ZRCALO / MIRROR BY ANNIBEL CUNOLDI ATTEMS

by MARCO MENATO

In Nova Gorica, the Maks bookshop – café hosted in January the installation by the Gorizia artist Annibel Cunoldi Attems entitled “Zrcalo / Specchio”, which can also be seen from the outside. The exhibition, curated by Klaudija Figelj, is part of the Episkop project, conceived by the Nova Gorica branch of the Slovenian National Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) for the official program of GO! 2025 and “wants to shed light on the many aspects of the past and the possible options for the future of the Gorizia palimpsest” as specified in the colophon of the first issue of the catalogue (46 p.), which will be completed at the end of the project. A catalogue in progress, written in Slovenian, Italian, Friulian and English, divided into two chapters (the first linguistic and cultural and the second reserved for the work on display), which the visitor can build according to his or her own interests (it cannot be classified as a publication in handouts, which acquires, that is, a meaning at the end of the collection of individual issues, given that even on its own it retains its bibliographic and content autonomy).   

“To a brick wall, rough to the touch, the artist adds a mirror, smooth as oil and sharp as a razor, to create contrast”, to be precise there are two mirrors (Gorizia – Nova Gorica) divided by … a brick border, on the first of them are applied, according to a studied geometric scheme, the words Affirmatio, Dialog, Forum, Idea, Skupaj [in red], Krog and on the other the same but reversed, precisely ‘mirrored’. The mirrors obviously also reflect the external reality, the tree-lined avenue, during the hours of the day, as can be seen in the photograph in the catalog. Annibel Cunoldi Attems has a long artistic activity, as a painter and engraver, but in recent years she has preferred the form of installations, whether permanent or temporary. He has worked a lot abroad, especially in Germany (since 1990 he has lived in Berlin). Obviously, his bibliography is very rich, which someone will finally have to set up and order in a unitary corpus.

I am particularly attached to her for having chosen the Soča State Library in 2005 as the venue for the installation Fortuna comparationis, where the word is an important part of the work. From the library of Gorizia to the Royal Library of Copenhagen the journey is long, yet even in that magnificent library (which I visited a few years ago), resting on the sea in a half-ancient and half-modern building, he was always able to work with the same technique of words, here combined with photographs, applied to the stained glass windows (the title was Save). A truly European artist, who lives Europe and knows its languages (among other things, she has a degree in German language and literature) and who feels at home in Gorizia, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Ljubljana or Copenhagen. The critical text in the catalogue (p. 36-43) explains the choice of individual words, and I therefore refer to it, without wishing to summarise. Here I would like to offer my opinion and first of all to underline the choice of languages: Latin, Italian, German and Slovenian, English does not appear rightly, the standardizing language par excellence and in this case we want to emphasize the equality of the individual speakers, including Latin, the first European language. The clear and clear words are printed on the mirrors with decision and precise will, they want to affirm precisely the power of encounter and dialogue, even in the absence of complete understanding. Six words that sweep away, in an instant, but not by magic, decades of misunderstandings, violence (how can we forget the stories of Boris Pahor during fascism), walls, exhausting and stupid controls, words that are the viaticum for a future of peace, despite the fact that today, in 2025, it is not easy to see peace in territories that are all in all close to us.

In front of a mirror we look at ourselves, even if we don’t want to, in the face, we uncover ourselves, we evaluate our appearance, we are sometimes able to look inside ourselves, the mirror is a powerful reflector of reality, whatever it is, it does not hide, sometimes it even amplifies and worries: this is what art does, which must perform – especially in this case – a civil function, it must not adorn but must force us to look, precisely, without pretense. A reality, ours, of the small Gorizia, in which someone still does not want to see themselves reflected and continue to tell themselves a story that has never existed or that has existed only in crude propaganda. Words are also the raw material of research, with words documents are written and books are printed and research cannot be the snare of the ideologies that unfortunately have plagued these lands. An installation therefore full of meanings, which makes you think, and at the same time with its chromatic clarity intrigues.