Looking Upwards when Lightning Strikes: Intuition at the Palazzo Fortuny

‘The Lights of Palazzo Fortuny will vibrate whenever lighting strikes during a storm in Italy.
This work is dedicated to all who passing by here will think about the sky’

The doors are open. 

The threshold passed.

The tide ensues. 

Although still, the Palazzo Fortuny swells, a slight rhythm ebbs, guiding the subconscious body room, through room. 

 

Encountered first, warmly lit, clay bodies stand. A permanence in a land perceivably sinking. Providing a lasting physical presence of times already past, within an uncertain future.  

Even though sinking, the fortuny manages to defy the pulling gravitational weight of its rotting wooden understructures, lifting you through each of its four levels. With walls both bare and lined, chipped paint, grand murals and thick tapestried hangings, the space welcomes both the physical and mental body with moments of calm within its many interiors, relishing in the multitude of offerings that seek to greet the eye, hand and mind.

Head pressed against crystal structures, hands shaping small clay spheres, and the sounds of Gesualdo da Venosa’s spiritual madrigal (1611) guiding the ear, the works seek out each part of the individuals body in every kind of way. 

Grabbling the eye, some shouting, some whispering, each work is individually placed within a larger collage, from cabinets full of collected objects to rooms filled with miniature sets built by Fortuny. Each speaking its own language, providing the ‘ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning. A feeling that guides a person to act in a certain way without fully understanding why’

Lifting level though level, work through work, the building is inherently tied to its ephemeral setting. What will disappear and what has the ability to remain? Ever rising above the water, the building lifts skywards. To look upwards in a city built on water, to a sky filled with striking light, echoes the trembles felt within the cities subsiding foundations. Yet to concentrate on what is above, provides some kind of comfort, knowing that regardless of what occurs beneath the toes, the skies above will provide some kind of permanent consistency, as a being that cannot sink:  

 

‘The Lights of Palazzo Fortuny will vibrate whenever lighting strikes during a storm in Italy. 

This work is dedicated to all who passing by here will think about the sky’ 

FG.