“Out of this world”, in the works of Christian Balzano the critical atlas of a dissolving world

FLORENCE. Four large marble stamps with the symbols of the world’s most widespread religions (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu), fabrics bearing geographical maps of countries at war transformed by sea water, flags of countries whose borders are separated by impassable walls or lines, a globe made of fabric that falls apart: all works that go to create a sort of “critical atlas” of the globe that leads us to reflect on the main challenges of our era. It is the exhibition “Fuori dal mondo” by the Tuscan artist Christian Balzano, which opens to the public tomorrow in the prestigious Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.

Born in Livorno in 1969, Balzano has exhibited, among others, in Buenos Aires, New York, the Venice Biennale, Chile and Washington. The exhibition develops recurring themes in Balzano’s art, which investigates and reinterprets the great questions of globalization, social integration or climate change, and for this occasion presents recent works and unpublished works, contemporary elements that arrive in the Renaissance environments of Palazzo Riccardi Doctors.

The multiformity of the techniques used by the artist bears witness to the plurality of cultures and identities but also to the need for their coexistence. Just to remind us that we all live on the same planet there will be an environmental installation entitled “I are fabric”, made up of a life-size bronze girl who pulls – like a fisherman does with his net – a large sphere that represents the world, made of fabrics of different nature.

The exhibition is divided into thematic sections: the pluralism of religion, contaminated and contaminating nature, continents, countries and flags are in fact the themes around which the exhibited works revolve, all united by the use of fabric, a material that symbolizes with its weaves the very skin and flesh of nations in all their geopolitical complexity.

«The enormous ideological contrasts and the rapid changes taking place (geopolitical, religious, cultural and consequently social) highlight the need for reflections and changes. Today nature has highlighted this urgent need – declares Christian Balzano -. In this project the protagonist will be the fabric which, like an individual, a very specific identity, will take on new forms and new meanings through the clash or encounter with new elements, substances which, like a virus, alter, modify and lead to extremes . The space and time used for each single work will condition the final result, making it different from each other. But diversity, seen as wealth, can only generate new forces of free thought».

The exhibition, promoted by the Metropolitan City of Florence with the sponsorship of the Tuscany Region, organized by MUS.E and Casa d’Arte San Lorenzo and curated by Marco Tonelli, will be visible until 12 March. «Iconic but also jagged, made with chemical and natural processes at the same time (techniques documented with a video on display), but also designed according to careful cartographic reconstructions, the works on display reiterate, according to Balzano’s thought, that although the present we are living does not give any reassurance nor has it decreed any end to history, despite all its uncertainties and atrocities, it is the only active force we can take hold of to avert shipwreck and not lose hope in the future of a new world, without more borders and therefore everything to discover» says the curator Marco Tonelli.