by Andrea Socrati.
With the exhibition “L’ombra vede” (The shadow sees) by Enzo Cucchi, one of the most important and significant contemporary artists, the Omero Museum has given life to a totally accessible, original and new cultural event. The methods of valorisation, communication and relationship with the artwork, together with the design of an experiential and engaging exhibition environment constitute innovations compared to the canons of traditional museology.
Regarding the enjoyment of the artwork, first of all the artistic project intends to propose and valorise multi-sensoriality as a privileged way to rethink the encounter with the artwork. Forty sculptures by the artist from the Marche region await the public to give life to an intimate encounter, which passes through tactility and bodily feeling.
It is undeniable that our relationship with reality and consequently with art undergoes a constant impoverishment when the relationship relies almost exclusively on sight, forgetting, if not anesthetizing, the other senses. We are in the era of “Augmented Reality” where human been seems to be allowed to open new worlds which unfortunately are often ephemeral, virtual and in any case based almost exclusively on the visual channel. To truly increase the relationship with reality, a multisensory approach is necessary. Forgetting the perceptive possibilities beyond sight means giving up a large part of the information and stimuli that come from the world and the lived environment, and the case of touch, in the museum context, is striking. In museums and art exhibitions, the “ban on touching” is often and willingly applies.
This essentially means excluding a priori people with visual disabilities, who make touch the main channel of knowledge of reality, denying them the right to enjoy art and beauty.
An affective aesthetic experience
In agreement with the artist, the artistic project “L’Ombra vede” focuses decisively on the sculpture; the sculptures made with different materials can be enjoyed tactilely not only by blind people but by the entire public. Here, from a need of a limited number of people with visual impairment, new possibilities emerge enriching everyone’s experience. The tactile channel offers a vast range of information and sensations precluded to sight.
A sculpture has a lot to tell not only through its shape but also through the used materials, through the texture of the surfaces, the geometry of the planes, the consistency, the temperature, all aspects that require a tactile and multisensory approach.
An intimate and engaging dialogue with an artwork of this kind is able to amplify the affective feeling that passes largely through the tactile relationship, allowing anyone to live an intense and new aesthetic experience.
Of course, touching an artwork has the same characteristics of the affective touch between people. It becomes a caress that establishes a gentle, intimate, physical relationship with the artwork.
Enzo Cucchi says that to fully understand a work “you have to see it only in the dark; because things are preserved in the shadow and in the dark” and looking at the world, he adds, “you should put your head on the ground, like pumpkins, and your hands on things”. Many things cannot be seen and appreciated with eyes: they remain in the shadow and in the dark. It is necessary to “get your hands on them”.
A particular dark environment has been set up in the exhibition spaces with the aim of allowing the public to live a unique experience. A six-meter by three-meter cave, inspired by a sculpture by the artist, hosts three artworks of three different materials, to be explored only through the hands. A sort of initiation path to awaken sleeping senses and to become aware of the potential of our body and our sensoriality. A preparatory path to a multisensory enjoyment of the sculptures of the exhibition, to fully experience the encounter with art.
Poetic imagery and manual skills: from the skull to the thimble
The valorisation of multi-sensoriality is already expressed and communicated through an original invitation to the opening day of the exhibition, which took place on December 15, 2024. The invitation presents a visual and tactile image at the same time, with the text written in high readability and in Braille. At the ends of a cord are applied a small skull, a characteristic symbol of the artist’s poetic imagery, and a thimble. The latter was wanted by Enzo Cucchi as a further reference to tactility and manual skills.
The space of the exhibition is divided into particularly scenography environments, aimed at an inclusive and engaging narration of the artist’s poetics. We can define them as theatrical sets, where the main actors are the artworks waiting for the audience to bring the show to life. Involvement and active participation are the watchwords.
We have already talked about the cave in the dark, called the “Cave of the Idols”, which characterizes a first theatrical set together with a forest made up of life-size trees inspired by the artist’s artworks. It is a reference to a primordial, genuine humanity, at the beginning of its journey, still devoid of those superstructures and masks that characterize our modern society.
This theme is repeated with a second environment evoking a country farmyard and the rural life, a source of inspiration for Enzo Cucchi, also through the testimonies of his farmer father collected by Brunella Antomarini in an interesting writing entitled “Il grano” (the wheat). Giuseppe Cucchi tells about a life where the body and the senses are at the centre of the human experience, in symbiosis with the earth, animals, the rhythms of nature; a life made of hard work, rituals and collective celebrations, capable of creating solid social bonds.
Smells mark the geopolitics of the heart
Giuseppe Cucchi writes: “You could feel the smells, always, the smells of everything, of the rain and the grass and the earth and the plants and the animals. Everything had its own smell. For tihis reason, you could connect yourself to people and things, because the smell entered you. When you don’t have a smell, like today, you don’t connect yourself to anything and you free yourself from everyone easily because everyone smells the same way”.
The presence of seats and tables in this space dedicated to the farmyard allows the public to stop, to experience the time of the exhibition in a different and productive way, increasing pleasure, interpersonal relationships and opportunities for learning and knowledge.
You can consult the artist’s catalogues, read some of his poems, acquire knowledge on the theme of tactility in art and learn about further itineraries to experience within our Region to discover other artworks by the artist.
This last theme is also designed for promoting knowledge of the territories, creating added value and identity, in synergy and with the involvement of other local and cultural realities: starting, for example, with the Municipality of Morro d’Alba, the artist’s birthplace. To this aim, a special visual and tactile map has been created with the places in the Marche that host artworks by Cucchi.
A third environment reconstructs the artist’s atelier, a place where a rich and original repertoire of images takes shape. Images without an univocal interpretation but which, on the contrary, are characterised by polysemy with references to ancient symbols linking mysterious esoteric thought dwelling Jung’s collective unconscious. An interpretative and reflective journey that the public must realize through the creation of their own “Cave of the Idols”, in the space adjacent to the atelier, dedicated to manual skills and creativity.
The communication and narration of the exhibition is diversified and multimodal, making it inclusive and accessible to all audiences. The important collaboration with RAI Pubblica Utilità led to the creation of a totally accessible information video, with audio, subtitles and translation into Italian Sign Language.
A presentation of the exhibition dedicated to people with complex communication needs was created using the strategies of Augmentative Alternative Communication thanks to the collaboration with a professional in the sector.
Finally, special educational and didactic initiatives and workshops were studied, naturally inclusive, aimed at schools, families and the adult public, aimed at experiencing moments of socialization and learning and promoting knowledge of the poetic world of this artist from the Marche Region.