Christian Fogarolli: Stone of Madness

The installation by Christian Fogarolli creates a connection with the museum’s collections, addressing the question of how to approach mental care through the centuries up to the contemporary, from old popular beliefs to today’s pharmacological solutions.

For Sala di Camilla, Fogarolli presents the work “Leaven” (2015), a glass case containing all the diagnostic and statistical manuals of mental disorders from 1952 to 2015 that the artist has collected and purchased. The title symbolises the exponential increase of declared mental disorders.

On view also the installation “Allégorie de la Folie”, a sculptural self-portrait in glass and natural quartz reacting chromatically if exposed to specific light frequencies. The work is based on ancient popular beliefs for which a small stone, appearing in the skull of some individuals for unknown reasons, would provoke them behavioural deviation, madness, strangeness, and was considered a foreign body to be extirpated.

ART CITY Bologna opening hours:
Friday 1 and Sunday 3 February 2019: 10.00 – 20.00
Saturday 2 February 2019: 10.00 – 24.00