The charm of the invisible reigns supreme. Frequently, observing the back of an artwork, it happens to unexpectedly discover a geographic map, made of title blocks, inventory numbers, exhibitions, stamps and expositions. A scenery that, funnily enough, run the risk of being more important of the painting itself.
There was an old collector who had placed the self-portraits of all the artists he loved in his entrance hall. He wanted to meet their gaze immediately, without anxiety or compromise. He wanted to look them in the eye upon his return, to understand something more, to fully embrace his obsession. A painting is never finished being deciphered. Every moment seems to offer you a new sensation.
At the beginning the ghost of Lucio Fontana appears and with him the clean cut that goes to “surgically” desecrate the canvas to conquer the third dimension. Fontana thus revealed himself, traumatic and transgressive, to many experimenters of the “beyond” in space and of the “beyond” within his own person.
Alberto Biasi created the overlapping perforated papers entitled Trame from 1958 to 1960. Then, while in his twenties, he had started that research by chance, during an experience he had undertaken following the advice of his father Giuseppe who, by family traditions, wanted him to be an expert in agronomy.
Surely, the image of the flames rising high in Piazza Municipio in Naples is even fascinating in its powerful destructive force. A show that leaves breathless and dismayed, as unstoppable lava flows that overwhelm everything, as it must have happened with the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 d.c. in Pompeii and Herculaneum, just a few kilometers from here.
Until May 30th it is possible to visit “Kosmos e Kaos. L’Origine è la Meta”, a solo exhibition by Massimiliano Pelletti (Pietrasanta, 1975) at Ersel, a private Bank space, always engaged in important cultural projects, based in Milan (curated by Barbara Paci and Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, in partnership with the Galleria Barbara Paci in Pietrasanta).
Salzburg, the Austrian city known for being the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and for its prestigious music festival, is closely associated with modern and contemporary art.
The XL Biennale di Venezia vernissage, in 1988, beyond its usual manifestation as the time/place of art, allowed me to re- find Tony Cragg in the Pavilion of Great Britain, the English sculptor. I remembered the artworks presented just the year before in Kassel during Documenta 8, and the Greek critic Démosthènes Davvetas.
Gian Maria Tosatti presents two pictorial cycles at Pirelli HangarBicocca. Ritratti (2020) is realized with 4 big paintings onto a number of media which remind the advertising posters: iron panels assembled and installed on pipe structures. The artworks, spread along the Shed space, play with the light filtered by the windows creating a mirror effect. Gold and rust, opposing elements here symbolically juxtaposed, remind the man’s critical conditions.
Each sign is made by two essential elements: the signifier which is a practical element perceptible by senses; the significance, an abstract element, a concept linked to it. In each sign, the connection that combines signifier and significance is the result of an agreement between the creator and the user. The signs do not exist as single units: they combine each other according to precise rules, they are organized into codes. So, the issuer and the receiver must know the code that has been used, in order to make the communication possible.
