10.6092/issn.1973-9494/17319
application/pdf
1973-9494
17319
en
Franca De Leo
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
Rome
Virus Group. Napoli New York Corviale
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
22
Articles
2023-07-20
2023-06-21
2023-07-20
2023-07-20
245-270
CSCH
Franca De Leo
2022
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/17319
245
Formerly Superintendent for the Artistic and Historical Heritage of the Provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
1973-9494
Rome
en
270
Virus Group. Napoli New York Corviale
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/17319/16538
22
     What was it that struck me when I read the paper based on
the volume dedicated to the exhibition “Virus Group. Napoli New
York Corviale”, from which came the need and, I’d say, the desire
which pushed the two authors to write it; two superintendents,
one who has accomplished her multifaceted cultural mission,
while the other continues her journey?
     Two worlds in one, because, with their national and interna-
tional experience in coordinating various institutions with initiatives
and interventions aimed at protecting and enhancing artifacts of
historical, artistic, archaeological, archival and book interest, both
decided to focus their attention and discussion on this particular
exhibition housed in the Drugstore Museum in Rome.
     I believe it is a special exhibition, which is why it attracted my
interest, because it is the first in a cycle of exhibitions designed not
only to enhance the heritage in the lesser known urban suburbs
of Rome but also to further promote the city’s range of cultural
activities, enriching them over time with conferences, guided tours,
film conferences, events and so on. A practical incentive to meet
the cultural needs of citizens and users in general.
     In short, I consider what has been described, to be an effective
and emblematic example of interpreting cultural reality by making
it available to all, in an open and decidedly attractive and suggestive
framework.

                                                   Salvatore Lorusso
                                                    Editor-in-Chief
V     IRUS GROUP. NAPOLI NEW YORK CORVIALE


   Daniela Porro
   Superintendent Responsible for the Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Rome,
   Italy

   Franca De Leo*
   Formerly Superintendent for the Artistic and Historical Heritage of the Provinces of
   Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

   Keywords: Drugstore Museum, archaeology, contemporary art, Rome



   1. Introduzione

     The exhibition “Virus Group. Napoli New York Corviale”, held in the Drugstore Mu-
seum, in Rome from 14th October to 27th November 2022 [1], is the first in a cycle of ex-
hibitions designed to promote, in all its variety and complexity, the knowledge, protec-
tion and enhancement of the cultural heritage in the territory that extends to include the
historic suburbs in the west quadrant of the city of Rome.
     However, to better understand the meaning of the exhibition project and its imple-
mentation in this particular context, a brief overview of the Museum is required, as it is
a mix of archaeology and contemporaneity, which is manifested in a model of public
and participative management.
     The Drugstore Museum, with the Necropoli Portuense, is an exhibition in two parts,
a territorial section and a cultural one, a place where the ancient and the modern are
brought together. Through the applied arts, design, industrial productions of the twen-
tieth century and demo-ethno-anthropological heritage, it has the potential to enhance
contemporary tangible and intangible culture. It is located in the commercial area of the
building in number 317 of the Via Portuense, a nine-storey-high residential complex, as
mentioned earlier, in the north-west suburbs of the capital, known as Il Serpentone
(literally, large serpent), due to its length of one kilometre (Figure 1).
     When the structure was built in 1967, some imperial tombs were found in the ne-
cropolis on the Via Portuense, which were kept and incorporated into the basement of
the building. Later, in the eighties, they tried to showcase the monuments by integrat-
ing them into what was the first Drugstore Museum in Italy.
     But in the nineties, it failed, and the necropolis became inaccessible until 2005, when
an agreement was made with the Archaeological Superintendence of Rome to trans-
form the area into a state-owned museum.
     Thus, during the period from 2006-2015, some restoration work and modifications
were carried out to make the structure more efficient, and lastly, in 2019 some emer-
gency work restored its full functionality.



   * Corresponding author: francadeleo@outlook.com
                                                                                                     Figure 1. Rome, Il Serpentone, 1967.
Daniela Porro, , Franca De Leo - Virus group. Napoli New York Corviale




                                                                             Having recovered from the decline, Corviale and its Museum have been included
                                                                         in a redevelopment project which aims to give them a new lease of life, and in general
                                                                         terms, to recover and consequently enhance the lesser-known heritage of the city’s
                                                                         urban and cultural suburbs, thus fulfilling its role as a neighborhood museum for the
                                                                         education and cultural needs of its citizens.
                                                                             And it is above all contemporary art that has been called to play this role, due to its
                                                                         ability to explore and interpret reality, to include and strengthen identity, to rehabilitate
                                                                         places and people, and to help develop the territory.
                                                                             The project – which provides for a wide cultural offer, in addition to exhibitions,
                                                                         conferences, courses, guided tours, film conferences, events and concerts – includes
                                                                         the Virus Group exhibition hosted in the Drugstore Museum, and is curated by Daniela
                                                                         Porro, Alessio De Cristofaro, Jonathan Giustini; it is dedicated to a historical group of
                                                                         artists who for many years have animated the cultural life of Corviale and the 11th mu-
                                                                         nicipal district of Rome.
                                                                             The local authorities, alongside the Special Superintendence for the Archaeology,
                                                                         Fine Arts and Landscape of Rome, also participated in the setting up, preparation and
                                                                         promotion of the initiative, thus sharing in the administrative activity, worthwhile from
                                                                         various points of view, but above all they were able to create a network of institutional
                                                                         synergies, so that the best kind of public service was provided.


                                                                            2. Virus Group

                                                                             The Virus Group, born in Naples in the mid-eighties represents one of the most
                                                                         lucid and visionary experiences of applied art currently on display: painting, engraving,
                                                                         sculpture, ceramics, installations, performance, visual poetry.


                                              246
    From the beginning its main characteristic has been that the artists enable the vi-
sual and multimedia arts to interact with each other, in their desire to free contempo-
rary art from what the group sees as being the market’s lifeless network, in the name
of a new visibility and a more active confrontation that goes beyond the different per-
sonalities it is composed of and the changes they have encountered along the way.
    Its story starts in Naples, travels through Cuba and New York; it then disperses and
separates, but without ever ceasing to create, even if only in an individual form; finally, it
lands on the outskirts of Corviale after various adventures, where, in the 2000s it starts
up again as a spontaneous and self-proclaimed collective, resumes its life and work,
and produces by redeveloping places, compacting new experiences and pushing for a
change in relationships.
    Three of the four founders – Giancarlo Savino, Giulio Ceraldi, Consuelo Chierici –
re-established the group with the sculptor Stefano De Santis, setting up an open stu-
dio, which is at the same time private, participatory and social. It is part of a heritage
community where time is renewed by involving stratigraphies of stories where the focal
point is the people, visitors, artists, operators, technicians, thinkers, authors, associa-
tions, whoever is part of a process of cultural growth and knows how to network and
weave together creativity and projects.
    The Drugstore Museum is the fulcrum of this path, solidly rooted in Rome’s 11th
municipality, from where it looks out onto the world. And it is to celebrate the re-opening
of the local museum to the public of the Necropoli Portuense, that the exhibition “Virus
group. Napoli New York Corviale” has been organized at the museum site in the histor-
ic suburb. A place in which you can experience art forms that are created only when life
has met with its burden of pain, precariousness, discouragement, and sometimes vio-
lence, to then give back the most important parts.


   2.1. The poetics of the Virus Group




                                                                                                   CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
     The members of the group are Giancarlo Savino, Giulio Ceraldi, Consuelo Chierici,
Stefano De Santis, three men and one woman, four artists always on the go; Stefano spent
several years in Cuba; Consuelo moved between Torre del Greco and New York to study,
at times going off to Senegal; Giancarlo lived for a long time in Denmark, while Giulio was
always travelling to and from the beaches of Pozzovecchio, Procida and the world.
     With this colourful, crazy exhibition, a quasi-modern catacomb, immersed in the an-
cient commercial centre that has been transformed into a modern museum, the four
artists tell us something about their souls and their art, re-ordering their memory, tidying
up the messy materials that contaminate and always become viruses. It is material they
have decided, in part, to sort out and exhibit in a great representation of artistic life,
of work that speaks of the man who realizes it, of how he feels about existing, thinking,
at that precise moment.
     You need to get closer to get to know these artists, their work, their thoughts. Imag-
ine them as a river flowing downstream in a valley with such force, it bursts its banks
and dam, letting themselves course along, carrying in the flow of their memory, in the
current of life – viewed in a perspective of their very own – the life that is in their works,
that tell of how and what they are made. They are shy, but they can scream at the top
of their voices, they are able to inhabit abandoned places, like Corviale, clean them up
and make them fit to inhabit again, they fight against the local underworld that wants to
blackmail them and now no longer stands in front of their studio. Today it welcomes


                                                                                                 247
                                                                         other kinds of people: young boys and girls, art experts, gallery owners, budding artists
                                                                         and neighborhood friends, all those who want to know them better will always find in
                                                                         their immense studio, open to the wind and street noise, a good Neapolitan coffee, a
                                                                         piece of apple pie, or a dish they have prepared.
                                                                              An open studio, it has been said, so it is a place you can actively visit, offering those
                                                                         who wish it, direct knowledge of the artists’ work. It is, therefore, a centre for research
                                                                         and artistic culture, and thus claims the centrality of the figure of the artist, considered
                                                                         in the reality of interwoven contradictions and conflicts, as well as in the tensions of a
                                                                         clear critical conscience.
                                                                              That is why their pieces are fragments, suggestions of memories that have re-
                                                                         turned, open studies, workshop products, stages in a journey of seeking of which they
                                                                         almost do not speak or, if they do, they do it indirectly, naturally.
                                                                              Art that contaminates, but also abandons and takes pleasure in itself, art in which
                                                                         fear, envy, anger is never perceived, what is felt is only the contentment of doing it and
                                                                         of leaving a mark. What shines through in what they do is joy, irony, emotion and it is
                                                                         true for all these artists: extremely evident and almost poignant in Giulio Ceraldi; dis-
                                                                         guised in Consuelo Chierici; overlapping and layered in Giancarlo Savino; screaming,
                                                                         almost like incandescent lava in Stefano De Santis.
                                                                              Viral events, as they have always called them, for which no cure or remedy exists
                                                                         because they are simply exchanges in experiences meant to salvage a moment of
                                                                         confrontation in the central point of the artist’s work. Open studies, not to counteract
                                                                         the work of art galleries, but to foster a wider aggregation around the motives for mod-
                                                                         ern art. And so, they have ‘infected’ men and women with an incurable virus.
Daniela Porro, , Franca De Leo - Virus group. Napoli New York Corviale




                                                                              Giancarlo Savino is the first to arrive in 2008, at Corviale, and to occupy a space,
                                                                         the same space in which the Virus Group has its headquarters and galleries today. A
                                                                         place that has a number of different entrances, snatched from the street, in the degra-
                                                                         dation and abandonment where he gradually brings together friends and artists from
                                                                         Corviale, he develops the idea for an urban museum in Rome, by creating art works to
                                                                         put into the urban fabric itself, a project for permanent public visual education.
                                                                              Over the years, many artists arrive, and at a certain point are joined, first by Con-
                                                                         suelo Chierici, Giulio Ceraldi and then, Stefano De Santis.
                                                                              This is how the Virus Group came into being. It continues to adhere to the founding
                                                                         themes and the initial spirit of the chosen path, it carries out activities around Corviale,
                                                                         it spreads its own way of feeling, seeing, speaking, participating in everyday life, with-
                                                                         out, however, searching for a trend, but starting from a state of mind, an existential
                                                                         condition that unites its components.
                                                                              The one idea they all share from the very beginning which has led them to seeking a
                                                                         relationship, not mediated by any role and, to invoke the primacy of the artist and his re-
                                                                         lationship with time, is that of restlessness, similar to a viral state when the body is affect-
                                                                         ed by a virus and your senses are on the alert and your attention is at the maximum level:
                                                                         a circumstance in which normal conditions cease and a meeting point is determined.
                                                                              One of their exemplary statements says that “Many artists no longer work at their
                                                                         own rhythm, at being creative individuals, but anxiously follow the demands of the
                                                                         market. Their work is, consequently, similar to that of a salaried person and their cre-
                                                                         ativity is subservient to the ever-changing trends of fashion and style and, in the end,
                                                                         are more or less prefabricated. Where the speed of communication does not equal the
                                                                         speed of goods, relations have slowed down. And it is for this reason that we claim the
                                                                         centrality of the artist as a person who lives in a continuous state of sickness, a person
                                                                         who produces tension and is conscious of the critical role they have”.


                                              248
   2.2. The artists and their work

   Giulio Ceraldi
    Giulio Ceraldi is an artist with a free spirit, who often cites whatever his thread of
memories puts before him, like the sea on the edge of a current.
    One of his large installations is included in the exhibition. A composite work, con-
sisting of several sections, that the artist prefers to consider a multi-dimensional sculp-
ture: its title “Golfo mistico” (Figure 2).
                                Figura 2. Giulio Ceraldi, Il golfo mistico, 1999 (wood, acrylic,
                                alluminium, nails).



                                 The work indicates a path: that of a child who sees the Gulf
                             of Pozzuoli for the first time, and we feel his thought, emotion,
                             physicality, grotesqueness, the life that flows along, the weep-
                             ing and the pain, as well as the obscene part of existence.
                                 You enter through a large door, beyond which we see the
                             observer, and then finish up in front of the throne, the last
                             shore, whose undertow is felt, the small fish that lightly jump,
                             and finally the symbols of the great silence appear, of the
                             infinite, where things are no longer explainable, where man
                             is mute, after landing on the throne from who knows where,
                             and whose power is contained within his thoughts.
                                 He was once an important painter but is not keen on
                             talking about that part of his life in Naples and does not even
                             own a painting from that era. They were all sold and are now
                             part of important collections; what remains are just a few
                             blurred black and white photos left over from an exhibition in




                                                                                                     CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
                             Naples from the early seventies. They tell the story of the
                             transformation of the I and the journey of perdition and puri-
                             fication from something which, through his paintings, he has
                             had to repudiate and overcome, to feel free.
    Now he makes icons, and seems to speak using a hammer and nails, banging on
wood, on thin sheets of alluminium, on which his word has become sound. And in the
icons he produces today, photographic fragments sometimes appear of his old paintings,
on which he works using new paints, graphite, glued colored papers, as if to want to es-
tablish a new relationship with his past as an artist. Thus, a new setting is created for the
icon, on which the last thing to be added is the metal, an almost acute awareness of
himself, of the inexorable questioning about the meaning of life and death. There is spiri-
tuality in these art works, but not peace. The icon represents the sacred moment of the
work. The icon itself is sacred. His work, “Le vie del sacro” (Figure 3), narrate this very
story, in which we ask ourselves about what values we can refer to today.
    In 1986, Giulio Ceraldi meets Giancarlo Savino and Consuelo Chierici. It is in fact a
re-union, since the group, during their many years of being apart, has continued to exist
silently, even though each has had their own stormy experiences: different lives but
always keeping contact, randomly separated from destiny, but always close.
    At this point, Ceraldi’s interest moves to the theatre, so he invents sculptures, scen-
ery, props and costumes and works with Mario Martone, Claudio Collovà and Vincenzo
Consolo.


                                                                                                   249
                                                                            It is through the theatre that he produces his first large metal icon, both a symbol
                                                                         and a decisive turning point in his new existence as an artist.




                                                                                   Figure 3. Giulio Ceraldi, Le vie del sacro, 2020 (wood, paper, acrylic, nails).


                                                                            Stefano De Santis
                                                                             Stefano De Santis, in contrast, is the artist who, before giving life to his works, tests
                                                                         the texture, softness or hardness of the clay of which they are made to understand
                                                                         what their state of conservation will be with the passage of time, not knowing whether
                                                                         the artifacts born from his hands are going to be gigantic or tiny.
Daniela Porro, , Franca De Leo - Virus group. Napoli New York Corviale




                                                                                                                                  Cuba and Corviale are the plac-
                                                                                                                              es which represent the decisive
                                                                                                                              phases of his life as an artist, always
                                                                                                                              looking for suggestions, paths to
                                                                                                                              clarify. A nomadic artist, looking for
                                                                                                                              traces of the ancient, in the wake of
                                                                                                                              legends he crosses territories that
                                                                                                                              are vestiges of passages, meetings,
                                                                                                                              stratifications of cultures. He’s an
                                                                                                                              archaeologist-sculptor who takes
                                                                                                                              notes silently, writing them in his stu-
                                                                                                                              dio in Corviale, and working the clay
                                                                                                                              quickly to avoid the material becom-
                                                                                                                              ing too fragile.
                                                                                                                                  He is almost a prisoner of his own
                                                                                                                              creations, reliving through sculpture
                                                                                                                              the events experienced in past times
                                                                                                                              and being able, nevertheless, to ab-
                                                                                                                              sorb, interpret, share the spirit and
                                                                                                                              research of the group of Corviale,
                                                                                                                              humbly doing his daily work.
                                                                                                                                  “Il popolo in cammino” is his lat-
                                                                                                                              est cycle of big sculptures: a people
                                                                                                                              that dares, that goes beyond nature,
                                                                         Figure 4. Stefano De Santis, Popolo in cammino # 1, and abandons themselves to life
                                                                         2020 (polished terracotta, wax).                     (Figures 4-5).


                                                250
    Consuelo Chierici
     In 1981 Consuelo Chierici, Milanese
by birth and educated in Naples, collabo-
rates with Giancarlo Savino on the urban
painting project in Naples for the steps of
St. Francis, entitled “La caduta del re”,
which is also received as a critical re-
sponse to the management of culture in
Naples at that time. She participates in
numerous multimedia events, working
with different artists and founds the Cul-
tural Association, “Materiali in disordine”.
The event, however, is opposed by private
galleries which, considering the initiative
as interference in the city’s business and
management of cultural information, take
action to discredit it, but instead has the
opposite effect and only arouses the great
curiosity of the public.
     Other initiatives followed until 1986,
when she founded the Virus Group with
Giancarlo Savino, Giulio Ceraldi and other
artists in Naples, participating with them in
the project “Studi aperti” to give an ethical   Figure 5. Stefano De Santis, Popolo in cammino
and organizational response to the lack of      # 3, 2019 (polished terracotta, wax).
visibility and to place their studio at the
center of making art, without filters and
mediation between the artists and the
public. In 1987 she moves to New York




                                                                                                         CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
where she stays for twenty years study-
ing, carrying out various activities in the
artistic sector, promoting cultural events,
participating in numerous group exhibi-
tions in galleries and putting on a personal
exhibition at the Knitting Factory with a
series of works in zinc plates and netting,
chromed iron and lights, dedicated to the
theme of the maze (Figure 6).
     In New York, with the group “Eutropia”,
she then reproposes the same ideas as
the Virus Group and a series of events in
traveling spaces, helping to redefine the
way art is exhibited, even in the Big Apple,
where artists represent themselves, open
their studios to the public, conceive the
exhibition area as a welcoming place, but
one closed to the market and its methods.
     In the early 2000s she participates in     Figure 6. Consuelo Chierici, La danza del labirinto,
several exhibitions in Italy and with other     1994 (zinc plate, wire mesh, led lighting, series
artists in Rome, and founds the associa-        of 6).


                                                                                                       251
                                                                         tion “Comunità X-Artisti di Corviale” to produce works to be placed in the urban fabric.
                                                                         Finally, Comunità X’s new exhibition space is inaugurated with a presentation of the
                                                                         born-again Virus Group.

                                                                            Giancarlo Savino
                                                                              Giancarlo Savino was born in Naples, where he finishes his high school studies as
                                                                         a mechanical-technical designer. His passion, however, is art, which he begins to learn
                                                                         in the studio of the sculptor, Gabriele Zambardino. He then moves toward experimental
                                                                         theatre and goes through different experiences until his first collective in 1968, in the
                                                                         spelonca (cavern), a space belonging to Zambardino. In the same period, he plays as
                                                                         a drummer and percussionist in a number of evenings of free jazz and musical exper-
                                                                         imentation. Later, in Milan, he meets Dino Buzzati, and from this friendship springs his
                                                                         first solo exhibition, held at the Galleria Cortina (Milan).
                                                                              In the following years, still in Milan, he is engaged in politics and culture, meeting
                                                                         artists and intellectuals, who have a significant role in his professional training. He re-
                                                                         turns to Naples in 1980 where, with Consuelo Chierici, he executes Naples’s first urban
                                                                         painting entitled “La caduta del Re”. Many other experiences follow until, in 1986, the
                                                                         Virus Group is formed with Ceraldi, Chierici and other artists. The group then launches
                                                                         the project “Studi aperti”.
                                                                              Their work continues with various exhibitions until the end of 1991, when the Virus
                                                                         Group breaks up. In 1992, Savino takes up his work in Copenhagen again and is in-
                                                                         volved in different kinds of theatrical and pictorial events; in 1997 he moves to Rome.
                                                                         He participates in exhibitions and festivals and in 2008 with Chierici and other artists
Daniela Porro, , Franca De Leo - Virus group. Napoli New York Corviale




                                                                         he founds the association “Comunità X” in Corviale.
                                                                              Many other experiences follow which consolidate the importance of his art and, in
                                                                         2019, when he meets up again with Ceraldi and Chierici, together with De Santis, they
                                                                         decide to once more found the Virus Group (Figure 7). Much of their art can be found in
                                                                         private collections, museums and trusts.




                                                                                           Figure 7. Giancarlo Savino, Untitled, 2020 (oil on canvas).


                                                   252
    3. Public art

     To better contextualize the exhibition in the Drugstore Museum at Corviale requires
some brief considerations on the theme of public art [2-4].
     What has been discussed above is presented, in fact, as a further opportunity for
reflection on the mutual influence of the many experiences of public art and on the in-
creasing role of institutions in the current situation. Increasing interest is being given to
public art by different sectors that often intersect each other, thus generating new ways
of interpreting and, sometimes, offering surprising indications.
     At this point, it seems useful to dwell on some ethical and legal issues.
     Public art is generally considered to refer to those artistic experiences that take place
in spaces that are not usually reserved for the execution and preservation of artwork,
its priorities being the dimension of space and open communication. In relation to this
definition, issues to be addressed concern commissioning and protection, all areas in
which the positions of the institutions are interconnected with multiple legal references
and constraints, political and politico-cultural considerations, analysis of the histori-
cal-monumental context, evaluation of the urban environment, landscape, sustainabil-
ity, and knowledge of the social situation in which one intends to take action.
     Different elements that require the situation to be tackled from different angles,
something that is often very difficult to achieve, but is the only one that can allow for a
real dialogue with the space, the public, the community, the artist and their work.
     As regards public procurement, it therefore seems necessary to review the whole
process in light of actual interaction between the different actors moving within the pub-
lic scenario, setting aside the idea of a design which, since it does not take into account
the context and consequent insertion of a work in a public space that appears to have
been “lowered from above”, is neither accepted nor welcomed by the community.
     Indeed, only a process of preventive mediation can produce a project in which the
planning is shared, and can consequently lead to acceptance and cultural growth, and
finally to careful provision for the future maintenance and conservation of the art works.




                                                                                                          CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
     Alongside this kind of vision, however, others are being added, centered on a con-
text of shared experiences that start from society’s willingness to make forms of partic-
ipatory democracy effective. And it is from these very needs that a set of regulations for
the shared administration of common goods was devised. They represent the norma-
tive expression of a new cultural policy of collaboration between institutions and citi-
zens to equally share the management of artefacts destined for collective use, today
and in the future, aware they are jointly responsible for their well-being [5].
     Relations between the administration and citizens is regulated by collaboration
agreements. The latter presuppose mutual trust and common objectives, maximum
transparency and a sense of responsibility, inclusiveness and combating all forms of
discrimination, as well as overcoming the concept of ownership in favor of that of be-
longing, identity and proximity. The idea of proximity recognizes local communities as
being the most suitable to take charge, together with local and decentralized adminis-
trations on the territory, of ‘commons’ (cultural and natural resources accessible to all
members of a society), because they are the bearers of history and stratified memo-
ries, even when they have very different characteristics.
     And it is in this wider context that artistic initiatives, that are not specifically public com-
missions, arise “from the bottom”, not in a preordained way, but as the result of the artist’s
creativity; they are a strongly symbolic expression of the re-appropriation of abandoned
and deeply devastated spaces that have often been taken away from criminal organiza-
tions and are now socially reclaimed spaces that have been returned to the community.


                                                                                                        253
                                                                               4. Final considerations on archaeology and contemporary art

                                                                              In conclusion, it is worth pointing out certain aspects regarding archaeology and
                                                                         contemporary art which are ever more frequently found accompanying each other in
                                                                         the panorama of present-day cultural production.
                                                                              For some years now, there have been many initiatives in which artists, contents and
                                                                         messages of contemporary art, combine with monuments, archaeological sites and antiq-
                                                                         uities museums, because of analogies between thought, archaeological method, art and
                                                                         the contemporary artist, as well as between archaeologists and artists in their way of in-
                                                                         vestigating reality through material culture: both, in fact, dig through layers, observe and
                                                                         interpret objects, and tell stories by reshaping the individual and collective memory [6-9].
                                                                              And it is due to this aptitude that exhibitions and performances by contemporary
                                                                         artists in archaeological sites and museums are becoming increasingly more frequent.
                                                                         The charm of the old combines with visual stories that have a strong aesthetic and
                                                                         media impact, even though the respective languages and messages may not always
                                                                         be understood by visitors. It is, therefore, the duty of both the archaeologist and the
                                                                         artist to interpret the ancient, tell its story, share it with everyone and, in doing so, bring
                                                                         harmony to the two different worldviews, while respecting both.
                                                                              In the specific case of the exhibition of the Virus Group artists at the Drugstore
                                                                         Museum, the question immediately came up about whether or not an archaeological
                                                                         museum, which has very particular features and characteristics, was actually compat-
                                                                         ible with the work of a small group of artists who were little known to the public, but
                                                                         firmly inserted in the panorama of Italian contemporary art, territorially well-established
                                                                         in Corviale and in continuous dialogue with the resident community, who are directly in-
Daniela Porro, , Franca De Leo - Virus group. Napoli New York Corviale




                                                                         volved in the creative act. The artists’ way of making art and their creations, thus enter
                                                                         the life of the neighborhood, reviving the places and its people.
                                                                              The Virus Group’s art is for everyone – it is comprehensible, it communicates, it con-
                                                                         veys messages, emotions, turmoil; it is art that is an experience and a learning tool for
                                                                         everyone; it is the result of craftsmanship, itself a language without words; it is art, as in
                                                                         all postmodern art, in which there is no didactic tale, there is no moral or edification, only
                                                                         images in which the past consists of the present, appearing so close to us in time, they
                                                                         seem everlastingly relevant.
                                                                              Overall, the Drugstore Museum is a postmodern space that combines the ancient
                                                                         with the contemporary, a space in which the museum and the artists that make up the
                                                                         Virus Group are well-matched. The exhibited pieces seem to have the same structure
                                                                         as the museum, creating a picture of the past that blends perfectly with the present,
                                                                         one which brings memories to life through images, symbols and concepts.


                                                                               References

                                                                         [1]     Porro D., De Cristofaro A., Giustini J., edit, (2022). Catalogo della mostra “Virus
                                                                                 Group Napoli New York Corviale”, Drugstore Museum, Roma 2022.
                                                                         [2]     Pioselli A., (2015). L’arte nello spazio urbano. L’esperienza italiana dal 1968 a
                                                                                 oggi, Cremona.
                                                                         [3]     Birrozzi C., Pugliese M., a cura di, (2007). L’arte pubblica nello spazio urbano.
                                                                                 Committenti, artisti, fruitori, Milano.
                                                                         [4]     Perelli l., (2006). Public Art, interazione e progetto urbano, Milano.
                                                                         [5]     v. note n. 6 e 7 del Catalogo della mostra “Virus Group Napoli New York Corvia-
                                                                                 le”, op. cit. [1].


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[6]     Renfrew C., (2003). Figuring it out. What are we? Where do we come from? The
        parallel vision of artists and Archeologists, London.
[7]     Benzi F., (2004). Eccentricità. Rivisitazioni sull’arte contemporanea, 1750-2000,
        Milano.
[8]     Pontiggia E., (2008). Modernità e Classicità. Il ritorno all’ordine in Europa dal
        primo dopoguerra agli anni Trenta, Milano.
[9]     Settis S., (2020). Incursioni, Arte contemporanea e Tradizione, Milano.


      Biographical notes

    Daniela Porro, is the Superintendent for Archaeology, Fine Arts, Landscape of
Rome. She has held various managerial positions dealing with the protection of artis-
tic-historical and ethnoanthropological heritage for the network of museums in Rome;
her experience and professional work over the years has also involved numerous mu-
seums with initiatives articulated throughout Italy and the overseeing of many artists’
exhibitions as well as the coordination of ministerial and cultural institutions, universities
and local bodies.
    Her scientific activity and cultural programmes in national contexts, and internation-
ally in the USA, China, Russia and Brazil, have also addressed the valorization of
heritage through exhibitions, educational initiatives, study and communication meetings,
symposia and conferences.

     Franca De Leo, formerly Superintendent for Artistic and Historical Heritage for the
provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Director of the Galleria Estense in Mode-
na, was involved in collecting; she subsequently worked in the Directorate-General for
book and cultural institutes in Rome, in the organization and installation, both in Italy
and abroad, of a series of exhibitions dedicated to the most representative authors of




                                                                                                   CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
Italian literature, such as D’annunzio, Pascoli, Ungaretti, Manzoni, Verga, Svevo, Lon-
ganesi, Brancati and Bassani, curating their respective catalogues.
     She is currently part of the editorial staff of the historical-technical Journal “Conser-
vation Science in Cultural Heritage”.


      Summary

     Through a study of the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition “VIRUS GROUP,
Naples, New York Corviale”, the paper aims to raise awareness and foster apprecia-
tion for the ancient and contemporary heritage in all its variety and complexity, located
in a particular area in the city of Rome, Corviale: heritage that is housed in the Drugstore
Museum and represents a mix between archaeology and contemporaneity – an exam-
ple of a public and participatory management model designed to train and provide for
the cultural needs of its citizens.
     This task is fulfilled mainly through the medium of contemporary art, due to its abil-
ity to interpret the reality of inclusion and to strengthen the idea of identity, to rehabili-
tate places and people, and to help the territory to grow. In this case, contemporary art
is represented by a group of artists, the Virus Group, which established itself in Corviale
after a series of varied experiences in Italy and abroad. Today, it is one of the most inci-
sive and relevant voices in the field of applied arts.


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