Rêverie
Exhibition by Simone Bossi curated by Riccardo Blumer, with poetry by Rosso Rota at Ex Chiesa di San Giovanni, via Sant’Agostino, Casciago, Varese, Italy.
INTRODUCTION
The experience of a space is a personal matter. The relationship between a space and the person inhabiting it is unique: cultural background, imagination, and personal experiences unconsciously lead each individual to blend what we feel with the place where we are. Following this idea, space is not just space but a moment that projects our intimacy onto something else. What is primarily considered an external event can become an intense introspective journey toward ourselves. Revisiting some architectural masterpieces and beyond, the author will explore the relationship between human psychology and architecture, inviting viewers to awaken their senses and reconstruct their personal space. By rejecting any iconic production or visual description and activating a slower process of understanding, the space loses all its functional aspects and suddenly transforms into an entity.
With these premises, it becomes essential to reflect on the impact generated by the relationship between the works and the specific space in which they are placed. The elusive nature of some images will attempt to dialogue with the spatial and architectural characteristics of the former church of San Giovanni, urging the viewer to establish personal relationships with reality and the moment: the boundaries between memory and desire, between the exotic and the familiar, blur, and processes of spatial transposition are suddenly triggered. Atmosphere, light, and fragments of space become traces that attempt to transport us to broader spatial experiences, moments near and far that can quickly project us to an undefined elsewhere or relocate us once again in safe and ordinary moments, in an endless negotiation with our vulnerable unconscious.
Finally, the exhibition presents a series of collaborations with the Italian writer Rosso Rota, who introduced each work with a specific poem to evoke personal moods.
CURATOR TEXT
Simone Bossi’s photographs are the space. Upon entering the former church of San Giovanni, deconsecrated in the 1930s, one crosses their threshold. Delicately hung in this rarefied and paradoxically ephemeral environment, they repeat, threshold upon threshold, a suspended world. There are important issues in photography between documenting and reproducing that have diminished its meaning, marginalizing it. Strange to say in the historical period of the omnivorous and omnipresent image. Bossi takes a step forward. Like poetry, where small parts of grammar, syntax, spelling, connotations, and words sometimes delicately and wonderfully pull us out of ourselves, so too the defined moment of the partial detail in fixed, unrecognizable astral light and the prints on paper hung here similarly refer to poetry in the absence of information. Suddenly emerging from the field of architectural studies to become a photographer of architecture, as an observer of the built environment capable of capturing the parts in the moments that produce artifice, Bossi has the ability to create printed spaces that are never finished, on the margins, at rest, like the former church of San Giovanni. The exhibition evokes states, not emotions; silence, not exaltation. Therefore, it is important to have time and peace to enjoy it, otherwise, it is not recommended.
R. Blumer
SIMONE BOSSI
Simone Bossi (Varese, 1985) graduated in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 2011. After working at European studios until 2016, he decided to fully dedicate himself to photography, collaborating with architects, companies, and publishers. Through his photographic fragments, he seeks to reveal the sensations and atmospheres inherent in each space. In 2023, his photographs were exhibited at the Casa Studio Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City and in a series of private exhibitions in Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Italy. In 2024, he was selected by the Danish Art Foundation for the artist residency program at Can Lis, Jørn Utzon’s house in Palma de Mallorca.
RICCARDO BLUMER
Riccardo Blumer (Bergamo, 1959) graduated in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1982. From 1983 to 1988, he worked at Mario Botta’s studio in Lugano. Since 1988, he has been designing and constructing small- to medium-sized residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, as well as numerous public and private interiors in Italy and abroad. As a designer, he collaborates with numerous Italian companies, including Alias, Artemide, Desalto, Poliform, Ycami, B&B, and Flou. In 2005, he founded Blumerandfriends, through which he developed the Physical Exercises of Design and Architecture and created permanent and temporary installations in various museums in Italy and abroad. In 2013, he became a professor at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture, where he served as director from 2016 to 2021.
ROSSO ROTA
Rosso Rota (Bergamo, 1993) emerged as the alter-ego of Alessandro, an architect by training. After graduating in architecture, Rosso enrolled in philosophy studies, creating his artistic persona as a writer. The choice of the name is already evocative: usually, a first name carries no particular suggestion, whereas a color immediately conveys a poetic impression. His research collaboration with photographer Simone Bossi, with whom he will participate in the artist residency program at Can Lis in 2024, began in 2018 and continues today. In 2022, he published Rosso, his first collection of poems, and in 2024, Il Flauto greco, a book of poetry with engravings by artist Kevin Niggeler.
