Alessandra Spranzi

The rooms are arranged to encounter man as he is in the world, with the shadows, the questions and the mysteries that never abandon him. A star is guiding us, the star of a one-star hotel, in the heavy silence of the night. Melancholy.
Other stories, subjective mishaps, eyes half-shut, objective accidents. The imperfect object, which refuses to take the right form and belongs to a different time – indeed, to the imperfect tense – is reconfigured on an old table.
We do not learn through language but by holding balls of fire in our hands that make us cry out: surprise? fear? The enchantment of holding in our hands something that should have been elsewhere, held at a different distance.
Small facts, objects, gestures, cases, failures, illusions, oversights, an unexpected pastiche of reality waiting for us, around the corner.

Alessandra Spranzi was born in 1962 in Milan, where she is currently living and working. She started working as a photographer in the early nineties. She uses photographs and videos in projects that are different every time, portraying an alternative or altered vision of reality and conveying the sense of wonder they arouse in the viewer. She does this both through the way she sets her scenes or excerpts from reality and by using and working on archive material. She registers a process, a gesture which transforms the meaning and our knowledge of things, stirring up the enigma and the other side of the visible – the invisible. 
As Jean Piaget wrote, when the gesture loses its initial meaning and becomes effective in its own right, then it becomes magical.
Her most recent personal exhibits include Selvatico (o colui che si salva) and Cose che accadono, both held at the Fotografia Italiana gallery in Milan in 2008 and 2005 respectively; and La donna barbuta, held at the Drantman Gallery in Brusseles as well as at the Emi Fontana Gallery in Milan in 2001. She has participated in many exhibitions, including Da Guarene all’Etna 1999-2009, held in 2009 at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin; Terzo paesaggio, held in 2009 at the GAM in Gallarate; Nessun onda può pettinare il mare, held in 2008 at the Galleria Fotografia Italiana in Milan; Storie immaginate, luoghi reali, held in 2007 at the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea in Cinisello Balsamo; Italian Camera, held in 2005 at San Servolo Island in Venice; On Air. Video in onda dall’Italia, held in 2004 at the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Contemporanea in Monfalcone; and In natura, held in 2003 at the 10th Biennale of Photography in Turin.
She has written several books, including Selvatico (o colui che si salva), Cose che accadono and Tornando a casa.
She is currently a lecturer in photography at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan.

Info
Palazzo della Frumentaria
Via San Pietro Martire 2 - Reggio Emilia
Tel. 0522 451152, 0522 456249, 0522 456635, 0522 456448
Single ticket for all exhibitions 10€. Concessions 7€

Open Times:
Opening Friday 7th May, 19.00
7th May from 19.00 to 24.00; 8th - 9th May from 10.00 to 23.00
From 10th May to 13rd June: from Tuesdays to Fridays from 20.00 to 23.00; Saturdays, Sundays and festivals from 10.00 to 23.00. Monday closed. Open in the morning for schools.
 

Saturday 8th May 2010, 12.00 - Piazza Casotti

L’incanto degli occhi

Elio Grazioli presents Mark Borthwick, Alessandra Spranzi e Richard Wentworth.