Rolando Bellini Explores the ties between Da Vinci and Sam Keil’s Visionary Art
Art historian Rolando Bellini reveals the powerful connection between Renaissance genius and the visionary world of Keil Space.
Renowned Renaissance art historian and Brera Academy professor Rolando Bellini recently explored the avant-garde depths of Keil Space, a unique artistic venue dedicated to Advanced Art. Known for his groundbreaking research on Renaissance and Leonardo da Vinci, Bellini’s visit offered a compelling dialogue between past and future, art and science.
Accompanied by Professor Bellini, we step into the underground space, leaving the outside world behind. Welcomed by immersive sounds and scents, the sensation is that of entering the cradle of a distant future: a modern setting that introduces us to “an ancient cave inhabited by primeval humans,” as Bellini describes. Upon entering, he immediately recognizes the space’s ability to sharpen perception with the sense of wonder Nietzsche spoke of. The philosopher once said: “If you feel no wonder, it is not a true encounter.” From the very first moments, Bellini notes a perceptual shift, a change of paradigm compared to traditional exhibition spaces. In his reflections, he interprets the Keil Space Experience as not only artistic but also “initiatory.” Regarding each of Keil Space’s collections, he offers these insights:
Speaking of Lovers (1984–1989), part of the First Generation Bronze, Bellini draws a comparison to Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women, a sculpture housed in Florence’s Loggia dei Lanzi. He explains the basis of his analogy:
“Despite the differences, what remains undeniable is the form itself, its essential being. And this form speaks volumes; it narrates through its sculptural rhythm, its interplay of mass and void, its musical rotation. It is a search that reaches beyond, into different worlds. There is also a deliberate interplay of volumes, where the structure is rendered as if it were intertwining ribs. With this splendid, elegant rotation of bodies, where void and mass are complementary, the harmony of proportions is dictated by an internal double symmetry that hypnotizes the eye. It is a work that likely underwent cycles of transformation, yet it continues to generate new possibilities and potential, remaining an open discourse.”
During his exploration of the Second Generation Bronze, Professor Bellini had the opportunity to examine the notebook in which the artist conducted the analytical studies underpinning the structure of Sabre (1986–1998). Fascinated by these pages, he makes another observation, linking Keil’s work to the multidisciplinary nature of Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci, who saw the harmonious synthesis of science and emotional expression as the foundation of his art.
“Sam Keil has achieved a new level of formative purity, a work that translates the plasticity of figures into visual information of extraordinary communicative impact. With her technique, the artist has managed to sculpt light.”
According to Bellini, Sabre serves as a bridge between ancient, present and future civilizations, evoking a lost knowledge that the artist seeks to bring back into contemporary focus through authentically new languages. Continuing into the New Generation of art, the historian remarks:
“The third station of this journey – an initiatory journey, of course – is the magic eye of an advanced technology, that reveals the entirety within a single part, the cosmic vision of material infinity.”
Encouraging the artist to pursue her path and ambitions, Bellini concludes the interview with these words:
“In the city of Florence, always cloaked in the heavy mantle of the so-called Renaissance, Keil Space could serve as a highly intriguing provocation. As far as I know, there is no experience like this in Florence. Art, as a certain Russian scholar, Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman, once said, is the highest challenge one can undertake. And Keil Space seems to me to be proof of that.”
The interview is available on Keil Space’s YouTube channel and has been transcribed into an article published by Italics. The full interview in italian can be accessed at this link.