from October 1st, 2016 to November 26, 2016
curated by Agata Polizzi
There are two elements on which the entire meaning of Per Barclay’s new project is centred: “White” and “Palermo”.
Six years have passed from December 2010, when Barclay made his debut at Palazzo Costantino with his first Sicilian “oil room.” This time span has been long enough though to kindle a new desire and represents, for the Norwegian artist, a channel to convey the need to explore new expression avenues to this territory, which is so important to him. It has been a time during which his gaze and mind have been focussed on building a possible narrative that could challenge, once again, his idea of reality.
In this narrative the artist’s interest has always been set on “Palermo”: he believes that this city is powerful in its contradiction, so different from any preconceived model. It is a city that is attractive, visceral and at the same time complex. A city that requires a considerable adaptation effort and that very often ignites the baroque process of seduction. In contrast, there is “White,” which is neutral by definition and more in tune with Barclay’s definitely rigorous, placid, and quiet cultural education.
The continuous dialogue with the local territory takes place precisely through this alternation, resolved through a third element, which is able to harmonise the other two. That element is wonder.
The obvious place to welcome Barclay’s narrative, the fruit of extensive research and a few fortunate coincidences, is the Oratory of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria, in the heart of the old city. The building’s plan dates from the sixteenth century, with later interventions both on the facade and in the interiors dating from the late eighteenth century, among which the stuccoes in plaster and marble powder by Procopio Serpotta, the son of the famous Giacomo, and the many scenes from the life of the Saint by famous local masters.
Also the hagiography of St. Catherine reveals extraordinary coincidences: she lived in the late third century AD and was a Christian martyr under the emperor Maxentius, but when she was beheaded, milk, and not blood, poured from her neck as proof of her sainthood. This particular detail helped to unleash an immediate intuition, reaffirming his will to use such an ethereal and, in this case, truly evocative liquid.
The entire “Bianco Palermo” project, on display at the Galleria Francesco Pantaleone, is a perfect synthesis of an estrangement (as understood by Viktor Sklovskij), i.e., the transposition of a habitual perception into something extraordinary, new and unexpected wherein wonder elicits a sense of awe at the thrill of seeing for the first time what has been so intensely desired. It is feeling very similar to falling in love.
Per Barclay floods the nave of the Oratory of Santa Caterina with milk, making it become an expanse of translucent white that absorbs and reflects light and shadows; even the candid stuccoes are reflected, immersed in a sensual projection of flesh, faces, sacred objects and drapery, embellished by the reflection of the marble and the mystical veil of the paintings on the vault.
The estrangement is complete: there is no longer an idea of where and when; all you perceive is purity, added to the beauty of the architecture and the aesthetic perfection achieved by the artist.
Capturing a snapshot of this bold, courageous and certainly visionary manipulation is yet another break from time and space, an act capable of identifying something that is not there and yet is visible. A homeland in which every detail dwells in the reflection of itself and becomes “other.”
What Barclay has put in place is a revisitation that arises from the sensitivity of knowing how to transfer, to reality, a clear and sophisticated view that reveals parallel and different visions through images with a disarming candour. The venue, though real and tangible, thus becomes a fantastic place in which the context “Palermo” and the subject “Bianco”—White—blend together to give life to an unusual perspective that is a prelude to ecstasy.
