altrimenti il genere umano avrebbe conosciuto una storia diversa… aggiungo io. Anche qui c’è ancora l’idea di qualcosa di inarrestabile, che tutto fagocita e che quando si presenta non c’è nulla in grado di arrestarlo. Al contempo è prezioso, questo il senso della foglia d’oro. Mi piace chiudere con Anime dannate (1999) di Silvia Pisani e la passione che ne avvolge i corpi nudi, ma solo per ‘riabilitare’ l’idea delle fiamme del peccato e della disobbedienza… Adelinda Allegretti

English version by Francesca Cecchini:

For the exhibition at CAM\_, artists were specifically asked to give visual form to their personal idea of fire. And so, for the Hungarian-Canadian Tibor Hargitai, fire is literally accompanied by water, earth and air in a polyptych entitled 4 ELEMENTS? (2022). Their bond is inseparable. By contrast, in After the Fire Has Died (2022), the Australian artist Joy Engelman depicts destruction outright. The passage of fire leaves no escape, devouring everything and leaving a heap of ash and elements that are no longer recognisable. In Fire & Ashes (2021), Christina Mitterhuber, from Austria, also hints at flames and ashes blown up by the wind, though without as much fury. The same intensity is inherent in Paz y libertad para Ucrania (Peace and Liberty for Ukraine; 2022) by the Spanish artist Valentín Gallego Gallardo, where the fire is that of bombs. There is no need to depict it, just to evoke its passage. Fire is also the destructive force in both works by Gianmario Quagliotto, Eolie, il risveglio di Vulcano 1888 (Aeolian Islands, the awakening of Vulcano, 1888; 2022) and the contemporary Lato alieno della Terra (Alien Side of the Earth), together with Carmelo Compare's Fuoco cammina con me (Fire Walk with Me; 2022), featuring pure, incandescent lava proceeding slowly yet leaving no respite. In Re-reading of Art History, A Baker and His Wife, Pompeii, 1st Century AD (2019), Chinese artist Fu Wenjun gives a pop interpretation of the subject, though for those of us who know how it turned out, it has the force of a memento mori... Guglielmo De Filippo's work is the next step, and Rinascita della Fenice (Rebirth of the Phoenix; 2021) clearly conveys the life and hope inherent in the firebird's symbolism. We are at a turning point. Materia nera con nera con tre crateri rossi (Black Matter with Three Red Craters; 2021), by Violino Mantieco, completely sublimates the idea of destruction. That heavily ravaged surface, evoking a landscape after a lava flow, and boiling craters, becomes the embodiment of a transmutation. What if it’s more of an inner turmoil, slowly making its way deep inside us, only apparently destroying, actually giving birth to something 'other'? From here on, fire is not only no longer frightening, it gradually becomes an ally. In the canvas by the American artist Isolda Mora Noli, Rainforest Girl (2022), the human figure and nature intertwine to such an extent that it becomes impossible to distinguish them; similarly, the complementary colours red and green behave like two apparently opposing entities mutually enhancing each other. Next, the delicate, small and precious watercolours by Canadian artist Catherine Perehudoff Fowler, Flaming Clouds (2021) and Red Clouds #5 (2008), igniting the sky and its reflection in the water with a red glow that brings the landscape to life. The same sunset sky appears in My Only Sunshine (2013) by Turkish artist Ersoy Yilmaz. Also by him are two other contemporary ceramics, Match and Smoke respectively, in which the fire is the dying one of a cigarette. In the works of Irish artist Fintan Whelan, Among the Flames I and II (2022), the destructive power of fire is only a distant memory. Everything moves, in accord with it, in a fluid and enveloping manner. Here, even the red of the flames gives way to less impetuous and aggressive – I would say diluted - hues. Even so, the colour red does not disappear, rather, it changes role. In her Rules of the Game of Luck (2022), the Greek artist Marie Perrakis inserts words such as 'hope',

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