At the Irpino Museum the exhibition "Sovra Esposti/Over Exposed"

The Irpino Museum, in collaboration with the Videoinsight® Foundation, is pleased to present, from 1 to 29 July 2023, the Contemporary Art Exhibition "Sovra Esposti / Over Exposed", curated by Andris Brinkmanis, with the Artistic Direction of Rebecca Russian.

The appointment is part of the program, "A year of exhibitions at the Irpino Museum" promoted by the Province of Avellino with the Technical-Scientific Coordination of the Irpino Museum and the "S. and G. Capone”.

The exhibition will begin on July 1, 2023 from 6.00 pm at the Monumental Complex of the Bourbon Prison in Avellino  and will involve internationally known contemporary artists: Marina Cavadini, Gianluca Capozzi, Gea Casolaro, Paolo Cirio, Gaia De Megni, Binta Diaw, Delio Jasse , Giulia Maiorano, Edoardo Manzoni, Elisabetta Mariuzzo, Elena Mazzi, Alessandra Messali, Stefano Serretta, Giulio Squillacciotti.

The Artistic Director of the exhibition is Rebecca Russo Philanthropist, Patron, Contemporary Art Collector, Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Scientific Researcher, Author and Creator of the Videoinsight® Method applied in Medicine with rigorously verified scientific results, published and presented at International Medical Congresses.

President of the Videoinsight Foundation and director of the study centre, Rebecca Russo has created the prestigious Videoinsight® Collection, a selection of contemporary artworks with a High Psycho-diagnostic and Psycho-therapeutic impact: "The art manifesto that I theorized in 2010 contains a fundamental point, looking at a few images of art for a long time, in my ideal model looking at only one work of art at a time for a long time, because the relationship with art, which is individual, can only be profound if one he has time to look, to look at himself while he looks, to have time to become aware, to notice the details. A single work seen calmly and repeatedly can be therapeutic, can penetrate and stimulate evolution. The Videoinsight collection is a collection of images to look at with this approach.”

The collective exhibition, which he directs in Avellino, combines the past and the contemporary through artistic representations, placing them in a place of singular value in Italy: the Monumental Complex of the Bourbon Prison. Unique, suggestive and evocative place for its history, a monument that embodies a specific idea, era and ideology: hence the choice as the site of the Exhibition. It was built in 1826 by the architect Giuliano De Fazio, inspired by the thought of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the creator and promoter of a new type of prison, called the "panopticon". Particular is its Enlightenment-inspired walls in a characteristic hemicycle.

"Sovra Esposti / Over Exposed" took its cue, in its title and contents, from the "omnivision" possible in the Bourbon prison, whose "panoptic" structure allows immediate observation of everything visible inside. The people interned in the panoptic prison, due to overexposure and the total lack of privacy, developed mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or mental dissociation, as Rebecca states "...a place where those who lived were always above the gaze of control, of vigilance. The Mostra Sovra Esposti overturns the experience to overexpose the spectators to images that can do good, awaken, make them evolve”.

"In contemporary society - says Russo - we are heavily and constantly "overexposed" to noise, smartphones, the media, pollution, stress, video cameras, video surveillance, algorithms, infrared rays, televisions, internet, to artificial intelligence. The excessive amount of exposure to images, the speed with which they stimulate the mind and body, the impossibility of freely selecting the quality of the images absorbed, causes superficiality, boredom, addiction , homogenization. Works of art can actually make a difference especially in a contemporary world that is quantitatively and qualitatively overexposed to images, quantitatively because bombarded by advertising, television, smartphone images, not being able to analyze them all we have developed defenses of superficiality, all these images create a gas effect around us, they flow over us and do not penetrate us. Qualitatively because the images are falsified, repetitive and increasingly empty of content".

The Works of Art chosen for the exhibition "Sovra Esposti / Over Exposed" indicate possible escape routes from contemporary prisons, no longer physical, but mental, internalized, suggest paths of care, question and awaken consciences, "...not by chance looking at images that cause well-being can improve the quality of life, hence the creation of the Videoinsight project, which is linked to the mission of choosing and disseminating images that have positive, beneficial, therapeutic contents to provoke intuition, creative imagination, problem solving, to raise the tone of mood, to have a positive impact on our psycho-physical well-being", in fact Rebecca underlines the integration of culture and health" ... I verified the impact of the images also at a diagnostic level, not only therapeutic , to understand people, using the Rorschach Test that of the 10 tables with ink stains .. the personality tends to project itself into the ambiguous image, therefore by interpreting the image it reveals itself ... in the same way by interpreting the work of 'art, personality reveals itself… In this exhibition Sovra Esposti we have tried to transform tears into beauty, stress into therapy, discomfort into salvation… by overexposing the public to images that can cause insight, therefore have a positive impact”.

The creation of the invitation to the exhibition is specific: "The luminous work, L'autre regard, 2016-2023, Courtesy the artist and Ncontemporary, by Giulia Maiorano has been chosen for the invitation to the exhibition, to exhort the observer to develop the Inner Eye of Insight, it is no coincidence that there is only one in the image, in order to activate a real therapeutic challenge, to become aware, to intuit a solution”.

Rebecca Russo's great desire, as President of the VideoInsight Foundation, as philanthropist, collector and patron of the arts, is to invest in Irpinia, as she says: "Not only with the Monumental Complex of the Bourbon Prison of Avellino, with which I will collaborate closely in the 2024 with a major exhibition…the relationship with Avellino and all of Irpinia will continue…Irpinia is a virgin territory with respect to the Contemporary art system, but with very high potential…. we can create a beautiful project of Contemporary Art, crossing the wonders of Irpinia with the credibility of myself and of the Foundation which has been seriously involved in contemporary art for twenty years…".

Translated with Google translator