Leggiuno- Bolts, razor blades, screws and iron wires combined with statuettes and images of the Saints and the Madonna: these are just some of the materials that Industrial Temple – alias Valerio Perino – uses to create his works. Icons and prints, able to mix faith and contemporaneity that from today (7 July, with the inauguration at 7 pm) can be admired inside the Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso Ballaro in the exhibition “SHEMÀ. The rustle of the Spirit “.
The exhibition, curated by the Ligurian association Un Quadro di Te, offers visitors a real pilgrimage into reality and soul, a path that finds its ideal space within the walls of the Hermitage thanks to the collaboration with the Patrimonial Society. and the Franciscan Fraternity of Bethany which lives it.
About twenty works offer a journey around the world: to create them, the artist collected discarded and rusty materials during his business trips which he then combined with sacred elements, also recovered from the street. Tempio Industriale and his works strongly oppose the progressive abandonment of the Sacred by the West and ask contemporary man to listen to – “Shemà! Listens!” – to an interior and divine dimension.
This message, in dialogue and relationship with the sacred place in which it is hosted, for centuries a destination of pilgrimage, prayer, hospitality and meditation, but also of popular devotion, wants to overcome any boundaries and for this reason, the exhibition catalog, for sale at Bookshop of the Hermitage, has been translated into English and Spanish.
At the inauguration, the curators will also be present with the artist who will accompany those present on a journey narrated among the contemporary icons on display.
The exhibition will continue until July 31st. Hours: every day from 9.30 to 19.30
Biography Industrial Temple (Valerio Perino)
Valerio Perino aka Industrial Temple was born in 1982 in Turin, the city of FIAT and the Holy Shroud, a place where an industrial and a religious tradition coexist. Graduated with a thesis in Sociology of Religion, thanks to his work as stage director he has the opportunity to travel a lot and be inspired by the realities of distant countries where spirituality is still one of the pillars of society. For some years now he has lived and created his works between Turin and Santiago de Queretaro, one of the symbolic cities of Mexican tradition. Hence the inspiration to mix official iconography with contemporary popular religiosity. In Mexico he collaborates with various art galleries, while in Italy he exhibited his works in religious spaces including the Ucai headquarters in Albenga, the Diocesan Museum of Cortemilia and the Hermitage of Santa Caterina. In 2020 his installation entitled “Industrial Temple”, a real contemporary industrial chapel, was selected to participate in the edition of Paratissima as part of the “Think Big!” Section.
A Picture of You
Un Quadro di Te Aps is an association founded in 2021 by four young art lovers. Their activity begins with the promotion of art on social media, but they decide to make this passion concrete by designing and organizing art exhibitions and cultural events in collaboration with artists, institutions and other associations.
Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso
The Hermitage of Santa Caterina is a place with an ancient charm, where nature, art and history merge with the rock of the Sasso Ballaro to which it clings, as the silent guardian of the waters of Lake Maggiore. Legend has it its origin at the end of the 12th century, with the shipwreck of the greedy merchant Alberto Besozzi who finds salvation, through the intercession of the Saint of Egypt, in the place where he will live as a hermit. Over the centuries the Dominicans, the friars of Sant’Ambrogio ad Nemus and then the Carmelites have come and gone. After the suppression around 1770 and almost two centuries of abandonment, it was the Province of Varese, owner of the place, that gave it a new life by uniting the museum soul with the religious one thanks to the Franciscan Fraternity of Bethany that lives there today.
