Istituti Ortopedici Rizzoli, 2018
SUBLIME, by Rebecca Russo
Catalogue available
Inspired, moved by destiny, by an unconscious attraction, by an intellectual curiosity, I found myself crossing the threshold of the Photographic Laboratory of the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute to discover its incredible content. “Sublime!”, this is what I exclaimed looking for the first time at a negative on a glass plate dating back to the beginning of the last century. At first glance a very strong emotion was created in my soul. I contemplated the image moved. It turned out to be magnificent, sublime, in an aesthetic, intellectual, ethical, spiritual sense. I experienced internally a mysterious fascination, a pure contagion, which transcended the contemplation of beauty, becoming a very high, excellent value. I was surprised, amazed, struck by the resource I was discovering. It was love at first sight.
What is the Sublime? It is the feeling, the effect of a work or an object on the human soul. Sublime, from the Latin sublimis (sub, “under”, and limen, “threshold”) is that which reaches below the highest threshold, that which is ‘at the limit’. The immense and original heritage of Orthopedic Medical Photography, classified chronologically and kept in hundreds of ancient and dusty boxes, in addition to representing an extraordinary historical and scientific resource, revealed itself to my eyes as sublime artistic material, ancient and contemporary. The negatives that documented patients in different evolutionary phases, in their pathologies, in their clinical course and therapeutic treatment, born as reproductions of reality devoid of artistic intentionality, re-photographed in the present turned out at first glance to be unpremeditated Contemporary Works of Art. Art is recognized for what it is, it has its own identity, its own nature, a universal value. It disturbs, it is perceived with reason and with feeling. It creates a different interpretation of reality, an awareness, an inner vision, an intuition, an illumination, an insight. The subjects represented, with their peculiar aesthetic characteristics, postures and bodily imperfections, showed an intrinsic beauty, a timeless, immortal, circular, essential, universal dignity.
I felt I had come into contact with a treasure, an organism in progress, a vital creature with its own declinations. I dreamed of this exhibition, I built it with visionariness first inside myself.
The Sublime is a process. I imagined inserting into the dynamics of the Sublime some of these extraordinary photographs, which had remained immobile, inert, hidden for a hundred years, both physically, by setting them in motion, transporting them from the darkness of the underground to the light of the sun, and spiritually, by creating a flow that would continue in the mind and emotions of those who enjoyed them, sublimating them into Art. The intention was to break the mold, go beyond spaces, burst transversally, reveal, transform the negative into positive, pain into ecstasy, illness into beauty. The path opened a gap between worlds, between the dimensions of the past and the future, of the invisible and the visible, of the repressed and the conscious, of Science and Art. A ‘sublime’ light emerged. Obtaining positive images from negative ones was tremendously exciting. The unveiling of faces, details, nuances aroused in me amazement, wonder, enchantment. A Work of Art must be seen, must be visible, to exist. I saw Art in these images, that’s why I wanted to bring them to light. The current exhibition, the result of a deep immersion, of a research, of an acknowledgement, is a bet on the future, as well as a tribute to the past. It has a powerful impact. It is revolutionary and innovative, the result of a passion, of an instinctive, unconscious and at the same time reflected and considered choice, which overturns perspectives, creates questions, interrogates, opens a research, joins public and private, external and internal, apparent and intimate. I was the first to experience on myself, as a person, philanthropist, curator and art collector, the experience of the sublime caused by these photographs. They contain truth, that of life. They provoke, disorient, disturb. The patients of the last century, photographed serially in the hospital setting, reveal themselves today, from the point of view of Art, muses and models of another dimension, dreamlike and visionary. Their bodies express dignity and mystery; like statues they evoke the classical forms of ancient works by Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo Bernini; the contemporary ones by Robert Mapplethorpe or Vanessa Beecroft; those of fashion proposed by Christian Dior or Jean Paul Gaultier. The orthopedic corsets used to correct, compensate and contain the musculoskeletal system bring to mind Marcel Duchamp’s Ready Made works, Man Ray’s photographs, Conceptual Art and Arte Povera installations. The subjects appear similar to performers, potential protagonists of tableaux vivants, Body Art, Fluxus Art, unaware actors in a theatrical piece. The images acquire symbolic meaning, they are the result of the transfiguration of life into Art, they tell the unspeakable with a universal, timeless iconic force. They appear absolutely contemporary, the result of innovative research and experimentation, in progress; they are proof of human expressive capacity, they tell an experience, they amaze, they touch the heart, they leave their mark. This exhibition would probably have pleased Frida Kahlo, an artist-patient who integrated Orthopedic Medicine, pain and Art into her work. It turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy also in my personal history: during puberty I was for a short period an orthopedic patient forced to wear a corset, I suffered and found in Art the way to sublimation.
May it be Sublime!
On display at the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute in Bologna are photos taken in the early years of the institute’s activity, when the medical records included, in addition to diagnostic reports, photos of patients wearing the orthopaedic devices prescribed from time to time, in order to keep a trace, even visual, of the various phases of the diagnostic-therapeutic itinerary. By Stefano A. Inglese
Canale Arte Tv | 23 Maggio 2018
‘Sublime’. Articolo a cura di Paola Stroppiana
RAI TG3 TGR Sublime 21. 05.2018 Edizione H19,30 Servizio a cura di Francesco Satta
RAI TG3 TGR Sublime 21. 05.2018 Edizione H14 min 17.30 – 19.18
