“He who walks with difficulties along the road of virtue, even if it be both rocky and full of thorns, at the end of the climb finds himself at last in a broad plain, with all the happiness he yearned for. And looking down, seeing the cruel path he has trodden amidst perils,… with great contentment blesses those labours that had earlier caused him so much pain. And so making up for the suffering of the past with the delight of the present, without toil though he tries to make those who watch him understand how the heat, cold, sweat, hunger, thirst, and hardship he suffered to acquire virtue, may free others from poverty and lead them to that safe and tranquil state….” Giorgio Vasari, Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori italiani, da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri (1550), quoted by Cristina Acidini Luchinat in her biography Benozzo Gozzoli* (Scala Publishing,1994).

*Notes: Benozzo Gozzoli was the artist who painted in 1464 the celebrated fresco cycle, Storie
della vita di Sant’Agostino (Scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine), in the chapel of the choir in
the Church of Sant'Agostino in San Gimignano. Inspired by Gozzoli and his frescos inside out is a site-specific performance conceived by Chopra for the Galleria Continua in San Gimignano. The performance, the longest realized to date by the artist, will last for 99 hours, beginning at 11 am on Wednesday 25 April and ending at 2 pm on Sunday 29 April. During this period of time, the artist will assume the guise of different personae to embody history and memory, and will walk around in the streets of the town and in the surrounding area. In the course of the performance, Chopra will produce a series of drawings of San Gimignano and of the Tuscan landscape. The drawings and their installation will be executed both outside and inside the Arco dei Becci exhibition space, which will be the artist’s abode for the duration of the performance. The installation, the result of four days of performance, will remain on public display until 20 August 2012. The costumes for the performance inside out are designed by Sabine Pfisterer.