Curated by Leonardo Regano, the project highlights a precise line of research by the artist, that dedicated to the SEA, an element that Bellantoni has investigated in its historical, political, social and cultural connotations.
CUBO's two exhibition spaces have been chosen as the focal points of a hypothetical elliptical narrative that highlights all the expressive possibilities of Bellantoni's artistic practice: from video to photography, from the documentation of performances and interventions in public space, to sculpture and performance, all of which serve to narrate the entire quadrilogy of works spanning seven years (2013-2020) between Patagonia and Apulia.
The artist's physical and real journey is always accompanied by the metaphorical and introspective journey into her own Ego. The body becomes an instrument of investigation and experience in a solitary journey in search of the Other beyond herself to which is added the sense of language that becomes an instrument of interaction for the artist.
The journey began in 2013 with the project Hala Yella adiòs/addio (2013, Cape Horn), in which the artist pays homage to Abuela Cristina Calderón Harban (1928 - 2022), the last person in the world to speak Yaghan, the language of the Native Americans who settled in Tierra del Fuego and southern Argentine Patagonia, as a native speaker.
In Maremoto (2016), the sea becomes the space through which the artist is forced to merge and blend with the Other, and in this case the foreign, migrant Other, disrupted by the flight from her homeland.
In the project Ho annegato il mare (I drowned the sea, 2018), the sea again takes on all the shades of grey. This work is closely linked to CeMento (CeMent, 2019), with a strong ecological statement emerging in relation to an impossible encounter with the sea torn apart by man's polluting action.
The last stop on this journey is the Apulian coast with Corpomorto (Dead weight, 2020)
which in nautical jargon represents a heavy object, usually made of concrete, cast on the seabed and used as an anchor for buoys. In Bellantoni's action, these are replaced by large letters that emerge on the surface of the water, composing the inscription: dead body anchor between heaven and earth courage, hence the connection between anchor - courage. Anchoring.
Once again, the word becomes a constructive element of meaning, an element that activates thoughts of a poetic and political nature.
