In coordination with the exhibition Autoritratto come Salvo, now in progress in the POLYPHONY section until 27 February 2022, sound artist Ramona Ponzini presents a performance dedicated to Salvo.

The work traces back through Salvo’s entire oeuvre from an aural standpoint, from the early conceptual works to the impressions of his travels in the Orient. It includes a selection of music he loved, based on research in the artist’s archives and conversations with his family.

While the recording Trees are Columns with Clouds on Top shown by Ramona Ponzini in the exhibition concentrates exclusively on the large painting L’autogrill made by Salvo in 2014 – through a sonic interpretation of the phase of its creation as well as that of its perception – the live action sets out to create a soundtrack for the artist’s entire career, as well as a tribute to his human figure in private life. The record and the performance both reflect the typical compositional approach of Ramona Ponzini, who as Luca Cerizza points out in the text included on the recording: “follows the most purely conceptual character of Salvo’s work. Not only the idea of ‘editing’ that we can find in his early photomontages, or in the lists of some of his paintings, but how much ‘sampling’ there is in his painting, made not only of references to art history, but of practically codified elements (trees, clouds, ruins, minarets, etc.) that continually recur in many of his works.”