CREMONA.- The church nave hosts an installation that embodies some of the most emblematic themes of Bartolini’s work: the tension between the visible and the invisible, the suspension between the real and the symbolic, the transformation of light into both matter and narrative.

At the entrance, a large unlit luminaria forms an architectural body composed of modular geometries. This marks the second time Bartolini has worked with Sicilian luminarie, here shown in a dormant state, deprived of light and reduced to an essential framework. These traditional lights from Southern Italy, typically used for religious and civic celebrations, become in this context a diaphanous space, suspended between promise and disillusionment, where the festivity seems frozen, perhaps already over, or perhaps yet to begin.

At the back of the altar, a red neon light turns on, illuminating and giving voice to two wall inscriptions discovered in the Cremona prison. While light is extinguished in the luminaria, here the word takes luminous form, revealing a private sign in a public way.

The exhibition unfolds as a double threshold, where the element of light is removed from the festive apparatus and returned to the voice of the isolated individual. What emerges is an unstable balance, playing on the contrasts between transparency and secrecy, freedom and constraint, vision and imagination.

Massimo Bartolini (Cecina, 1962) is one of the leading figures of the contemporary Italian art scene. His practice spans sculpture, installation, sound, and performance, creating environments where perception and landscape intersect. Among other achievements, Bartolini represented Italy at the 2024 Venice Biennale, and participated in the 2013 Venice Biennale, Documenta 13 in Kassel (2012), the Bangkok Art Biennale (2020), a show at the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato (2022), a show at Fondazione Merz in Turin (2017), as well as at the South London Gallery (2010), at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and at the MAXXI in Rome.