Exhibition: RETROSCENA By Chiara Bettazzi

The photography of Chiara Bettazzi exists in a realm of proximity to the languages of sculpture and installation, sharing with them a vocabulary of everyday objects that shape her subjects. Initially conceived as a tool for observing and controlling the installation process, it later gained its own autonomy, engaging primarily with the register of still life. Her works are object-based compositions, first constructed on a horizontal plane – as vanitas or surrealist-inspired assemblages – and later overflowing beyond the table, finding other supports in found materials from the studio – ladders, screens, temporary structures – that trace precarious trajectories around which the cluster of objects takes on new sculptural forms. The photographic act captures ephemeral encounters between objects in a state of transience, destined to return to the anonymity of everyday life. It is a performative dimension of photography, especially when the artist reveals the gestures of arranging the objects, their accidental falls and displacements – standing on the threshold between composition and decomposition, scene and backstage, where the image continually reactivates the process, restoring to the object the possibility of a new, ever-changing form. Retroscena brings together a series of recent photographs featuring the recurring element of the ladder – an emblem of the scene’s construction – alongside a new installation that gives the exhibition its title. This site-specific work was created using backstage materials from Foto Forum’s storage, remnants of previous exhibitions. The installation unfolds longitudinally, cutting the space in half with an architectural surface made of openings and layers, becoming material traces of a sedimented time. Within this context, the artist invites the audience to move through the space and become part of the scene – observers and actors in a mirroring, dual environment, where front and back tend to coincide. In the folds of fabric and the fragments of objects, memory resurfaces as a visual archive, open to ongoing processes of excavation and refiguration. Chiara Bettazzi was born in Prato in 1977, where she lives and works. Her research explores a dual on the other, a poetics of the everyday object, oscillating between accumulation and discard. In 2015 she created an observatory on the recovery of industrial archaeology in the territory that takes the name Tuscan Art Industry, in collaboration with architectural historians, environmental biologists, artists, curators, and other professionals. Her photographs and installations reflect on transformation, developing in close relation to the industrial and urban landscape. Often site-specific, her works establish a strong dialogue with space and natural light. Her works are held in public and private collections including: La Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome), Casa Masaccio Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, Collezione Farnesina, Museo di Santa Maria della Scala, Castello di Ama, and Villa Rospigliosi. Selected exhibitions include: BIENALSUR, Museo di Roma a Palazzo Braschi (2025); Panneggi, Lottozero, Prato (2025); Colorescenze, Centro Pecci, Prato (2024); Recap, Z2o Project, Rome (2024); The Tilt of Time, IED, Florence (2023); Reverse, Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, Lucca (2023); Standby. Installation View, Museo Galileo & Murate Art District, Florence (2023); Soggiorno, Villa Rospigliosi, Prato (2023); Rampa di Lancio, Peccioli (2021); Surplace, Galleria Nazionale, Rome (2022); A tutti gli effetti, Villa Romana, Florence (2020); Cabinet, Castello di Ama, Siena (2019); Il Mondoinfine: vivere tra le rovine, Galleria Nazionale, Rome (2018).