Davide Rivalta’s exhibition entitled “How we await every return” opens on May 4th in the park of Oscarshall, the residence of the Royal Family in Bygdøy. The outdoor exhibition will remain open to the public from 4 May and throughout the summer season (free entry) and will allow you to take a walk among ten sculptures of “wild animals” in bronze, fiberglass and aluminium.
Scattered around the Oscarshall residence, Davide Rivalta’s animals will finally be able to “move freely” throughout the summer in the park overlooking the Oslo fjord. Oscarshall park is not a wild place, but was expertly designed according to the ideal of the nineteenth-century romantic garden, as an “ideal interpretation of the spontaneous landscape”. It is the first time that Rivalta’s sculptures have been exhibited in Norway.
On the occasion of the exhibition, the Aterballetto National Choreographic Center will offer the public three MicroDanze, i.e. short choreographies created in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of the “Italia Danza” project. Dance performances will take place in conjunction with guided tours of Oscarshall on Saturday 4 May at 11am, 1pm and 3pm.
The exhibition and performances, born in the wake of the state visit of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella last year, are a collaboration between the Royal Collections of Norway, the Embassy of Italy in Oslo and the Italian Cultural Institute in Oslo.
The project also includes an intervention in the city, at the Embassy and at the Residence of the Italian Ambassador in Oslo, where three wolves and a bear are located. As Davide Rivalta explains, “The appearance of these wild animals creates a geographical break and pushes the visitor to imagine distant landscapes… and recalls the tradition of the Royal Houses, which since ancient times used to give exotic animals as gifts”.
The Rivalta exhibition intends to “free” the wild animals portrayed in captivity and imprinted in bronze. The urban landscape contrasts with the places of origin of wild animals and with the animals themselves. This dichotomy creates an unreal and suggestive atmosphere that surprises the viewer and makes him reflect.
