URPFLANZE, the nature of the idea

Catalog published on the occasion of the collective exhibition “URPFLANZE, the nature of the idea "at the New Morone Gallery in Milan, 29 September – 11 November 2016.

The sample Urpflanze, The nature of the idea, it originates from the nodal principles of the studies of J. W. Goethe, expressed mainly in the text: The metamorphosis of plants (1790) and concerning the reflections on the relationship that man establishes with nature. Goethe, in fact, during his botanical studies he discovered that within the infinite variety and multiplicity of nature there is a unitary element, primal; he is convinced that all plant forms can be derived from a single plant, an original plant, formed by a few infinitely mutable and duplicable elements. The primordial plant, the Urpflanze (so Goethe calls it), allows us to create a synthesis between the individual and the universe, between the sensible and the ideal and allows us to grasp the internal law of the manifestation of phenomena.
The analysis of the exhibition therefore focuses on the concept of becoming form, considering how not only nature is preserved while renewing itself, but how this thought can be extended to art and therefore to creativity.
The artists present in the exhibition (Elisabeth Aro, Nanni Balestrini, Mariella Bettineschi, Felix Short, Ines Fontenla, Federica Marangoni, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Yoko Ono, Eltjon Valley) start from these assumptions, reflecting on the vision that, according to Goethe there is no difference between phenomenal reality – objective and idea – subjective, but both are part of the same concept, of the same reality, thus assuming that there is no distinction, between art and science, understood the former as an expression of fantasy, of subjectivity and the inner world, while the second as a manifestation of objectivity and the external world, facts. Goethe sees the world as an immense totality in which the physical and the spiritual are indistinguishable. A perennial change takes place within the world, which implies multiplicity in unity; we can speak of a sort of continuous metamorphosis of the living, in constant transformation, which, however, always remains himself in becoming. The works on display investigate the idea of ​​art understood as Revelation, that emerges from the origins of being and therefore how art together with science and nature become interpreters of the mysteries of the universe.
The purpose is therefore to research and find the Idea: pursue through art, nature and science that Universal Spirit which is inherent in every creative energy.