Page 6 - La Biennale di Venezia 2022 issue of World of Art Contemporary Art Magazine

private coincide: the threshold of expression occurs even to the nomadism of lightness. Repetition stems from
before any sign is implemented; it starts at the point of an intentional use of stereotypes, references and
the mental processing of the image, in the movement stylizations that allow the idea of conventionality to
and trembling of the hand on the paper. come into art too.

Sandro Chia works through an array of styles, always Such conventionality however is only apparent, as
underpinned by technical skill and by an idea of art the reproduction of the image never happens in a
that seeks its raison d’être within itself. These reasons mechanical or slavish way. On the contrary, it tends to
consist of the pleasure of a painting freed at last from create subtle and unpredictable variations, producing a
the tyranny of novelty, and relying instead on the shift in the reproduced image. This shift, and the idea of
artist’s ability to use various “means” of achieving the time suspended deriving from a state of relaxation, result
image. There are numerous references, everything from in imperceptible differences. This is possible because
Chagall to Picasso, to Cezanne, to de Chirico, to Futurist, Clemente works on the displacement of the signifier, on
metaphysical, twentieth-century Carrà. But the recourse a chain of assonances, of visual analogies that free the
to style is immediately reabsorbed by the quality of the image from all obligations and references.
result, at the intersection between technical skill and
“state of grace”. All this creates a new contemplative state of the image, a
sort of peace, removed from the glamour of its traditional
Painting becomes the field within which manual dexterity references and given a different orientation one that is
and concept finally find a balance. In Chia, images always go explicit and deceptively conventional.
hand in hand with a title, a caption or a little poem painted
directly onto the canvas to reveal its internal mechanism. The extreme explicitness tends to produce an image that
The pleasure of painting goes with the pleasure of wit, the does not display any effort or awkwardness vis-à-vis its
ability to integrate the passion of the creation of the picture surroundings. As if imbued with an oriental discipline, the
and the protective distance of irony. new image does not betray any emotions, just a natural
state of calm.
The work becomes a moving circuit of internal and
external references, all at the service of an image Enzo Cucchi radicalizes painting practice, taking the
offering a dual quality: as substance both pictorially and picture as a means rather than an end. Painting becomes
intellectually. In the first case the image is fulfilled by a process of accumulating various elements, figurative
the materials of which it is made up, and in the second, and abstract, explicit and allusive, and combining them
it presents itself as a stunning demonstration of an idea: seamlessly. Materials both within and outside the
an ideal of art only exists if embodied in the texture of painting interact on the surface of the picture. Everything
language. Chia‘s image is always crystal clear. responds to a dynamic, unstoppable movement that
drags painted shapes and color lines beyond all laws
Franceseo Clemente works on the progressive of gravity. The painting is a provisional repository
displacement of the style, on the undifferentiated use of energies that evoke images, densities of painting
of several techniques. The underlying idea is that of materials and ceramic extensions beyond the traditional
art that is in no way dramatic and that can create an canvas support. This type of work finds its roots in
image where repetition and difference intersect thanks the fabric of a deliberately “minor” painting, tied to an

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