curated by Elvira Altiero and Giulia Coco

Controcanto exhibition is part of the 2024 L’Eredita delle donne Festival, dedicated to Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici (1667-17 43), known as the Electress Palatine. This year it is in its seventh edition and is focusing on the theme of ‘FUTURE’.

Presented by the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze as part of the Festival’s OFF programme, the exhibition explores the contemporary nature of the female universe through a selection of works by Daniela De Lorenzo (1959) placed in dialogue with some of Lorenzo Bartolini’s (1777-1850) female busts from the plaster models in the Gipsoteca of Galleria dell’Accademia.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by Daniela De Lorenzo’s 2004 photographic work of the same name, reworked for this occasion. A self-portrait which, through a sudden shift of the head in front of the camera lens in the instant the photo is taken, transmutes the snapshot into a sort of dilated, suspended time, reassessing the very concept of the self-portrait by cancelling certain elements of personal identity.

The main focus of the exhibition is the female portrait/self-portrait, with a specific emphasis on the movement and projection of the woman’s body, creating a connection between the past and future and between the study of natural beauty- the basis of Lorenzo Bartolini’s revolutionary teaching at the 19th-century Academy – and Daniela De Lorenzo’s current work on the woman’s body. It involves photography, sculptural practises and installations that throw the representation of the female into the future.

Since mid-1980s, Daniela De Lorenzo has been pursuing a line of research that lies on the fringes of sculpture, overturning its classical aspects in favour of the three-dimensional development of drawing. Her works, often conceived as ensembles, interact with space in a constructive tension poised to mirror itself in its possible absence.

In her work, the artist seeks to analyse time and identity. She also makes wide use of photography, creating a continuous play of cross-references and secret correlations. Sculpture, photography and video generate tangencies and overlapping languages that trigger a suspended time/movement, a kind of instantaneous duration.

In the background of the exhibition space, ten plaster models of women emerge like memories and traces of the past. They were created in Florence by Lorenzo Bartolini between the 1820s and 1840s, at the top of his career: they are singers, members of the international high aristocracy, intellectuals and women travellers, young girls whose identities in some cases are still unknown. The sculptor managed to capture vividly and skilfully the surface appearances that express inner character and feeling.

The exhibition, setted up in the temporary spaces of the Galleria dell’Accademia, opens on 25 November, marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

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