Head in the clouds

What are clouds?
The second exhibition this year at SMDOT/Contemporary Art, pursuing a new curatorial project called RE-SIGNATION* in 2024, presents the first solo exhibition in Udine by Noemi Durighello, an emerging Italian artist, who lives in Dresden. "HEAD IN THE CLOUDS" is the title of the exhibition chosen by the artist. It is a sort of declaration of intent, a warning for the viewers and at the same time an initial introduction to the artist's research. A series of previously unseen medium and large scale oil paintings welcome the viewer, inviting them to look at the things that surround them in different ways. They seem to contradict what we were always told as children, and perhaps also as adults: "Be careful! Watch where you're walking", an invitation, therefore, to stay focused on the context, on what is closest to us. Noemi is not afraid of being distracted and distracting us, of running the risk of falling, of causing hilarity by accidentally falling into down hole, of doing the opposite of what is recommended. This reminds us of the anecdote told by Plato in the Theaetetus: it is a metaphor, an unsuccess attempt at explaining the concept of wisdom. It tells of the Ancient Greek scientist and philosopher Thales being so busy looking at the stars that he fell into a well, provoking the hilarity of the intelligent Thracian servant girl, the raucous laughter of this fictional character probably starting one of the most important ongoing arguments in Western thought. We still see that contrast between those who brilliantly manage to extricate themselves from the often-apparent daily complexities of practical life and those who dedicate themselves to theoretical research pushing the evolution of thought towards ever greater heights, but struggling with the "stumbling blocks" of daily activities. After all, it is always funny to see people stumble, but it is also a source of creativity, it puts us in a different, often uncomfortable position, forcing us to look for new solutions, points of view that have not yet been explored, and it leads us to look for alternative paths and new allies willing to pull us out of the hole. Noemi is very attracted by the objects of the real and digital world that surround her and us. Her attention, her curiosity, and her attitude to play leads her to go beyond the language that defines them and allows us to recognise them. Her works and her strongly aesthetic artistic practice, through pictorial figuration, give us the possibility of perceiving, or rather, of exploring, that which eludes us in everyday reality. His vertical paintings are portraits of objects, of parts of them that we cannot immediately recognize. They are an attempt to seize and formalise a continuous, profound, intense process of deconstruction of everything that determines our surroundings. They stem from the desire to focus on a new detail, a new difference, and a new knowledge which stems from a simple intuition and needs time to be defined, attempting to reach a definition that is never complete. It also needs the viewer's curious gaze, who must also accept the challenge of delving into a minimal chaos. In that minimal chaos, the subject becomes the object. It may at first seem that the human being is weakened by this, but thanks to artistic practice, they acquire the possibility of a different visualisation and knowledge, learning to coexist with an object-oriented ontology and consequently greatly increasing the knowledge of the reality that surrounds us without the idea of appropriation. The titles of Noemi's works, Conformity, Erase/Rewind, Dependency, Cloud, Hand in the clouds, An Eye for an Eye, Flying Object/Boeing, can help with reading the representation, they are thresholds of meaning, but they are only a starting point, they are an invitation and a provocation to go beyond what is known, to remain curious and to renew our ability to be enchanted by what surrounds us. That is certainly one of the opportunities that is offered to us when we devote our attention to works of art. Let's come back to clouds, which were the pretext (pre-text) of this project and an attempt to introduce Noemi's work. In 1969 Pier Paolo Pasolini directed the short film “Che cosa sono le nuvole?” (What are Clouds?) In the final scene two puppets, played by Totò and Ninetto Davoli, interpreting Shakespeare's Othello and Iago, cut the strings that govern their everyday life and representational world, discarding them. They enter the real world, which is nothing more than dumping ground, but from which the sky and the clouds can be seen. Neither one of them knows what clouds are or recognise them, they can't give a definition for them, but they are struck by them and amazed. Just like Othello and Iago in Pasolini's film, by stepping outside the tunnel of assigned interpretations, even just for a moment, we can try to address the heart breaking and wonderful beauty of the objects that surround with the astonishment that deserve, as we are guided by Noemi's painting, without having to give an exact definition, but still trying to reach a new understanding.

Stefano Monti