SETUP Contemporary Art Fair | Bologna
SET UP CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR
Enrico Fico and Simone Lingua, stand by Tiziana Tommei
Palazzo Pallavicini, Bologna
01 – 04 / 02 /2018
Poesia Interrotta is the title of the curatorial project presented by Tiziana Tommei for the sixth edition of SetUp Contemporary Art Fair 2018, focusing on two artists, Enrico Fico (Naples, 1985) and Simone Lingua (Cuneo, 1981). In line with the mission of SetUp, an independent fair focused on the emerging international scene, Tiziana Tommei proposes the work of two young artists united in a special project that deals with the theme of waiting, which it understands in terms of antinomy. Focusing in particular on a reflection, the curator writes: “Inherent in waiting itself is the logic of contradiction: a state of apparent pax and stasis in which, in truth, everything flows and which potentially already carries within it the object or event that will soon manifest itself.” This is the starting point for the choice to combine two artists in the exhibition and “two artistic languages – and at the same time two ways of seeing and understanding art – that are very distant from each other, if not absolutely opposed […] On the one hand, the introspective tone and the stillness, reserved and emotional, autobiographical and hermetic of Fico’s work; on the other, the dynamic and programmed, esthetic and scientific, kinetic and hypnotic character of the works of Simone Lingua”. Last but not least, the title of the text, “Poetry interrupted”, is focused on the aspect of antinomy and reinforced in an oxymoron with an open and direct statement that opens the writing: “I have always loved expectations”.
Enrico Fico presents three new projects: WAX, Sótto pèlle and Selected Objects. Small format works in which wax is the absolute protagonist. In these new works, too, the relationship between image and text is at the heart of his research: a knot that he does not want to unravel, but to investigate for its essence and essence. Selected Objects represents the projection in sculpture-installation format of Ghiandole, a collection presented last year at SetUp. If inanimate objects are (still) the chosen means of expression in these works, WAX and Sótto pèlle in Fico’s path mark the beginning of an investigation focused on the human figure. The opening of WAX marks the first time the artist has chosen the human body (and the portrait) as a subject, and he continues in Sótto pélle. Tiziana Tommei describes this latest project as follows: “Mental images of a physical body. Abstract fragments of the nude, dissected, explored and captured, yet not even derivable in its immanent entity. Shadows, profiles and details in which nothing epidermal returns and everything is sublimated. Each shot transcends the sensitive reality, the skin and the limbs, to become an intimate and personal fact, intentionally incomprehensible “.
Simone Lingua exhibits one of his latest experiments in the kinetic field in the form of an installation: the dome. Chromed and painted Plexiglas, 60 cm in diameter and 30 in depth: through this new dimension, the artist studies the reflections of various geometric graphics on a convex surface, creating new kineticisms perfected with optical effects. As Tiziana Tommei writes, “To really understand the kinetic art of Simone Lingua, one would have to follow all the stages of creation: from conception to design to realization of the work. We see the result of a very complex process: it begins with a purely abstract idea, which immediately afterwards translates into a graphic sign – a freehand drawing – and then takes shape through the materials. […] The fulcrum of everything is the viewer, or rather, his gaze. During the creative process, the artist is constantly challenged to measure himself against the viewer’s point of view. We could define it as an empathy of gazes, a three-way relationship between the observing subject, the author and the observed object […]. Through experimentation, we try to surprise and captivate the other, to hold his attention and invite him to be carried away “.
