More Than Any Body

Panorama is pleased to present More Than Any Body, an exhibition featuring installations by Chiara Cecconello and Nadezda Golysheva.
The words that make up the title are inspired by a panegyric delivered by Saint John Chrysostom of Antioch in 362 AD, referring to the closeness of the faithful to the bodies of martyrs and the importance of such proximity.
The two invited artists worked in dialogue with the Church of San Zulian, which shares its namesake campiello with Panorama and remains an important presence in the daily life of the sestiere, both for visiting tourists and for the local community. Through different forms and approaches, Cecconello and Golysheva have reinterpreted certain elements that constitute the Church and animate its spaces on a daily basis.
Eremo by Nadezda Golysheva is inspired by the figure of Saint Paul of Thebes, the hermit depicted on the surface of the urn placed on the church’s main altar, and by his radical choice to withdraw from the world. This image became the starting point for the development of a sculptural installation composed of a bed structure and a mat, prompting reflection on the distance that separates eremitism, as an absolute gesture of spiritual abandonment, from contemporary forms of isolation. The windows of Panorama, opacified because they are part of the installation, create an intimate yet distant atmosphere, providing a listening surface. Two almost opposing dimensions are held in tension: asceticism and everyday life, in which a true retreat is considered impossible.
The sound installation prima rimessa in voce by Chiara Cecconello marks the beginning of RIMESSA, a project conceived by Cecconello in collaboration with Ida Malfatti. It stems from an experimental approach to sacred liturgy, a children’s game. A chant and a spoken recitation can be heard within Panorama’s spaces and in the adjacent campiello according to a precise temporal rhythm: prima rimessa in voce plays every day at 10:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. Voices and sounds are reinterpreted and distorted in repetitions of phonemes and quotations from the proceedings of the trials of Joan of Arc.