Montecassino, Franca Pisani brings the remains of the Abbey destroyed by the Allies back to life

In the winter of 1944, Frosinone ’sMontecassino Abbey was destroyed by Allied bombing. Seventy-five years after that episode, from April 6 to May 19, 2019, the exhibition Succisa Virescit - The Power of Rebirth, an exhibition of contemporary art by Tuscan artist Franca Pisani (Grosseto, 1956), will be open.

Three installations will be opened as part of the exhibition: the first (which can be admired until Oct. 27) is titled The Stone Garden, a work that transforms and creates bombing relics, making them become fragments of art and centuries-old artifacts of contemporary works, in an ideal dialogue between past and present touching on “the resurrection of materials”; the second, titled Transparencies, consists of black-and-white blow-ups that build a path of memories and wounds inside the Montecassino Abbey Museum. Hanging in front of the gigantographs will be 25 “Lyon silks” that were created to restore artifacts, ancient works of art, and are by their nature transparent, light, almost impalpable, becoming a kind of magnifying glass through which one can see the gigantographs of the destruction of theAbbey during World War II; the third installation, located in the last room of the Abbey Museum, is a work in wood and marble called Pietra splendente, which in ancient Greek is the name for marble.

Franca Pisani has given shape to an ash tree ringed by the cylinder of white marble from the quarries of Monte Altissimo, Michelangelo’s, which in bas-relief has the anthropological signs, the Domus of the soul. Creation whose symbol is the ash tree, embraces human creativity in the marble work that envelops it. So the Rebirth to which all three installations tend is the last act of the Montecassino exhibition.
The title Succisa Virescit, means “after being cut, it grows back” in Latin and represents the philosophy of the exhibition and Franca Pisani’s works: to create art from the fragments created by destruction.

Opening on Saturday, April 6, at 5 p.m. Hours: daily from 8:45 a.m. to 7 p.m. Ticket price: 5 € (reductions provided for groups and families). For all information you can call Info: +39-077.6311529, send an email to info@abbaziamontecassino.org, or visit the Montecassino Abbey website. To get to know Franca Pisani, you can visit her official website by clicking here.

Montecassino, Franca Pisani brings the remains of the Abbey destroyed by the Allies back to life

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