When Vanessa landed in Padula

The tableau vivant entitled Thirteen Christs immortalizes thirteen men of different ages, dressed in a white tunic. Their appearance recalls the image of Jesus Christ. The performance, in fact, is inspired by concepts such as redemption, violence and the fight against evil declined in the contemporary era. The frame of the scene is the Certosa di San Lorenzo. In the refectory hall, characterized by the presence of sixty-one walnut stalls all leaning against the walls, a long inclined table is placed in the center on which the thirteen Christs are arranged, around them three hundred men and women in religious silence. The scene is dominated by a 1749 painting by Alessio D'Elia in oil on the wall depicting the Wedding at Cana, or the Miracle of water and wine. The living painting by Vanessa Beecroft - VB82 - comes to life in the Certosa and the bond that the work of art establishes with the architecture in which it is placed becomes inseparable: the polychrome marbles of the ancient floor alternate with the long white linen cassocks of the three hundred figures who move around the room, the silk that wraps the bodies of the thirteen christs overlaps the bas-reliefs, finding continuity between the transparency that reveals the complexion with the veins of the pulpit above. The gold of the reliefs is balanced by the curls of a young Christ seated on the ground.

This is the time to try to make sense of our condition as young future architects. It took more than four years to be able to intercept a dialogue with the society and the cultural world in which we move, our wishes are now clearer.

We like to think that in this issue it is possible to begin to define a state in which to recognize oneself, a state that is “state of the art”. In Italian, the term "State of the Art" corresponds to the maximum level at which the knowledge of a specific scientific or professional field has reached. We like to consider the completeness of Beecroft's living picture as a necessary condition for affirming this state.

Maura Mantelli