170 Stories in Bottles. The Liceo Artistico Modigliani in Padua Performs DANUBIO by Claudio Magris

Project location: SPAIN, Barcelona
Project start date: July 2017 - Project end date: December 2017
Project number: 2017-052
Beneficiary: Paolo Marcolongo

Paolo Marcolongo was born in Padua in 1956, he attended the Art High School "Pietro Selvatico", and then he studied sculpture at Venice Art Academy. From 1984 to 1996 he taught Plastic Arts at "Pietro Selvatico" school, and since 1996 he teaches the same subject at Padua Art State School "Amedeo Modigliani". From 1996 to 1998 he was the curator of "Pd 362", an Art gallery of contemporary jewels in Padua. From 1996 to 2002 he organized International Summer Workshops on the contemporary jewel for the Cultural Association "La Corte", at Sambruson-Dolo (Venice), inviting several famous artists to hold classes. From 1998 to 2005 he was the curator of the "Marcolongo Gallery" of Applied Arts in Padua. In 2005 he organized both an exhibition for Erico Nagai in the museum area of Oratorio di San Rocco in Padua, and the exhibition "Pro-gettare Architettura" at Villa Pisani (Stra'-Venice). In 2006 he organized an exhibition called "Un giro più del cerchio" for Ernst Gamperl at the Oratorio di San Rocco in Padua. In the academic year 2008-2009 he was Assistant Professor for Design at the Architecture Departement of the Faculty of Engineering in Padua. In 2012 he gives a workshop at the Center for Art and Visual Communication (ar.co) in Lisbon entitled "The housing space". In 2015 he organizes the exhibition "170 Racconti in bottiglia" in Padua, an installation that retrace the highlights of Claudio Magris' Danubio travel.

The artist submitted to the Foundation a proposal to exhibit in Barcelona the exhibition dedicated to the novel by Claudio Magris. CLAUDIO MAGRIS (Trieste 1939) was a professor of German literature first at the University of Turin, then at Trieste. He is a contributor at Corriere della Sera. He was awarded various foreign honors, including: Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of Spain (2009) and Prince of Asturias Award for Literature (Spain 2004), in 2016 received the TAOBUK AWARD for literary excellence.
DANUBIO (1986), perhaps his masterpiece, confirms him as one of the greatest Italian contemporary writers. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of its publication.
The exhibition was designed and carried out with the students of a Padua high school and consists of an architectural installation that represents each of the 170 stories "enclosed" inside a bottle. It is an exhibition that has a profound didactic and cultural sense.

Reading the stories, students have come close to fascinating cultures, landscapes and encounters. They have discovered that this extraordinary trip voiced by Magris has infinite facades, because through stories of simple daily rituals or accounts of the past, different ethnicities, troubled stories of the protagonists and wonderful places are portrayed, crossed by the river, which as an immense road connects the different cultures along its course. This river can be considered as a crossing of boundaries both political and social, and also psychological and religious. Students too had a cultural journey, which combines literature, history, art history, geography, philosophy and architecture. For each story, a summary has been written that synthesizes its spirit.

The students, after analyzing the traits of each single story, translated the language of words into that of images. Sketches were then created as a preparation to plastic language. Subsequently, scenarios/micro-installations have been developed, contained in transparent glass bordolese bottles. The bottle is loaded with metaphorical meanings: urgent and distant message container, vessel navigating from remote lands, trust in fate, and confidence that one’s message will be delivered.
The exhibition will be inaugurated on October 20 and will end on 25 November 2017. It will be held at Lo Spazio and will be curated by Paolo Marcolongo along with his students.
Engagement of Catalan schools and institutional cultural departments is expected.