LE STANZE
LE STANZE. Cosmo, Ambiente, La tela di petali
2008, Ferrara
“Hope finds room in the heart.” — Eugenio Montale
Sculpture, installation, and artistic performances were created in the garden of Palazzina Marfisa d’Este in Ferrara, a historic residence of the Este family that houses the Museum of Ancient Art of Ferrara. In September, during the final days of the exhibition, a presentation and discussion of the book Il luogo e le opere, published by Celid (Turin), was held.
The theme of the cultivated garden—a space modified by humans not for utilitarian purposes but for the pure pleasure of contemplation—is one of the foundational themes of the artist’s works in this location. These site-specific works, created specifically for the garden spaces, stem from the artist’s reflections on the human relationship with nature in its various forms and expressions. The garden, in particular, evokes a unique emotion: a sense of grace, the desire to be an integral part of this landscape as both actor and spectator.
The yearning for an intimate connection with the garden inspired the creation of a journey, both physical and mental, aimed at a deeper understanding and appreciation of the place. Le Stanze is an artistic intervention composed of three distinct yet interrelated works, in complete harmony with the Marfisa garden.
The first work that begins the journey is the sculpture Cosmo. The entrance is welcoming. Simple, hand-carved stone spheres, lined up in the grass, identify and guide the path—a single piece of “furniture.” Cosmo marks a temporary appropriation of this space at the entrance, like a personal ornament laid alongside others, symbolizing the artist’s first gesture of communion with the place.
The second work is an installation: Ambiente, created in a space where topiary art has opened a passageway, resembling a door framed by two columns. The ceiling is the sky, the floor is the grass, and upon it lie precious remnants of an ancient, cultivated past. Ambiente frames a carpet of grass, organizing and gathering these remnants as a sign of welcome, inviting pause and contemplation.
The final work is an installation created through a performance on the day of the inauguration: La tela di petali. A loggia, marking the garden’s end, is a simple structure adorned with frescoes, where nature expresses beauty, elegance, and fragrance through flowers. Here, the artist “constructs” a canvas with 800 pale pink rose petals, upon which she “paints” with ultramarine blue pigment, tracing the outline of a distant landscape—a representation of nature’s infinity.
Short Critical Texts by Massimo Marchetti and Anna Maria Fioravanti Baraldi
Suite for a Conversation
For Marcella Tisi, intervening in three stages within the Renaissance garden of Palazzina Marfisa means exploring the potential of a discreet gesture that gently integrates into a structure of refined harmonies. Accustomed to working in urban spaces or, conversely, in the wild countryside of the south, Tisi here engages with the revival of an ancient sensibility that exists at the intersection of rare spaces, born from the meeting of nature’s spontaneity and architectural rationality. It is thus a dialogue that lives through a reflection: from present to past, and, secondarily, from human to natural. Aware that in art, dialogue requires the ability to listen, Marcella Tisi approaches this jewel with a practice of delicacy—perhaps the only attitude that can soften contemporary noise, slow pulsations, and tune in to distant voices.
Massimo Marchetti
The spirit of Marcella Tisi’s art comes from afar, from her ancient ancestor Il Garofalo, and, like the great artist from Ferrara, Marcella establishes a subtle and magical empathy with the Este landscape.
Anna Maria Fioravanti Baraldi
Le Stanze
Giardino Palazzina di Marfisa d’Este, Ferrara, 18 maggio – 21 settembre 2008
Realizzato da Mathieu Gasquet per la mostra: Le Stanze.