IT

For the first time in Italy, Georgian artist Nino Kapanadze celebrates the Scrovegni Chapel frescoed by Giotto in a contemporary way. The theme of encounter and union are central to the exhibition curated by Marta Papini at the Bonollo Foundation in Thiene, open until 24 May 2025. 

Established in Thiene, in the province of Vicenza, in 2023, the Sandra and Giancarlo Bonollo Foundation promotes international contemporary art and emerging artists. The Foundation hosts two parallel projects: exhibitions curated by Chiara Nuzzi ‒ bringing together works donated from the private collection of the Bonollo family ‒ and the exhibitions curated by Marta Papini ‒ solo exhibitions of contemporary artists and new talents. 
Curated precisely by Marta Papini is Rendezvous, the first solo exhibition in Italy of Nino Kapanadze, open until 24 May 2025. The Georgian artist, born in 1990, works in Paris, where she earned a Master’s degree in Fine Arts at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Her pictorial technique explores the abstract and the figurative through the use of soft colours obtained from natural pigments. In her depictions, she evokes Christian symbolism and sacred art, representing her own perception of the divine. 
Rendezvous in French means appointment, meeting: starting from this word, the curator has articulated the exhibition around the concept of the union of lovers, nature and the divine. 

NINO KAPANADZE ON SHOW IN THIENE

The exhibition was inspired by the Georgian artist’s visit to the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, where she was able to admire the frescoes painted by Giotto. 
In the first space of the Bonollo Foundation, the former Chiesa delle Dimesse, Kapanadze wanted to pay tribute to the so-called first kiss in art history, that between Joachim and Anne, depicted by Giotto in the Paduan chapel. The theme of union has been taken up by the Georgian artist through the site-specific installation Tanto gentile e tanto onesta. The work, composed of two chiffon sheets coloured by hand with natural pigments, symbolizes the clothes worn by Mary’s parents in the medieval representation of Padua. The two sheets, placed opposite each other, descended lightly until they met gently on the floor in front of the altar, inviting one to cross the threshold of the Foundation to look at the work more closely. In the middle of the room, in place of the altarpiece, a blue tondo, Incontro, celebrated the figure of Giotto. 
In the room next to the Chiesa delle Dimesse, twenty-six sheets of paper, each coloured entirely with a natural pigment, offered a taste of the palette used by the artist for the creation of the works placed in the following rooms.  

NINO KAPANADZE AT THE FONDAZIONE BONOLLO 

The spaces of the Foundation also hosted three large-scale works, opposed to a smaller work, which explores the theme of the encounter through different languages: in Rendezvous 27, a raptor inspired by the angels painted in the Scrovegni Chapel symbolizes the point of contact between the divine and human worlds. In Rendezvous 28 and Rendezvous 31, on the other hand, the protagonist is nature, the place where, according to Kapanadze, the perception of the divine occurs. The artist’s aim is to offer her vision of purity and sacredness, focusing on the solemnity of Creation. 
In the last rooms of the Foundation dedicated to the exhibition were Rendezvous 29 and Rendezvous 30, produced by the artist in a site-specific way to dialogue with each other. In them, two opposing elements such as fire and water came into communication, as proof of the indissoluble bond that unites them. 
Within the same space, several lithographs with floral subjects were placed, representing the union that gives life: the cohesion of nature described throughout the exhibition by Nino Kapanadze. 

Erica Garbin 

https://fondazionebonollo.com/progetti/rendezvous-nino-kapanadze/

Translated with AI