Luce Gallery is pleased to present Basta Giocare, Francesco Pirazzi's second Solo Exhibition with the Gallery.

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To the adult, and to highly cultured peoples, the whole world is the world of the obvious, of commonplaces. […] But for the child, and the adolescent, and also for a certain kind of artist […] it is not so! […] He understands what the adult no longer understands: that the world is a celestial body, and all things, and their nature, and their meaning — except for a dazzling sweetness — are unfathomable.

Anna Maria Ortese, Dove il tempo è un altro, 1990

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Interior.

Two people. One walks slowly with a sheet of paper in hand, reading aloud in a low voice while taking notes. The other, standing still, looks at the empty auditorium. On the metal grid just above the stage, a lighting technician adjusts the angle of the spotlights, following the director’s instructions. On the floor, leaning against the walls of the wings, are nine canvases turned around, of different sizes.

“So absurd, simplicity!”

“Is that the beginning of the script?”

“Yes, the title is Enough Playing. I’ve been working on this monologue for some time. I reread it, correct it, go back to it, add things. I’m still circling around this opening, trying to find the right intonation. ‘So absurd, simplicity’ … I’d like this to remain the centre, the key to the performance for the audience. As for the rest, I have the ending ready, and a few notes in between, useful for trying to express this mystery."

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like when you repeat the same word many times in a row. Have you ever tried it during childhood? It’s a strange, amusing game, sometimes treacherous, and the same is true of the things around us, the more your gaze stumbles upon them, the more the scene changes, time slows down, the eye focuses, the mind wanders, remembers and imagines. It’s not that anything is added; it’s all already there before us — the benches, the tree, the garden, the wall of the house, the window — but it is as if these ordinary presences, when looked at for a prolonged time, begin to reveal their enigma.”

“Or perhaps their indifference, the fact that they remain still, suspended in their appearances. They continue in another time, even when we are not looking at them. Haven’t you thought about this while returning to your opening?”

“Perhaps, but don’t you think the two terms coincide?

‘The enigma of a nearby thing’— I could continue like this and let the audience, once they have left, be questioned by the hidden undertone in familiar things, illuminated by an ever-different, precise light, coming from an unknown source. Once, I saw a star in the garden, and then…”

He shows the sheet of paper to the other person, who continues to look at the empty auditorium.

“…you see, here I’ve written in pencil about a certain ‘productive emptiness, made of silence and waiting’.”

“Speaking of which, no one has sat down here yet. Don’t you think it’s ironic that by the time the audience arrives, we will no longer be here, and the stage will be empty?”

“That’s my note. We are here before the performance, building it for those who will not see us. Once it begins, we will be outside this theatre, just beyond the frame, but everything will have been properly arranged. Do you see the technician? They are adjusting the spotlights for the exhibition, because light is essential here. “Dawn-like, twilight-like, to carry visions into an intermediate and indefinite state; sharp and disciplined, like a flash that reveals the unsettling appearance of objects; nocturnal, because in the dark we can keep playing, like children, at making the appearances of reality strange, while maintaining a safe distance.

“You should say all this in a whisper, at the right moment.”

“It’s all already there in those canvases, preserved in their silence. Everyone there has yet to arrive, or has just left, like us.”

“I feel like taking a peek.”

“Go ahead. I’m sure that, slowly, you’ll become aware of a calm, strangely familiar, plausible solitude. After all, benches, trees, gardens, house walls and windows always have secrets that play with us, and that only we can know, answering in a whisper with our memories, our anomalies, the enigmas that move our feelings. These images, too, are empty stages, waiting just before or just after the script of everyday life.”

“I’m leaving now. What was the ending of your monologue again?”

“Exactly this: protect the enigma of nearby things.”

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Biography

Francesco Pirazzi (b. 1994, Veroli, IT) lives and works in Turin, IT.

Francesco Pirazzi graduated in 2018 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he studied painting with Adriano Bimbi.

His most recent solo exhibitions include Coro a Bocca Chiusa, Luce Gallery (Turin, Italy), Somewhere Else and Nobody's Dream, both at Augustenborg Project (Augustenborg, Denmark).

He has also participated in group exhibitions at international galleries, including Luce Gallery (Turin, Italy), Cob Gallery and The Artist Room Gallery (London, United Kingdom), and The Hole Gallery (New York, United States).