Curated by Caroline Corbetta for the Marino Marini Museum, Florence
Seminarium is an immersive space conceived by the acclaimed Danish artist Jesper Just. It consists of a series of multimedia stations which foreground the interdependent relationship between humans and nature. Six multi-screens have been transformed to the point of becoming true sculptural installations which dot the exhibition area; they show changing fragments of athletic anatomies, while a hypnotic voice announces commercial slogans for body care products. The wires and circuits of the devices are visible, creating a disturbing contrast with the aesthetic gloss of the images. Pedestals support plants in front of each screen; these are able to survive thanks to water contained in vases and violet light radiating from the screens. Human bodies and plants, technology and biology form an ecosystem replicating the delicate balance between progress and sustainability, which is becoming increasingly unstable.
Installed in the thirteenth-century crypt of the Marino Marini Museum, Just’s techno-nursery creates an emotional, sensual space that stimulates reflection on the conservation and reactivation of our artistic heritage and on the capacity of contemporary artists to measure up to the pressing themes of the present while connecting with history.
Visitors enter into the old underground room, which is illuminated by purple light, and become an integral part of this complex, pulsating organism. Here machines, bodies and plants give reciprocal support to each other in an imaginative solution that goes beyond the anthropocentric vision of the world.
Born in 1974, Jesper Just was the protagonist of the Danish Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale. He has become a key figure on the international art scene, thanks to his ambitious cinematic works. Over the last few years, these have expanded into great sculptural installations which involve viewers by transforming them into participants.
Seminarium is curated by Caroline Corbetta, who has worked with the artist on several occasions, from Momentum – Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art in 2004 to the solo exhibition Landscape of Desire at the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (DK) in 2013. This is the artist’s first monographic appearance in an Italian museum.
Seminarium by Jesper Just will be on display at the Marino Marini Museum from 12 December 2022 to 20 march 2023, on the occasion of the new edition of the Green Line Festival. Under the artistic direction of Sergio Risaliti, the latter event runs from 7 December 2022 to 8 January 2023 and is based on the need to imagine new aesthetic paradigms and alternative development models in light of the climate emergency.
The exhibition is open in the same days and times of Museo Marino Marini. For more information visit this page.
