02 BIELLA

LA MORTE DI SAN FRANCESCO

La morte di San Francesco, oil on canvas, cm 116x92, 1625-1649

In the foreground, a half-length St Francis, his head turned backwards, his mouth slightly open as if he was crying out in pain and his hands, with visible stigmata signs, joined on his lap. In the background, an angel with outstretched wings supports the Saint. The painting was exhibited in 1978 in Turin (Musei del Piemonte, 1978, p. 166), as a copy from Morazzone dating from the first half of the 17th century. This attribution was confirmed also by G.C. Sciolla in 1981. In 1995 Vittorio Natale, during the filing of the works in the Museo del Territorio , maintained that this canvas has not necessarily to be considered as a copy from Morazzone (of which, by the way, no original was ever found), notwithstanding the similarities in the pictorial technique, the sombre tones and the sharp chromatic contrasts. He highlights important analogies of this work with the “Estasi di San Francesco” (“St Francis Ecstasy”) by Francesco Cairo (Castello Sforzesco – Milan) and with the juvenile production of Stefano Danda known as Montalto.

ROBERTO CODA ZABETTA

Roberto Coda Zabetta was born in Biella in 1975 and lives in Milan. He made his debut in the mid-nineties with a strong visual impact painting. Big-size portraits, outlined by essential, thick, gestural brushstrokes in black and white. In 2003, solo exhibitions in the Estro gallery in Padova and in the Paolo Majorana gallery in Brescia.
robicoda@tiscali.it

Untitled,
cromolux on wood, cm38 x 25, 2003

TELAIO

Loom , first half of 19 th century (the first mechanical looms were brought to Biella from France in 1817, wood.

Jacquard wooden loom with one pedal, donated to Biella by the Lanificio (woollen mill ) F.lli Piacenza . First kept in the Città degli Studi, it is now (since 2001) in the Museo del Territorio Biellese.

IRENE ROSSI

Irene Rossi was born in Biella in 1975 and now lives in Turin. In 1999 she started her artistic research, creating a sort of playful baby world, made of assembled cloth, laces, paper, coloured beads and spangles. Lilliputian sculptures and installations, like little fairytales sets. In 2003, a solo exhibition in the Pinacoteca Civica in Ferrara.
audrey_@libero.it

The wonderful love affair between Madame Weave and Monsieur Warp, various materials , 2003

SARCOFAGO DI SHEPSETTAASET

Wooden sarcophagus of Shepsettaaset, Ptolemaic period, wooden polychrome sarcophagus

The sarcophagus was found in 1908 in Assiut by Ernesto Schiapparelli. It represents the deceased with a heavy wig around her face; on her body, under a large decorated necklace, it shows polychromatic inscriptions and symbols of the Egyptian religious repertoire.The sarcophagus still contains its owner's mummy, wrapped in linen and covered by a shroud fixed by means of cloth strips. This is one of the 32 finds given as temporary deposit by the Museo Egizio of Turin in 1951.The Egyptian room houses, in addition to these finds, 95 objects dating back to the Ptolemaic – Roman period (3rd century b.C., 1st - 2nd centuries A.D.) donated by Corradino Sella in 1908.

LAURA TESTA E GIGI PIANA

Gigi Piana born in Biella in 1967, and Laura Testa, born in Biella in 1972, both live in Biella and work together since 2000. They work on installations and performances, showing great care in involving the viewers and searching for non-conventional places
lilut@tiscali.it

Mummific-action , objects of common use and and gauze, mixed technique, 2003

BIELLA

	MUSEO DEL TERRITORIO BIELLESE CHIOSTRO DI SAN SEBASTIANO Via Quintino Sella tel. 015/2529345 ROBERTO CODA ZABETTA IRENE ROSSI LAURA TESTA E GIGI PIANA

critical text by di Olga Gambari The Museo del Territorio in Biella summarizes several possibilities of reading and different topics, stratified in space and time just as the history they are linked to. An ancient cloister houses the museum that tells the tale of a land through a collection of objects, artefacts and paintings. The four young artists from Biella, who have been asked to create a contemporary dialogue with the historical works, have thought of an installation that weaves together the whole collection, from the Egyptian finds to those belonging to the material culture and the picture gallery. An art exhibition that shows how the present is rooted into the past and how it merges into it, thus acquiring its own meaning. The journey ideally starts from the Mummifica-azione (Mummific-action) by Gigi Piana and Laura Testa, who develop the concepts of memory and preservation implied in the Egyptian mummy, wrapping up other objects of common use. A column, a chair and a fire extinguisher are mummified in cotton gauze in order to hand over to the future the soul of the present time, dying out precociously because of consumerism. But that is also a longing for eternity, able to turn our everyday life into history. Irene Rossi, then, moulds a miniature world made of cloth, trimmings, beads and coloured threads on a big 19 th century loom to illustrate La favolosa storia d'amore di Madame Trama e Monsieur Ordito (The wonderful love affair between Madame Weave and Monsieur Warp). Finally, Roberto Coda Zabetta draws out one of the two protagonists of a seventeenth century painting by a unknown Lombard artist. St Francis crying out in pain while he receives the stigmata, a classical face transformed in an unrecognisable alter ego, going through four hundred years of history, pressed in a time machine that turns the saint into an everyday contemporary man.