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Pastorale by Davide Sgambaro @ LAVAPIU

The Cure 2023/2024

Pastorale

an exhibition by Davide Sgambaro
with a text by Treti Galaxie

curated by Celeste

May 18 – July 18, 2024

The project presents the digital reworking of a frame from Disney’s film Fantasia (1940), taken from the segment dedicated to Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 by Ludwig van Beethoven, commonly known as the Pastoral. The entire scene is set during a day in the realm of the Greek gods, located in the woods at the foot of Mount Olympus. The frame chosen by the artist is drawn from the episode where centaurs, fauns, and nymphs welcome an intoxicated Dionysus riding a donkey during a festive ritual of preparing new wine.

Sgambaro intervenes in the frame by erasing the characters, transforming a cheerful and lively setting into a gloomy and desolate landscape. The ancestral scene, now static and deserted, reflects for the artist the condition of isolation mixed with immobility typical of rural Italian provinces, depopulated of their inhabitants, attuned to the past, and consequently alien to the languages and sensibilities of the contemporary world. Sgambaro’s intervention consists of an installation and a performative moment: the windows of the exhibition space showcase the image of the emptied bucolic landscape, while inside, an orchestra performs the same piece from Beethoven’s Pastoral that plays during the animated sequence.

Performance of Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral,” Beethoven/Hummel, curated by the Rivers Ensemble, featuring Francesco Sbraccia (piano), Federico Di Luciano (violin), and Emanuele Manari (flute).

Davide Sgambaro

Treti Galaxie

Pastorale by Davide Sgambaro. Exhibition views from LAVAPIU, Teramo 2024 © Celeste. Photos by Matteo Ciampichetti.