The Italian Cultural Centre Gallery Celebrates the end of the plague!
Decadence and Decay: the Neo Baroque World of Mimmo Baronello
August 15, 2023 through to October 31, 2023
August 15 is the festa of the Sicilian plague Saint Rosalea. In honour of this ancient celebration, the Il Museo Gallery has invited the Sicilian artist Mimmo Baronello to transform the Gallery itself into an Italian baroque church. Baronello, both a fine art painter and a theatre designer, will convert the gallery into a liminal and a contemplative space where the medieval remote past, characterized by plague and aristocratic decadence, stands side by side with the excesses of contemporary corporatism and the world of the pandemic. Baronello believes the two worlds have a lot in common. By invoking the intersession of Saint Rosalea, Baronello draws attention and seeks social redemption for our current dark age. Our desire to overconsume is exhausting the planet, he notes, and we are on the precipice of a society in decline. Please join us for this transformative experience.
In many ways the Italian Cultural Centre was on the front line of Covid-19. Not only was Italy one of the first country’s to be badly affected by the plague, the ICC, also became a vaccination site, being voted one of the best vaccination sites in BC. In honour of the last three years, the ICC Gallery is invoking the intersession of the Sicilian Plague Saint, Santa Rosalia whose festival spans mid July to Early September. In celebration of her, the ICC Gallery has invited the Sicilian artist and theatre designer Mimmo Baronello to recreate the Il Museo gallery into a baroque church dedicated to Santa Rosalia. In this exhibition entitled Decadence and Decay: The Neo Baroque World of Mimmo Baronello, audiences will not only contemplate the Saint and our need for redemption but also will reflect back on our destabilized world caused by the virus and the many political and social forces which arose in its path of destruction. “The world which gave rise to the plague in the Middle Ages and Renaissance has many things in common with our current age,” states Baronello. “For example, we are a society of excess, and our planet is in decline from over commercialism, environmental exploitation and an ever-widening class divide. We are indeed in an age of decadence.”
Please join us for this artistic and immersive experience as we look at plague, decadence and the state of our world. The exhibition opens on August 15 at 7 pm. The artist Mimmo Baronello will be present to talk about plague, the environment, his homeland of Sicily, and of course, his art.
For further information please contact:
Dr. Angela Clarke, Ph. D
Museum Director
angela@iccvancouver.ca
phone 604 356 9908
