideal lay Gospel, with all the weight of the millenary history of humanity; the blue sphere, symbol of wisdom, rests on that humerus which appears to be torn, just as the long silver thorn pierces the body for most of its length. Earth and Heaven merge in this work which unites spirituality with cruelty, the alpha and omega of the essence of the individual.
In the words of Lucarelli, curator of the exhibition, “one can appreciate the ‘sublime poverty’ of Aiazzi’s sculptural trait. This formal sobriety is combined with a conceptual one, aimed directly at the “nudity” of the individual, at the spiritual aspects of his being, his admiring gaze suspended between Heaven and Earth, in a continuous need to know each other as well as to relate to the Higher Being”.
Soul flashes it can be visited from 3 December 2022 to 15 January 2023, from Wednesday to Sunday, from 3pm to 7pm. The inauguration will be held on Saturday 3 December at 17, in the presence of Bishop Mario Vaccari, the artist, the curator, the councilor for culture Nadia Marnica and the director of the museum Don Emanuele Borserini.
Diocesan Museum of Massa
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Sacred art between past and present, Loriano Aiazzi’s personal exhibition in Massa