LADIES AND GENTLEMEN PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELF COMFORTABLE

A cura di - Curated by Geraldine Blais Zodo Pier Paolo Pancotto


In the mid-fifties the lawyer Luigi Scatturin called Carlo Scarpa (Veni- ce, 1906 - Sendai 1978) to design the interior of his legal department in Santa Maria Formosa, Venice. Shortly after he moved to calle degli Avvocati near Sant’Angelo and, once again, he invited him to take care of his studio and house. Scarpa designed the full 250 square meters lo- cated on the top floor of the seventeenth century building, dealing with the architectural interventions as well as the furnishing. This set is one of the most significant examples of Scarpa’s works in the field of private clients still visible in their entirety, rare example of a time now lost, the work is the result of the bond of mutual respect that has long united Scatturin and Scarpa, at whose name could be added the ar- tist Tancredi (Feltre, 1927 - Rome, 1964) linked to Scatturin for family reasons as well as cultural, and here rappresented by some of his pain- tings. The intellectual exchange and the dialectical relationship are the starting point of the exhibition project LADIES AND GENTLEMEN MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE as well as the eponymous desk designed by Scarpa for Scatturin’s studio. The project offers some of the most significant presences of the contemporary creative scene, all invited to relate to the history and structure of the Studio-Home Scatturin, in each case with different modalities - staying at home, living for few hours, consulting the space and its life, analyzing the documentary sources - in order to create a work inspired by this experience. The result is a visual jour- ney suspended in time and in spatial dimension where the parallelism of past and present moments performs the testimony of the energy produced by the intellectual and emotional encounter between Scarpa, Scatturin and Tancredi, and its unaltered actuality.
Artists involved: YURI ANCARANI (Ravenna, 1972) GIORGIO ANDREOTTA CALÒ (Venice, 1979) HOPE ATHERTON (Warrenton, 1974), CLAIRE FONTAINE (Paris, 2004), NICOLA MARTINI (Florence, 1984), LILI REYNAUD DEWAR (La Rochelle, 1975), EMANUEL ROHSS (Gothenburg, 1985), ARCANGELO SASSOLINO (Vicenza, 1967), Morgane Tschiember (Brest, 1976), NICO VASCELLARI (Vittorio Vene- to, 1976).

During the exhibition will be a meeting between artsts and curators focused on the topics of the exhibition. The result of this experience will be the subject of a radio program and part of the exhibition ca- tologue.
The show is patronise by Carlo Scarpa Center [Treviso] of the MAXXI Foundation - Archives Center MAXXI Architecture, Rome.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE is sponsored by Marsèll, by Martina Botton’s Legal Office [Padua] and Andreola [Farra di Soligo, Treviso].
A courteous thank to: Melania e Pietro Scatturin, Claudio Storaci, Mirko Rizzi, Martina Botton, Andrea Bianchi, Margherita Guccione, Maria Pia Barzan, Caterina Tognon, Maria-Grazia Calò, Codalunga, Alan Chies, Bruno Filippo La Padula, Silvia De Angelis, Erik Sommaschini e i direttori e gli studenti di The School for Curatorial Studies [AplusA, Venezia].
Many thanks to: Gavin Brown’s enterprise, Bugada & Cargnel, Kaufmann Repetto, Galerie Emanuel Layr, Monitor, Galerie Rolando Anselmi, T293 e Galleria Zero.