Club Carpeneto 8|11|14 November
Club Carpeneto is housed in Palazzo Lanzavecchia Fallabrini, shaped by two prominent local families from the eighteenth century onward.
Its history is closely tied to land, ownership, status and power — making it a meaningful setting for BEYOND THE FREEPORT.
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CONVERSATION PIECES the expo
Twelve objects. Twelve rooms. Twelve shifts in context.
The presentation moves through twelve rooms, each placing an object in a different visual, historical or social context.
The objects are linked to paintings, fragments of history and questions of access, value, visibility and ownership.
Rather than treating jewellery as decoration, Conversation Pieces uses the object as an interface: a point of contact between material, history, place and viewer.
1 — MARBLE
Transformation
The marble table introduces the first principle: transformation.
Stone is cut, shaped and assigned a new function.
The same logic appears in the object placed here.
Fragments that once belonged to something else are not restored to their original state. They are used to construct a new form.
This approach is informed by the philosophy of kintsugi: breakage does not necessarily reduce value.
Transformation can create a new one.
2 — THE LARGE RING
The tension of ugliness
This room is defined by scale, display and visual authority.
The large ring responds directly to that environment.
The work deliberately resists conventional ideas of beauty. Excess, awkwardness and imperfection are used to keep the eye active.
Beauty is immediately recognisable.
Imperfection requires a second look.
That tension also reflects the subjects behind the collection: inequality, ownership, absence and hidden history.
The object does not resolve those subjects into something comfortable.
3 — THE FRAGMENT / MUSEUM BROOCH
The frame creates value
The surrounding photographs introduce the idea of framing.
A frame selects.
It decides what deserves attention.
The brooch applies the same principle to a broken piece of blue-and-white ceramic.
Separated from its original context and placed inside a new one, the fragment changes status.
The piece was developed as a museum object that could move beyond the museum.
History is no longer contained behind glass.
It circulates.
The fragment becomes the frame.
LOOK HERE.
4 — AURORA
Who is looking at whom?
Aurora is placed in relation to two female faces already present in the room.
The setting introduces one of the central questions in the work of Artemisia Gentileschi.
Her significance lies not simply in painting women, but in the position she gives them.
Her female figures think, decide, resist, suffer and act.
They are not merely available to the viewer.
This shift in perspective leads to a larger question:
Who is looking?
And who has historically been allowed to determine what is seen?
5 — THE SHOP / EARRINGS
From concept to prêt-à-porter
The shop introduces fashion, recognition, craftsmanship and desire.
Major fashion houses build visual identities so strong that recognition often comes before the logo itself.
The earrings are placed here because they operate between concept and accessibility.
In fashion, that translation is called prêt-à-porter.
The challenge is to make an idea more accessible without losing its original language.
The materials remain deliberately unexpected:
broken ceramic, composite and Amsterdam bicycle inner tube.
The comparison with Arte Povera lies in the rejection of the idea that value must begin with expensive material.
The question becomes:
What creates value?
Material?
Craftsmanship?
Recognition?
Origin?
Or knowledge?
6 — VENUS AND CUPID
The woman as image
This object is positioned between two images of women.
That setting raises questions about representation.
Women are among the most frequently depicted subjects in Western art history, while historically having much less control over the way they were represented.
The same imbalance shaped the writing, collecting and institutionalisation of history.
Artemisia Gentileschi offers a different position.
Her female figures can be sensual without becoming passive.
They retain agency and self-possession.
The question is therefore not whether beauty or desire should disappear.
The question is:
Who controls the gaze?
7 — BATHSHEBA / THE LIBRARY
Jewellery, access and patronage
This room introduces jewellery as a form of power.
Historically, jewellery and dress operated within systems of status, access, alliances and patronage.
Visibility could create influence.
Influence could open doors.
Placed near the library, the object gains another layer.
Knowledge changes the way an object is read.
The same principle informs the role of the Guardian Angel within Conversation Pieces.
The wearer is not positioned simply as an owner.
The wearer becomes a temporary carrier of the story.
8 — CIRCULATION
The object has to leave the room
Beyond the Freeport began with a concern about cultural visibility.
Important artworks increasingly disappear from public view into private collections, freeports and financial structures.
A work of art can remain economically active while becoming culturally inaccessible.
Conversation Pieces cannot reverse that system.
They can, however, make it visible.
Through the unique ID and QR code, each object carries information outside the exhibition space.
Into the street.
Onto a train.
At a dinner table.
On a jacket.
The object becomes a mobile interface.
Circulation is therefore part of the work itself.
9 — THE SPEAKEASY
What becomes hidden?
The speakeasy introduces the structure of controlled access.
Something exists, but remains hidden.
Entry depends on knowledge.
That mechanism connects directly to Beyond the Freeport.
A hidden bar and a hidden painting are not equivalent.
The structure, however, is comparable:
Access is controlled.
Who knows?
Who enters?
Who remains outside?
10 — THE SMOKING ROOM
Rules change meaning
This room introduces regulation and cultural change.
Smoking once belonged naturally to public and social life.
Today it is restricted.
The object itself did not fundamentally change.
Its cultural framework did.
Art is subject to the same process.
Artists move in and out of the canon.
Objects gain and lose status.
Language changes.
Morality changes.
Institutions change.
Meaning is never completely fixed.
The fragment acknowledges that instability.
History is incomplete.
11 — THE TINY KITCHEN
Making by hand
The kitchen brings the focus back to making.
The objects are built by hand from relatively simple materials.
Composite is shaped.
Fragments are positioned.
Surfaces are constructed.
Elements are cut, joined, repaired and reconsidered.
The complexity lies not in the number of materials, but in the decisions made with them.
The comparison with Italian cooking is direct:
few ingredients can be enough when knowledge, timing, gesture and precision are present.
The value lies in the transformation.
12 — THE EYE / VR ROOM
What comes after looking?
The final room moves from the physical object into immersive space.
The eye introduces the act of looking itself.
Digital environments, augmented reality and artificial intelligence are changing the conditions in which images are encountered.
They do not replace the original artwork.
But physical proximity does not automatically produce meaningful access.
The Night Watch is seen behind glass.
The Mona Lisa is often experienced through a field of phones.
Immersive space offers another possibility.
Works that are geographically dispersed can be brought into relation.
Context can be reconstructed.
Connections can become visible.
The final question is therefore not about technology.
It is about perception.
What changes when the viewer enters another space?
Does distance increase — or does another form of proximity become possible?
CLOSING
Across all twelve rooms, the objects function as fragments, frames and interfaces.
They are not presented only to be admired.
They are designed to carry information, trigger questions and move history back into circulation.
The object may be small.
The conversation around it can be much larger.