oh bella verzaschina
“oh bella verzaschina” is a group exhibition curated by gal and featuring works by
young artists from locarno that at the time of the exhibition lived in zurich, such as
gal, stefano cascili,
renzo sartori,
studio.soloamore,
gaëlle guidotti,
marco mauerhofer,
and maya moser.
it was shown twice: in toni areal (zurich, switzerland) in 2024, and then a projection of the video
works was shown in mono (locarno, switzerland) in the same year. this duplicity is very
relevant with the nature of the works, two places in conversation with each other, with different reactions
and audiences.
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born from the desire to narrate locarno, the city where i was born, and its relationship
with zurich, the city where i live. i feel like ticino has a lot of tourism from the
german-speaking part of europe and this influences the town significantly. locarno’s is
mainly known through its tourism and intends to continue in that trajectory (according to
the municipal economic commission address report of locarno, 2019), in 2019 its region had
more than 2.4 million hotel stays. this impacts the culture and politics of the municipality,
which needs to decide whether to favour the visitors or the locals.
as a young person, i feel like that decision was taken not in favour of us. i find it
interesting that this has not only motivated me to move into a bigger city (such as zurich)
but has created in me another tourist from zurich that visits the city i was born in.
this often is not only the case for locarno, but most places in ticino. there was always an
idea that to achieve success, one had to move to the more successful side of switzerland,
and in a way has always created a sense of inferiority for the canton that i was born into.
for the exhibition two artworks were created by gal. the first, "mir sind nur kulisse" (2024),
is a video in colour featuring gal and the voice of
justin rohner.
in it in this video gal
imagines himself talking with the institutions that control the territory of locarno,
criticising a culture that, in order to rely on (german speaking) tourism, transforms itself in an innocuous
pleasant environment. the consequences of this decision is the erasure of independent
cultural identity, especially a more "threatening" young artistic expression.
in a criticism of televised journalistic methods, the video is then taken and dubbed over,
erasing its energy, its meaning, and its intention. how much can we listen to someone
without imposing our point of view? when reporting on a journalistic story, is it fair to
transform it in a non-emotional one? the criticism of what is a perceived sanitized and
curated cultural expression is perfectly coherent with the rest of the works.
the second artwork that gal created for this exhibition is “i wish i could love you
without leaving you (locarno)”.
filmed with his signature 2009 camcorder, is an effort to immortalize locarno, the city
where gal grew up, from the prospective of all of gal’s experiences. in this alternative
guide of the city, gal shares a part of his past to help you understand what locarno means
to him. as part of this tourist guide, the video explores the emotional attractions of the
city and what they mean to our development. at the end of the video, the artist tries to
explore and break the role that physical taboos have had on him and his life in the city.
the video was created after leaving the childhood town a few years prior, noticing how often
things would change once there is physical distance, a great metaphor for the ending of the
video. are we the place we come from?
the exhibition is called ‘oh bella verzaschina’ because i was shocked to learn
that the song we always sing, and associate with patriotic imagery, was not born from
a distant past but was actually written by a folk musician, vittorio castelnuovo, in
1944. i began to reflect on how something we associate with our identity is less than
a hundred years old, and wondered why we couldn’t cherish something older, given the
richness of our history. this led me to think about the curated image it presents to
people abroad—the stereotypes that don’t truly represent us—and how our past is slowly
being erased. i recall attending a concert at ‘moon and stars,’ a music festival in
locarno created by and largely for northern swiss audiences. i was surprised to hear
the official moon and stars hymn, a collection of stereotypical italian words,
contrasted with more conforting german words. my goal was to explore how our
culture differs from the one promoted by helvetic agencies and to reclaim the rich
history of art and theatre in our region. i invited several artists whom i know
personally and who share a similar experience: born in locarno, yet leaving to pursue
their art, often in zurich. together, we want to express how it feels to leave, our
hopes for a future outside of locarno, our reflections on our culture, and the political
and cultural dynamics between these two regions. spero che ti piaccia,
gal
in case you didn’t know yet:
locarno: small municipality of more than
16’000 citizens in the south of the swiss alps (and my hometown).
ticino: the swiss canton
where locarno is located
oh
bella verzaschina: a folk song written by v. castelnuovo. despite the iconic status of
the song, the author is unknown to most people my age.
i would like to thank all the people that have helped me for the exhibition, including stefano,
gaëlle, lola, renzo, maya, marco, francesca, erez, orit, amin, ame, niky, alon, altrove, robi, kiki,
saskia, franziska, zsusanna, daniele, nathan, sula, justin, raffaele, sophie, monster, billy, tarek,
nathan, and mny more.