Conceptual Animals at Antica Libreria Cascianelli in Rome
Animals have inhabited and sometimes haunted the human imagination since the emergence of symbolic thought and language. An antique bookshop in the heart of Rome that looks as popping out from Balzac’s novel The Magic Skin. An art curator and travelling reporter who thinks that all the places you can imagine are real. The exhibition The Conceptual Animal transforms Antica Libreria Cascianelli - just behind Navona square and beside the entrance of the archaelogical site of Domitian Stadium – into a contemporary wunderkammer. Humanitas and Animalia meet in an unexpected setting; concocted not by the means of a weird genetic engineering but through the language of art. Artists Marco Brandizzi and Laura Palmieri, play with the imagery and the concept of animals in an exhibition curated by Fabio Sindici that is designed by stage designer Valentina La Rocca (Libreria Cascianelli co-owner).
THE CONCEPTUAL ANIMAL
Antica Libreria Cascianelli
Exhibition period: February 28 – March 21 2025
Works by Marco Brandizzi, Laura Palmieri
Curated by Fabio Sindici
Humans, animals: so close, yet so far. According to geneticists and paleoanthropologists, the last common ancestor of mankind and chimpanzees (the closest primate to us) lived in dense tropical forests between six and ten millions years ago. Today Humanitas and Animalia meet in an unexpected setting, an antique bookshop in the center of Rome; concocted not by the means of a weird genetic engineering but through the language of art: Marco Brandizzi and Laura Palmieri, the artists engaged in this two person show, play with the imagery and the concept of animals– the title of the exhibition is both allusive and declarative: Concettuale Animale, The Conceptual Animal. It is not by chance. Animals have inhabited and sometimes haunted the human imagination since the emergence of symbolic thought and language. We have in common a semantic and symbolic root: animus and animalia; in Latin the former is the spiritual and intellectual principle proper to mankind, the latter includes everything animated; and alive.
From the painted caves of Paleolithic era to modern art galleries, history of art is trespassed by herds of animals. Now a composite fauna has found his habitat in the Antica Libreria Cascianelli, an haven for bibliophiles and curious glitterati, a bounty of language in itself. Artists Marco Brandizzi and Laura Palmieri have designed the show, curated by journalist and art critic Fabio Sindici for the labyrinthic spaces of the antique bookshop, just behind piazza Navona and few steps from the entrance of Stadio Domiziano. Valentina La Rocca, co-owner of he bookshop, herself an artist and a scenographer, contributed at the setting from the windows on the street to the vaulted rooms inside, mixing the artworks with the rich collection of books, varying from zoology to philosophy and architecture. From those media animals jump back like revenants. Restless, ruthless, simpatethic. Disguisedly domestic, intimately wild. Recently a group of scientists and philosophers wrote and signed The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness where a form of consciousness is recognized in all animal species. Several researches are investigating forms of verbal languages in animals, from birds to monkeys, even if none of them reach the degree of complexity of human language. Some studies are trying to prove the consciouness is formed through movement and experiences. The idea behind the exhibition – a poetical not scientific one – is that the animal movement has helped the symbolic thougth to flourish in humans together with the language.
The Conceptual Animal is a show that interplays between apparent instinct and conscious language. The outcome is an exhibition-installation that means to create an artistic and linguistic ecosystem. Animals here are not just a mirror of our thoughts. They are engines. They are accomplices and companions. Strangers and next of kin. An unknowable mistery in some case. Marco Brandizzi’s sculptures in painted wood echo letterings containing the names of animals written in ancient and contemporary languages. You see a bull melting his horns and his head into a wall; the once famous sheep Dolly, a first generation experiment in genetic engineering, coming out as a a victim and an omen. The wild and domestic beasts in the inks by Laura Palmieri look like ghosts in morfing with human architecture and philosophical void: an ark of rhinos and giraffes, bassethounds and zebras, crocodiles and chickens find their habitat in human minds projected as they are on Romanesque cathedrals and rationalist buildings. The match between pigs on a tennis court modeled on clay (players, invaders?) reminds one of the silent match played by mimes in Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie Blow Up.
The animals by Brandizzi and Palmieri are as elusive as those actors. At the same time they are significant and meaningful, lost in the Eden of Cascianelli, that jungle of signs, where they seem anxious to give a new sense to our glances and to our thoughts.
A window of Antica Libreria Cascianelli with the artworks of the two artists mixed up with a calligraphy book and various objects from the Cascianelli collection.
Marco Brandizzi was born in Rome. He has had several solo exhibitions and participated in many collective shows, including Venice Biennale in 1993. It is worth mentioning his last solo exhibit in 2022 at Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary in Trevi: Ascoltavo una musica rivoluzionaria. His artistic research moves from form to language, from psychology to sociology and science. He is the artistic director of Abaq, Accademia di Belle Arti L’Aquila. Brandizzi now lives between Rome and L’Aquila.
A large ink painting by Laura Palmieri lies on oriental pillows on the backdrop of a Persian textile.
Laura Palmieri was born in Naples and moved to Rome to study at Accademia di Belle Arti di via Ripetta, where she graduated in 1990. She exhibited her works in multiple venues in Italy and Europe. Throughout her artworks Palmieri investigates perception joining analysis and irony, attention and lyricism of forms. She participated in the Biennale of Graphic Art in Ljubljana and collaborated on the subject of animals with University of Tuscia that resulted in an exhibition and a book. She has lived in France and Italy and now resides in Rome.
Two small sculptures of conceptual animals by Marco Brandizzi find a peculiar habitat among the ancient volumes.
Valentina La Rocca was born in Rome: she is painter, scenic designer, decorator, bibliophile. She worked with Opera Royale in Versailles and with Cirque du Soleil. Her contributions to movies include Marie Antoinette by Sophia Coppola and Triple Agent by Eric Rohmer. Since 2014 she is co-owner and co-director of Antica Libreria Cascianelli. She lives between Paris and Rome.
Fabio Sindici was born in Rome. He is a journalist, fiction writer, tv author, art critic and curator. His writings has been published on newspapers and magazines such as La Stampa, L’Espresso, La Repubblica, Il Foglio, Artribune and Terzocchio as well as on art catalogues and various publications in print and in digital form. Sindici loves crossroads stories and to apply imagist poetry to everyday life. In 2018 and 2019 he taught masterclass courses at Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. He lives mainly in Rome often escaping to the rest of the known and unknown world.
Images courtesy the artists and Antica Libreria Cascianelli . Exhibition text by Fabio Sindici.
Here a drawing by Marco Brandizzi and two inks by Laura Palmieri mounted on the shelves of the library.
A green ink Hyppo by Palmieri rests on nomadic textile inside the Cascianelli.
