We are faced with a synthetic and complex journey in the history of art from the end of the 20th century up to the present day.

Fundamental is the relationship that is created between the works and the space that houses them, the Basilica of San Celso, a place that has a long history that has its roots in the Romanesque-Lombard world, prior to the year 1000, demolished and then rebuilt, with a facade set back from the original, by Luigi Canonica. The basilica houses many details of the primitive construction, such as the historiated capitals, some frescoes and the marble overcasing which for centuries contained the sarcophagus with the relics of the saint to whom it is dedicated, which are now found in the neighboring Sanctuary of Miracles.

In such an extraordinary place, full of spirituality, of sacredness, why contemporary art? Because it is very interesting to try to create a dialogue between the contemporary world and an ancient place of faith, it is as if we were able to grasp red threads that lead us between different moments in history. The reading of the works is not univocal, the spectator participates in what he sees, in the atmosphere that is created.

The overcase acts as an altar to the basilica, even if the same is no longer a place for sacred functions, although it remains consecrated.

In front of the large canvas by Hermann Nitsch, whose primary intent was of a social-political but also existential nature, with clear references to the Austrian tragedies of the Anschluss first, then the war and the Shoah, the dramatic sense of the work emerges, from understood in the Greek sense of the term. 

The link is with history, with memory, it seems to perceive a reference to certain writings of the great Thomas Bernhard.

After all, the philosopher Theodor W.Adorno stated in 1949: «Writing a poem after Auschwitz is a barbaric act». What about making art? Why do it, keep doing it? Because in it there is an answer, sometimes ambiguous, sometimes powerful, like with Hermann Nitsch.

And therefore the art of light and movement, as for the Belgian Walter Leblanc, who was part of the German Gruppo Zero and who wrote: «Now, white is the most abstract colour, the one among all, it reflects the modulations of light better than any other.  

 From this it follows that the materiality of the twisted and taut cotton threads disappears in favor of a vibration that works well in both natural and artificial light, mobile or still».

“ Marco Orler International Gallery was born from the experience and passion I have had for art since I was a teenager. ”