Limit

In Elisabetta Di Sopra’s triptych video we see a no-longer-young model, full-length and with details of her body, in a classroom at the Academy of Fine Arts, amidst stacked furniture, a plaster statue, drawings and a skeleton for the study of anatomy in the background. Her beauty has been transformed by time and the pose is short-lived: there are no pupils because we all play their part and automatically complete the work with our gaze. So we are ideally brought into the place appointed to study “the limit”, understood as line and drawing: but “the limit” is above all the necessary element that our visual perception must use to grasp the forms. Through the metaphor of art, Di Sopra reminds us of a human condition. If in the video we notice the slight movement, the vibrations of the model, her location in the Archaeological Museum of Venice urges us to observe the fixity of the images of the sculptures. The necessary premise of those statues – whether originals or copies – is that there were indeed flesh and blood models, with living lines that consumed their time, and that the artists fixed in marble. Just as the image is elegant and light so the theme is profound. After all, Totò used to say that “every limit has a patience”: this is very true and we tend to forget it. We have gladly accepted this contemporary work by Elisabetta Di Sopra, in collaboration with the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, because it effectively interacts with the sculptures in the museum, bringing new emotions and reasons for reflection through these images.
Daniele Ferrara
Regional Director Museums Veneto