Page 49 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2003)

CASTEllO DI RIVOlI
museum of from the clamour of its traditional references and given a different
orientation one that is explicit and deceptively conventional.
ContemPorary art the extreme explicitness tends to produce an image that does not
display any effort or awkwardness vis-à-vis its surroundings. as if
TORINO imbued with an oriental discipline, the new image does not betray
any emotions, just a natural state of calm.
enzo Cucchi radicalises painting practice, taking the picture as a means
rather than an end. Painting becomes a process of accumulating
various elements, figurative and abstract, explicit and allusive, and
combining them seamlessly. materials both within and outside the
painting interact on the surface of the picture. everything responds to a
dynamic, unstoppable movement that drags painted shapes and colour
lines beyond all laws of gravity. the painting is a provisional repository
of energies that evoke images, densities of painting materials and
ceramic extensions beyond the traditional canvas support. this type
of work finds its roots in the fabric of a deliberately “minor” painting,
tied to an anthropological and cultural territory that is exquisitely
italian. from the point of view of visual language, Cucchi’s paintings
seem to be inspired by scipione and Licini. the young artist’s use of
colour as smudge is influenced by scipione, while the dynamic sense
of space and the freedom to place the figurative elements outside
any naturalistic reference are reminiscent of Licini. the space of
the painting or of the paper is not a background for the image, but
an emanation and a source of energy in itself. the concept is that
of an art that adheres to things while at the same time setting in
motion a chain of mobile contacts and relationships to the extent of
transfiguring them into signs of another position, that of a “dynamic
landing”, where high and low coincide.
nicola de maria transcends the boundary between the frame of the
painting and the surrounding space; his visual field is the meeting place
of many references. Painting is a tool to represent the progressive
shifting of sensibility. mental state and psychological state fuse in an
image that operates by the fragmentation of visual data. the result
is a sort of interior architecture containing all the resonances and
emotions embodied within the work.
each fragment lives a system of fluid relationships; there are no
CASTELO DI RIVOLI
MUSEO D’ARTE CONTEMPORANEA privileged or central points. de maria replaces the notion of space
TORINO with that of a field, a dynamic and network of relationships rich in
potential whose visual constant is abstraction. they share the same
movement as music; there are no pauses, but an enveloping continuum
of signs, an environmental painting incessantly referring to a single
rhythm, a single beat, that of pure subjectivity.
by the quality of the result, at the intersection between technical skill and the architecture of the work is flexible, each time supporting the space
“state of grace”. within which it sets itself. Concreteness and rarification alternate via the
Painting becomes the field within which manual dexterity and concept juxtaposition of painted wood elements marking out the environment,
finally find a balance. in Chia, images always go hand in hand with a title, and compact areas of colour silently referring to indescribable states
a caption or a little poem painted directly onto the canvas to reveal its and metal conditions captured in the absolute.
internal mechanism. the pleasure of painting goes with the pleasure of through the alternate use of geometric and organic signs, the language
wit, the ability to integrate the passion of the creation of the picture and used is both the manifestation and internalisation of the artist’s sensitive
the protective distance of irony. state, and as an instrument of song and lyrical representation.
the work becomes a moving circuit of internal and external references, all at mimmo Paladino’s work is surface painting. he is a proponent of surface
the service of an image offering a dual quality: as substance bothpictorially as the only possible profundity. thus all the most manifest data of
and intellectually. in the first case the image is fulfilled by the materials sensibility emerge visibly, making cultural allusions and deep-seated
of which it ismade up, and in the second, it presents itself as a stunning inner references to the psychological condition. Painting becomes the
demonstration of an idea: an ideal of art only exists if embodied in the place where subtle, intangible motives are translated into image. signs
texture of language. Chia ‘s image is always crystal clear. from the abstract traditions, influenced by the works of kandinsky
franceseo Clemente works on the progressive displacement of the style, and klee, and more pompous signs in the figurative vein intertwine
on the undifferentiated use of several techniques. the underlying idea is into a single, organic motif.
that of art that is in no way dramatic, and that can create an image where the different moods of sensibility are thus condensed and offer
repetition and difference intersect thanks to the nomadism of lightness. the possibility of free association. the rarification of each different
repetition stems from an intentional use of stereotypes, references and mood, mental and material, finds its rightful place on the surface.
stylisations that allow the idea of conventionality to come into art too. Paladino is never autobiographical, as everything becomes a pretext
such conventionality however is only apparent, as the reproduction of the for painting. the geometry of the sign is immediately disrupted by
image never happens in a mechanical or slavish way. on the contrary, it the myriad figurative elements integrating gently into the rest of the
tends to create subtle and unpredictable variations, producing a shift in the composition, without leaps of chromatic tone.
reproduced image. this shift, and the idea of time suspended deriving from the idea underpinning the image is that of the fragment, of detail
a state of relaxation, result in imperceptible differences. this is possible dilating and aggregating into another detail. the mood sustaining
because Clemente works on the displacement of the signifier, on a chain the composition and the overall state of the painting is fortified by
of assonances, of visual analogies that free the image from all obligations references to languages derived from the history of art. the surface
and references. of the picture becomes the explicit threshold of the image, even
all this creates a new contemplative state of the image, a sort of peace, removed when the latter seems to extend beyond the confines of the frame
and the wall. signs are ciphers that colour and decorate the skin of
the painting.
WORLD of ART 47