Perghem Gelmi’s “Historical Centre”. Critical review by Franco de Battaglia.
With a clear gaze tinted with suffering, full of love and great loneliness, with almost childish lines that are always bordering on the surreal, Michelangelo Perghem Gelmi offers up the portrait of his own Trento to the Trentino people. The exhibition, which opened at the Castello art gallery, has a significant trait which distinguishes it from the numerous art exhibitions opening this autumn: its will to revive a social dimension of the city as a “living house” through images and spaces emptied of people, cars, animals and things. This is the reason why Perghem Gelmi’s exhibition takes on a different, more real meaning, tapping into the political and economic debate about Trento historical centre and its renovation works, in an attempt to preserve its craftsmade and village-like dimension.
In his youth, Perghem Gelmi left Italy to go to Argentina for work. Many years later, he returned to Trento and that is when he saw and really understood the city, he fell in love with it and as a result of his long walks through the city centre, he rendered its corners, its houses and windows with his charcoal.
Twenty years on, those charcoal sketches were no longer enough for him and he felt the urge of injecting some colour in those early drawings. Through the new vibrant, living colours, he wanted to portray a fresh, neat, glorious city full of joy, where the static surfaces of the houses and the squares are enlivened by the intense and scented contours of the surrounding mountains, which add an Alpine atmosphere to the city. Through this exhibition, Perghem Gelmi makes a clear statement amidst the sterile debate on the city that is so fashionable these days. His work on Trento is a testimony that we must cherish; it would be a real shame if it were lost or dismembered.
archivioperghem@libero.it