N u a n c e

_Contemporary Illusions _ site-specific installation
_curated by Tiziana Tommei
_ Ciminiera del complesso Ex AVIR _ Gaeta _ 2022

“I thought of a space of sky, an imprint that would elevate matter and recall history”.
Simone L​i​ngua
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NUANCE is the title of the site-specific art installation created by Simone Lingua for the city of Gaeta.
The work is part of Contemporary Illusions, a project curated by Tiziana Tommei, started in 2018 and which today, thanks to the city of Gaeta, finds realization for the first time, taking on tangible form.

The focus of Contemporary Illusions is the dialogue, between past and present, art and architecture, man and nature.
Specifically, it contemplates the connection of history, represented by buildings and monuments of the past, with contemporaneity, through the application of mirrors on architectural surfaces.
This intervention triggers, on the perceptual level, an annulment of the constitutive matter of architecture, generating a new relationship with the context, through the fusion of the work with the environment, therefore of the work of man with nature.

The protagonist of the intervention is the chimney of the EX AVIR industrial complex, a historic glass factory located on the Serapo seafront. The Ex AVIR (Ricciardi Industrial Glass Companies) is an extraordinary example of industrial archeology: the “cathedral” dates back to the years between the first and second decade of the twentieth century. According to the plans of the time, the factory was destined to represent the first production center in the South. The construction takes place in a record period of time and in fact the plant was completed in 1911 and in operation from the following year. Originally there were two chimneys, attached to the relative ovens. The existing chimney was rebuilt following the war events in 1959-1960, while the last intervention, which dates back to 1981-82, concerned the top.

The second distinctive feature is intrinsic to the installation.
Specifically, in this circumstance what makes the difference is the application of a texture that traces the wall face, thus producing a gradient of fusion with the mirror: a cross dissolving between architectural material and artistic material. Not only that: he cancels the texture by proceeding towards the center of the cylinder that surrounds the monument, creating an illusory limbo in which the sky overlaps the architecture, making the terminal part of the chimney appear suspended and giving rise to a nuance, from which the Nuance title.

Nuance, as part of Contemporary illusions, moves from the desire to trigger cognitive short-circuits, through contemporary grafts on historic monuments and buildings through a complex design design, which cannot be told, but seen and therefore realized.

Tiziana Tommei

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Reference bibliography: S. Della Notte, A. Di Tucci e A. Cardillo, Messa in sicurezza dell’ex vetreria AVIR, Tavola 1S – Relazione generale sulla vulnerabilità e Tavola 1R Relazione tecnica generale.

Photo ©Gianluca Di Fazio