Il grillo per la testa 2010_ red colour paint, autumn grapevine plants photography _ digital print 40x60 cm

Il grillo per la testa is a site-specific installation in the neoclassical Villa Romana on the outskirts of Florence. Leonora Bisagno has decided to open the interior balcony above the entrance of the Villa, inaccessible for a long time, and work on architectural elements of the building. The isolated, closed balcony painted in a pompei red colour, en vogue during Neoclassicism, but missing in the Villa gives new life to its central but unnoticed area. The work is a reflection on surface as part of Leonora Bisagno’s artistic research and decoration: the balcony itself as an element placed between interior and exterior of an edifice is related to the grapevine, ancient decorative element which usually covers buidings’ façades and surfaces. The image placed on the leaves of the balcony, showing a cricket on a head, is a reflection on the relationship between nature and representation and on the interaction between nature and mankind. Il grillo per la testa (a cricket on the head) is an Italian expression that means to be full of bizarre, strange ideas.