Until 27 April, on the occasion of ARCOmadrid 2024, the Instituto Italiano de Cultur in Madrid, under the auspices of the Italian Embassy, presents for the first time abroad, an exhibition dedicated to contemporary Italian sound art, entitled Materia Sonora, curated by the SONRO collective.
Born as an experimental exercise – with roots going back to the Futurist avant-garde – sound art is increasingly establishing itself as a form of contemporary artistic expression for its extraordinary vitality, its continuous research, its interrelation with new technologies and for the “enveloping” dimension of listening, immersing the viewer in a continuous flow, provoking new sensory perceptions.
Materia Sonora explores this expressive medium through the work of Italian artists active in the last fifteen years, but belonging to different generations, linking names represented by historical galleries to independent tours, thus tracing a first exploration of an active but hitherto unformalised Italian scene.
A common element of the artists in the exhibition is the use of sound to sculpt the space: the exhibition route links imposing installations with works created specifically for the show, specially designed to dialogue with the 17th century rooms of the Italian Institute of Culture in Madrid.
The exhibition is conceived as a journey through sounds that evoke different realities and dimensions: breaths, moans, words, shouts and whistles, but also the waves of the sea and the crackling of the rain. In this journey, with an incursion into the outdoor public space, in the heart of the historic centre of Madrid, the visitor is often called upon to participate directly, to become involved in the first person, to “activate” the work of art of which he or she is a part.
The artists taking part in the exhibition are Nina Carini, Daniela Cattivelli, Daniele Di Girolamo, Ramona Ponzini, Roberto Pugliese, Alessandro Sciaraffa, Diana Sonetto, Michele Spanghero, Matteo Vettorello and Marzio Zorio. Admission is free.
