Kindertotenlieder, is the new solo exhibition by Alfredo Pirri, the last stage in the “All’orizzonte” (On the orizon) project, preceded by Passi (Steps) the installation created by the artist at the Museo Novecento in Florence (11 September – 31 October 2015), and the solo exhibition at the Eduardo Secci Contemporary gallery.

Kindertotenlieder presents a group of works created by the artist between 2014 and 2015. The series borrows its title from the famous Lieder by Gustav Mahler, inspired by the lyrics that the Romantic poet Friedrich Rueckert dedicated to his dead children. Fascinated by Mahler’s songs since a young age, Pirri recently produced a series of works which he offers to the public as a new, harmonic countermelody.

His Kindertotenlieder are populated by burgeoning life, bubbling forms reminiscent of a joyful dance enveloped by a fine mist. Breaths of air seem to issue from the holes that dot the “stains of colour”, small kaleidoscopes giving off an undefined light that reveals, without showing it, the colour behind. The overall colour effect is the result of the artist’s pictoral know-how working alongside the background medium: special Plexiglas sheets directly (and imperceptibly) coloured in the fibre that help to generate ineffable presences.
Although the curving forms that figure on the single surfaces at times gather and condense in groups, the same forms always appear ready to expand beyond, stray into and resume their movement in the following work.
Some of these abstract portrayals are propped up on small tables, conjuring up a home interior, a cosy setting that welcomes us at the entrance to the gallery, making us feel at home; others dot the walls, creating an ethereal and rarefied space where the shapes reflect each other, echo and resonate like in a sound box.
On proceeding to the lower ground floor, similar circular forms, divided by five partitions, come together to produce a single pictoral ensemble. Here the works are enveloped by a soft grey that further links them together, creating a singular place, dotted with “openings”, that invites us to come closer, to penetrate, with our gaze and with our bodies, this physical and mental casing.