With a one-piece exhibition by Arturo Hernández Alcázar entitled Blind Horizon, Underneath the Arches launches its activities in the fascinating spaces of the Aqua Augusta (Serino Aqueduct).
Blind Horizon is the outcome of a period of residence and research that saw Arturo Hernández Alcázar explore several areas of Naples and its periphery, ideally retracing the ancient path of the Roman aqueduct.
The artist shaped his previous research, which has always been engaged in a reflection on ideas of control, manipulation of forces and power, on suggestions from the territory and the archaeological site where his intervention takes place, conceiving of an installation that integrates intangible sources –like sound– with strong physical presences. He works on the concept of stratification and on how this translates visually and acoustically in a city like Naples, into perpendicular planes that cross constructions from different eras, or into lucky adjustments of contingent problems.
It’s the portrait of a city that, growing on top of itself, has preserved all of its past lives, incorporating them into new histories; a geological, social, anthropological and architectural stratification that itself becomes the city’s heritage, starting from the example of the Serino Aqueduct, built in Roman times and rediscovered just a few years ago, underneath the Palazzo Peschici Maresca. Starting from this premise, Arturo Hernández Alcázar made recordings in several areas of Naples, from the volcanic areas to workshops of the Sanità, from the markets to the disused industrial areas, making these fragments merge into a single track on seven levels, as these are, by definition, the “layers” of the city.
For the underground space, the artist has conceived of an installation that links, with a certain imposition, to the visitor’s pathway, using megaphones to underline the logic of control of public spaces through information.
The sound element then becomes what constructs the space; it transforms it into a latent erosive force able to alter the established equilibrium. From a visual point of view, instead, the artist reconstructs a sloping line, an artificial horizon depicted by a layering of sounds and materials from the place, tensions and forces modified according to slope control, built and dictated by the accidental morphology of the terrain: it’s not a linear, ideal horizon, but is disconnected and irregular, forced to resettle from time to time based on contingencies and, as such, a symbol of the search for a balance in conditions that are per se precarious. Controlling the horizon means not only exercising power, but also constructing a new equilibrium; no one can guarantee, however, that it is the definitive one. For the underground space, the artist has conceived of an installation that links, with a certain imposition, to the visitor’s pathway, using megaphones to underline the logic of control of public spaces through information. The sound element then becomes what constructs the space; it transforms it into a latent erosive force able to alter the established equilibrium. From a visual point of view, instead, the artist reconstructs a sloping line, an artificial horizon depicted by a layering of sounds and materials from the place, tensions and forces modified according to slope control, built and dictated by the accidental morphology of the terrain: it’s not a linear, ideal horizon, but is disconnected and irregular, forced to resettle from time to time based on contingencies and, as such, a symbol of the search for a balance in conditions that are per se precarious. Controlling the horizon means not only exercising power, but also constructing a new equilibrium; no one can guarantee, however, that it is the definitive one.
—Chiara Pirozzi and Alessandra Troncone
Contributed by
Arturo Hernández Alcázar