Sguardi particolari | Detail Glimpses

Palazzo Chigi/Ariccia

We are used to walk the corridors of the museums from one room to another guided by the lights;
painting after painting, along preconcerted paths, our sight is captured by anything standing in frontof us. Here, the Museum as a “prearranged space” disappears and Palazzo Chigi photographed in daylight reveals its nature of dwelling-Museum, following the tradition of princely residences and private spaces owned by Cardinals. The modern taste succeeded in isolating these rooms from the ancient context turning them into exhibition sites embalming the past. Entering the halls of the Palace which are still not open to the public Sveva Bellucci’s camera reveals their nature of hybrid spaces, of “peculiar” institution where cookware and bas-reliefs dating back to Hadrian cohabit,where Bernini’s gilded arabesques are at the service of a wallpaper, where the pictorial cycles and the curved busts lose the typical prestige of exhibits and mingle with the furniture. Working with a telephoto lens and at the same time opening the diaphragm the camera extends the eye vision and accentuates its selective capability focusing on unexpected details. The objective seems to have put a pair of glasses to better watch the world, to cut it and come closer to it. The camera records the details; it does not fragment or encircle the space, the objective paradoxically enlarges the location. The separateness of the Museum from the outside world seems to have been broken by this special objective, by his ability to sneak in the private rooms, but also by its ability to grasp the breaches towards the external world.
Maddalena Parise