FLOW, BY DAMIANO CONTI BORBONE AT RELAIS SANTA CORONA

EDITORIAL NO. 2: TIC TAC

Leaving aside for this time the world of the Academy’s young artists, Relais Santa Corona presents the Flow series by Damiano Conti Borbone, a 30-year-old artist from Cremona, who has to his credit several exhibitions in different parts of Italy (next month, for example, he will leave for Rome), both in a solo and collective capacity. Damiano wants to tell through his works how he perceives, as an artist, the passing of time; revealing his interiority he wants to push the viewer to do the same. The starting point in this quest was a viewing of Christofer Nolan’s film Interstellar, which tells of the journey of a group of astronauts through a wormhole in search of a habitable planet for humanity; in its making, the film also featured the participation of Caltech theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, a leading international expert on the theory of general relativity and executive producer. Damiano tried to reproduce the flow of time in his own way, employing superimposed chromatic materials in order to impart three-dimensionality to the representation. There are 12 works on display at Relais Santa in Vicenza until June 23, and by declining different color ranges, they infuse us with that feeling of chaos that we often experience as human beings, dots in the universe, in the everydayness of our lives.

Giulia Ranoldi, general manager of Relais Santa Corona and art historian

THE EXHIBITION

Flow, by Damiano Conti Borbone at the Relais Santa Corona

From 19/05/24 to 23/06/24

Flowing in one’s own time, despite daily stumbling over obstacles that seem to want to interrupt the continuation of events. The passage of time has been the object of analysis of contemporary artists many times, who have translated it into a multitude of artistic languages. Time, an unmeasurable and therefore elusive matter, has been represented through stage performances, photographs, conceptual or even literary mediums. Roman Opalka, beginning in 1965, has made the representation of time the goal of his life, in a constant quest that reached its peak with the Détail series, in which the attempt to crystallize time through the use of numerical progression from 1 to infinity is expressed; according to the artist, “in order to grasp time, one must take death as a real dimension of life.” Marina Abramovic, on the other hand, probed the flow of time she experienced through immersive performances, contextually enjoying the time of the audience involved in highlighting how the flow and quality of those minutes differed from one person to another. And again Esther Ferrer, a photographer from the 1960s, represented the passing and changing of time through a series of self-portraits.

These few examples highlight how contemporary artists have often dwelt on this theme, making ever different and daring proposals in the representation of their vision. Damiano Conti Borbone implements the same attempt, choosing abstractionism as a means of expressing his interiority. Through the overlapping of fluid chromatic paths and their intersecting and merging, the artist investigates the theme of the passage of time and the reactions it provokes in each individual; he probes how, and to what extent, external agents impact our inner selves, at the mercy of the chaos of daily life, without ever a precise address, but rich in emotions and sensations, always becoming, dynamic and interminable, as expressed by all the facets of colors in the works of the Flow series. The soul becomes chromatic matter, offering us atmospheres now serene now somber, repeated leitmotif that engage the viewer so that social, emotional and relational cues for reflection can be triggered. Damiano’s invitation is meant to be to capture every second and savor it, indulging in a perpetual carpe diem.

Artist: Damiano Conti Borbone – @concept.art.dcb

Exhibition curator: Beatrice Cordaro – @galleriatilde 

General managing director: Giulia Ranoldi –  @giuliaranoldi. @relaissantacorona