Where the years do not turn the pages

In this exhibition titled after a verse from Agnolo Poliziano, the Belgian artist Audrey Guttman presents works inspired by the role and position of Il Salviatino over Florence, merging the palazzo’s perspective and her own to reinterpret the symbols and clichés of the Florentine capital. The artist gives us access to a new space-time, free of the usual constraints of “present, past, future” and “here and there”, leading us to envision another possible interpretation, suspended and dreamlike: where the years do not turn the pages. The title lends the project its name, not only by referencing the artist’s daily ritual of turning pages to select the images that emerge, but also the re-interpreting of the Florentine imagery and political history. In his famous Stanze, Poliziano described the kingdom of Venus in gauzy verses that inspired Sandro Botticelli to famously depict the goddess. Audrey Guttman addresses the cracks in the traditional depiction of femininity and of the city as its avatar, bringing to life a new kingdom in which everything is free, subverted, exchanged, and rendered cheekily metaphorical. Through overlapping and cutting fragments, she provides a new perspective on the artistic and political heritage of the Renaissance capital, generating a metamorphosis of the gaze thanks to postcards and other so-called “tourist” objects. The artists’ collages highlights the iconography of one of the most attractive cities in the world, as she duplicates and manipulates the images of the key paintings of its quintessential museum, the Uffizi. Reared on stories of Florence’s classicism, the Medici’s cultural glory and the almost intangible depth of the city’s history, Audrey Guttman feels the urge to slice into this heritage to find a more personal relationship with its oft-consumed beauty. Maddalena Pelù