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by Carmen Vogani
All art contains a striving towards the transcendental dimension, even when it deals with what is most real and immediate”. Isabella Pedicini, art historian, lecturer and writer, starts from here when asked where the sacred can be found in contemporary art.
Is the sacred then in materiality?
Yes. It is often female artistic poetics that linger in the folds of reality, in objects the gaze usually overlooks; for example, the body, posture, or motherhood. From the 1960s and 1970s onward, the body became women’s canvas, on which many artists inscribed it, drew on it, or transformed it. It is on the body where a reflection on the sacred takes shape. It was no longer in symbols, but in the body itself.
How does art today narrate spirituality?
Contemporary art works through questions. In a time like ours, which is marked by geopolitical and climate crises, forms of social critique coexist; for example, look at the work of Banksy or to Ai Weiwei. With a more intimate dimension that reaches those who look directly, their art becomes an experience that questions us about meaning and about how we inhabit the world in these “interesting times”.
As a teacher, what do adolescents look for in art?
They look for an immediate language, something they often don’t find in spoken words. At a stage when they are defining their identity, they are drawn to artists in whom they recognize something of themselves, which is both in their biographies and in their choices. They seek a way of seeing that is capable of overturning perspectives, one that questions them and unsettles them, even in comparison with the adult world. This is why contemporary art fascinates them, especially when it is disturbing.
You curate the Meridiane series (De Nigris Editore), which brings to light forgotten stories of women from Southern Italy. Has there been one in which the relationship with the sacred emerged in an unexpected way?
Fuani Marino recounted the story of Francesca Nobili Spada, a journalist for l’Unità and an activist in the Italian Communist Party in Naples in the 1960s. She was long looked down upon because of a private life, which was considered socially unacceptable (she had four children from two different relationships). Francesca Nobili Spada was considered a figure who was out of place, even within a context that claimed not to be sexist. At the age of forty-five, she took her own life, choosing Good Friday as the day to do so. She constructed the scene, surrounding herself with flowers like a sacrificial victim.
Is there an image that comes to your mind when you feel something is missing?
Angelus Novus, by the Swiss-German artist Paul Klee. He had been very dear to the philosopher Walter Benjamin. The monoprint, produced in 1920, depicts an angel moving forward while looking backwards. This is an image of history and of life; after all, we move ahead without forgetting what has gone before. It is an image that gives me strength and hope.
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