Reuse, reduce, recycle, cooperate. The 4th edition of the diffuse exhibition is entitled “Community” and intends to stimulate a collective reflection on one of the most topical issues of our contemporary times: a new vision of community that is able to confront the evident limits to the model of consumption, the need to manage our resources, the new life of waste. This new project takes inspiration from the Earth Charter (United Nations), a “…declaration of fundamental ethical principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century…The Charter is a vision of hope and a call to action.”
Artist Davide Dall’Osso’s reflection, “A community of belonging is formed through sharing, dialogue, acceptance. We know, we are all responsible for the community to which we belong, and each of us, ‘whether we show or hide,’ makes a difference. This new installation in Castelfiorentino wants to be part intercultural dialogue in our town. Art as a medium between the people who inhabit the streets and neighborhoods of our community.”
He did not choose noble marble, nor mighty bronze or the luminescence of neon. He went in search of the waste that no one wanted, moreover of a common, overabundant and environmentally impactful material: plastic. Nor a post-consumer plastic waste, the kind we littered just about everywhere around the globe. A pre-waste that is already born waste: the molds and cast-offs of plastic. Davide Dall’Osso’s is, for all intents and purposes, a unique artistic journey, which has led him to be one of the first to reflect on the issue of sustainability and to make “salvaged” art in Italy.
In this way, plastic, a symbolic material of the consumer age, is transformed and conveys a message of sustainability, respect and dialogue. A synthetic, artificial, impactful material finds new life thanks to the processing that Dall’Osso gives it and the scenic and dramatic context where he places it; thus, waste stimulates the community to become aware of a problem that already affects it, the condition of scarcity of all resources on Earth, and invites it to reflect and act.
The works of Dall’Osso’s “ex-discards” enliven the 4th edition of the Mostra Diffusa, promoted by the City of Castelfiorentino and the Metamorphosis Project. Opening in Piazza del Popolo in Castelfiorentino on Saturday, May 13 at 5 p.m. The diffuse exhibition, which this year is titled “Community,” is set in the context of a city that has been a protagonist of the industrial era and that, at the instigation of a young and strong-willed city council, today is questioning how to design a new shared development.
In this, art has a decisive task. Thanks to Dall’Osso’s works, art reclaims public space, which has always been artistic space, enters public and private life, brings everyone closer together, unites everyone. And here we return to the “discarded” and the “discarded,” to those who are e-marginalized and whom art naturally reunites.
“We contacted the artist Davide Dall’Osso a few years ago, at first we insisted on bringing them to Castelfiorentino,” stresses the Mayor, Alessio Falorni, “but soon, together with his wife, Vittoria, they fell in love with our city, even deciding to move to us and open their Atelier in our City. From this life choice and from Davide Dall’Osso’s first exhibition here in Castelfiorentino came the proposal to then set up other widespread exhibitions dedicated to the theme of circular economy, with exhibition events linked to names such as Antonio Massarutto and Brunivo Buttarelli. Thus was born the great Metamorphosis Project in collaboration with C.E.T.R.A. cultura and in the perspective of municipal co-design. To close a circle, this year – the last of our term – it seemed right to conclude with a new exhibition created by this great artist. Not to end one project, but as an invitation to open another. We hope, therefore, that this may represent the beginning of a renewed art journey for our city.”
“Together with Atelier Dall’Osso,” observes Deputy Mayor with responsibility for Culture, Claudia Centi, “the Administration has been stimulated in the search for new open-air spaces, near museums, churches or buildings of particular historical interest, so that our community could breathe in art and culture at full throttle in completely different contexts than those it was accustomed to frequenting. Davide Dall’Osso’s new exhibition proposal gives us a compelling and virtuous combination of the artistic and educational dimensions, represented precisely by recycling and the “second life” offered to discarded plastic materials. Figurative, evocative, dreamy works that from the eyes speak directly to the heart and soul.”
Among the artist’s favorite subjects are women, captured in their beauty, strength but also delicacy, interiority, as in the works Duende and Ballerine. After all, Castello is a land that has written pages of history in the work and struggle for women’s emancipation, emblematic in this sense is the story of the flask makers.
Precisely the plastic materials, thanks to the moisture collected and the air retained, with the particular processing chosen by the artist, lend themselves to assume the most varied forms, allowing the release of an ancient drama given by a contemporary feeling.
Providing much of the polycarbonate scrap used for the sculptures is the Prato-based company Isopad, which, Davide Dall’Osso explains, “has great sensitivity to the environment: they dedicate time, employees and, therefore, resources to support my artistic journey, helping me in the selection and collection.”
It was precisely in Castello that Davide Dall’Osso and his wife, Co-Founder & Creative Director of Atelier Dall’Osso snc, Maria Vittoria Gozio, found that community “to belong to,” which they had long sought and which it was not obvious to find. To this community they decided to give something back by investing in the territory.
As part of the Metamorphosis project, born from a co-project between the Municipality of Castelfiorentino, the C.E.T.R.A. Association and Atelier Dall’Osso, a space dedicated to workshop education and activities to explore and experiment with unstructured material, in this case industrial waste, has been created at Atelier Dall’Osso.
The Mostra Diffusa is part of the project directorate dedicated to tourism and culture; a second directorate of the project, on the other hand, concerns socio-educational activities, taken care of by the C.E.T.R.A. Association, thanks to which school, extracurricular and training courses for teachers and educators are activated. Municipal summer educational activities are also planned in part to tie in with the artists who exhibit, from time to time, in Castelfiorentino (Dall’Osso, Massarutto, Buttarelli).
Ufficio Stampa
Per Atelier Dall’Osso
Lorenzo Somigli
Cel.: + 39 334 997 7955
Portfolio: https://linktr.ee/lorenzosomigli
Per il Comune di Castelfiorentino
Alessandro Spinelli
Per info
Museo Benozzo Gozzoli
Via Agostino Testaferrata, 31 – 50051 – Castelfiorentino (FI)
Tel. +39 0571 64448 info@museobenozzogozzoli.it
www.museobenozzogozzoli.it
Ufficio Informazioni Turistiche
Via Cosimo Ridolfi, 1 – 50051 – Castelfiorentino (FI)
Tel. +39 0571 629049 ufficioturistico@comune.castelfiorentino.fi.it
www.visitcastelfiorentino.it