The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by architect Peter Eisenman, is photographed and interpreted through a present day lens. A Field of Stelae, creating a labyrinth of concrete blocks, exemplifies the profound anguish cemented in the memory of the Jews massacred by the Nazi regime.

The photo painting installation, presented at the Embassy of Italy in Washington DC and at the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco on the occasion of Remembrance Day 2014, is a series of colored images shot sequentially amidst 2711 grey slabs evoking the headstones of murdered Jews.

The succession of each soft image symbolizes quick meetings and encounters between people pursuing their own paths in a moment that is timeless and in a place without an entrance or exit (sense of being lost) evokes a disturbing sense of the Nazi regime's unyielding control through the rippling motion of an uneven pavement disrupting the solid structure. The disorienting effect through the camera lens is intended. The visitor is alone, facing the memory of the genocide in an ephemeral place.

For years the artist has been using various media (photography, painting and now video) to experiment with the possibilities of Light, a symbol of strength and hope, beginning with the self-portraits entitled "Prostheses of Light" ("Protesi di Luce"). The Light which enfolds, which envelops everything, is seen as an expression of beauty, but at the same time as a contradiction between the elements which are being recorded. It can also be interpreted as a desire to fulfil our dreams, or as a manifestation of an internal conflict (within the individual, or in the social context which we inhabit).

The exhibition will continue in California on the 30th of January 2014, and will include a vide which presents surreal images of people walking through the stelae, appearing and disappearing like ghosts conjured by memory in evocative black and white, with a background of wistful Klezmer music, as Light and colour slowly take over the scene.

Memories and Light will then be on display at the Jewish Museum in Bologna in May 2014, and in various festivals throughout the year. There will also be talks in universities in Italy and abroad, discussing the theme of Light in its various aspects and from diverse points of view.

Exhibition venues:
27 January – 15 February 2014: Italian Embassy, Washington D.C. (opening on Wednesday, 29 January 6:30pm), in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington.

http://www.iicwashington.esteri.it/IIC_Washington/webform/SchedaEvento.aspx?id=545

30 January – 28 March 2014: Italian Cultural Institute, San Francisco, CA (opening on Tuesday 4 February 6:30pm)
http://www.iicsanfrancisco.esteri.it/IIC_SanFrancisco/webform/SchedaEvento.aspx?id=854

catalogue
http://issuu.com/iicwashington/docs/catalogo_memories_and_light_lisa_bo/1?e=1241769/6371064

Free entrance

under the Patronage of: Comune di Verona (local government of Verona, Italy)

info: www.lisaborgiani.com lisaborgiani@gmail.com