Archive

Second Cycle

The Construction of Destruction

The decade beginning with the year 2000 begins with extraordinary events such as the attack on the twin towers that was broadcasted around the world, the War of the West against Iraq, the so called “Arab Springs” (which actually destabilised the entire Mediterranean area), the European bombings over Libya and, finally, the expansion of the Suez Canal (an insignificant event for many). These are all events that, due to their distinctive characteristics, seem disconnected from each other. This leaves us, as spectators, to feel troubled and incapable of understanding the “spectacle”. This was the year in which the series “The Construction of Destruction” emerged.

 

I worked on this series for a long time, around six years, creating works that explicitly represent the dramatic effects of a never ending crisis, evident in the great human tragedies. It seemed clear to me that the destruction of the world and of previous society was in fact constructed with a systematic attention to detail. It all began when I asked myself why certain human beings, amongst whom women, become instruments of death, in other words “human bombs” that explode the enemies. There have been quite a few women Kamikaze since 1985. Why? I asked myself, how is it that the woman, who is naturally considered to be the source of life, became a source of death? It was hard to understand – then I thought of the Greek tragedy “The Impossibility to Achieve the Necessary”. This desperate desire to fight an invincible enemy. Smart bombs vs bombs that are smart.

I thought that the Second World War kickstarted the tragic process of involving innocent civilians in wars, that since then, have committed serious acts of terrorism, transforming these same civilians into something even worse: real life weaponry.

 

I began to create a small group of sculptures in clay and in bronze entitled“Exploded Women”. I also created sculptures that highlighted the concept of “built destruction” because the apparent, chaotic nature of the work (outstretched material that was either at breaking-point or already broke and consequently wedged together) is the product of careful composition. This is similar to the true systematic disruption of a society whose core pillars are the principles of: similarity, rights and solidarity, it has been realised through a precise and careful strategy.

 

The works were presented at an exhibition “The Sites of Crisis” in 2012 in Rome and Lucca. In that period I also created various painted artworks in which the colour black prevailed. These were exhibited at the exhibition named “Black Light” in Lucca; almost an oxymoron that signifies the presence of possibility before eternal darkness.

Connecting Work

Metropolitan Ruins

“Metropolitan Ruins” connects the first series “The Social Animal” to the second series “The Construction of Destruction”. The ruins are remains of buildings that have been left standing, traces of the past, military events and natural disasters. They are wounded and crippled bodies. In a figurative sense they represent the remains of not only things but also of human beings and institutions.

First Cycle

The Social Animal

I began to work on an artwork series named “The Social Animal”, made up of two consecutive yet distant moments in time.

The first tends towards a plastic representation of the existential condition of the contemporary human being who perceives dramatic and radical change in the society in which he/she exists: “fracture”, “unstucking”, “disconnection”, “deformation” etc. The second signals a constantly mutating external reality that overlaps the existential condition of the human being; sticking to it in such a way as to deform it in a more and more dramatic manner.

The works that make up this phase shift the expressive tension of an interior emotional condition to a social emotional condition, and “metropolitan ruins” & “urban stratifications” are the works that best represent this step. This series begins in 1997 and ends in 2007, and it’s displayed in two personal exhibitions: the first in 2004 “Tension and Torsion” and the second in 2007 “The Matter of Time”, both in Rome.