Exhibitions, China, Guangzhou, 05 August 2012
Fernando De Filippi
THE FANTASTIC REAL
The more I skim with quick eye the articulated perspective of Fernando De Filippi’s work, the more convinced I become of the wonderful accuracy of science that gives us, from the very beginning of life, an indivisible biological personal inheritance, of an organic complexity, not just in rigidly deterministic sense, but as a hypothesis of evolutionary process of an extremely rich spectrum of potentiality that concerns later experience to take from potency to act.
For the artist, in fact, the traditional systematic categories, periodic scans fall. He lives in the world, De Filippi, lives freely on what moves around him and vivifies it of his own substance, very lively and vital, independent and authoritative, in an expressive absolutely original way.
The continuity between the orders of the physical world and the recalls of the artistic experiences, history, in short, in all its complexity, almost like a treasure hunt, if we give in to innocent playful temptation, always end by sending us back to a low starting point, as in a mischievous or malicious botanical maze. And here the technological navigator that should guide us on a straight line, balances instead on curvilinear slopes.
Nothing definite, then.
So it is, for example, for the transformation – transfiguration – that the artist has cultivated for a certain period, from the photographic subject to the character. The reality, which is usually defined as occasional, has become magic moment. And magic moment, is in fact that theme, always so dear to art, which is the tree, the olive tree that the artist has chosen here, firmly present and decisive to affirm its existence, even in the unquestioned contribution of a small stone temple classically perfect and self-sufficient, which in turn then becomes "The temple of the olive."
There is always a constant, and it is memory. If this term, which is so frequently used to indicate one of the fundamental aspects of De Filippi’s research, it might imply at first sight a sort of recording operation. Nothing is, instead, farther from an alleged passivity in this explorer on leave in the mass of events that, in recent decades, have variously put him into action (from performance to photography, for example). In the control room, space is filled by a crowd of actors who are doing their part far from secondary, including significant formal aspects, in always substantial sizes (humani nihil alienum), why not? Under the magnificent umbrella of beauty.
In this way, in the counterpoint between self-promotion of the object and skilful organization, between synthesis and detail, between experienced time and real, and consciously enlarged perspective (a long shot), harmony is perfect in the firmness of a solid wire.
The relationship is sometimes more evident in the theme of the tree which, while it is talking to the environment, falls in love with bright and brilliant colors, sometimes, with the subtle lightness of the design, other times, up to suggest a new alliance with the poem "The tree of the poet", where any possible distance is cancelled in the name of a sign unambiguous and always coherent in the artist. It is a cultured allegory of a way of life and art.
Vittoria Coen
Translated from Italian into English
by Gaetana Giarratana
THE FANTASTIC REAL
The more I skim with quick eye the articulated perspective of Fernando De Filippi’s work, the more convinced I become of the wonderful accuracy of science that gives us, from the very beginning of life, an indivisible biological personal inheritance, of an organic complexity, not just in rigidly deterministic sense, but as a hypothesis of evolutionary process of an extremely rich spectrum of potentiality that concerns later experience to take from potency to act.
For the artist, in fact, the traditional systematic categories, periodic scans fall. He lives in the world, De Filippi, lives freely on what moves around him and vivifies it of his own substance, very lively and vital, independent and authoritative, in an expressive absolutely original way.
The continuity between the orders of the physical world and the recalls of the artistic experiences, history, in short, in all its complexity, almost like a treasure hunt, if we give in to innocent playful temptation, always end by sending us back to a low starting point, as in a mischievous or malicious botanical maze. And here the technological navigator that should guide us on a straight line, balances instead on curvilinear slopes.
Nothing definite, then.
So it is, for example, for the transformation – transfiguration – that the artist has cultivated for a certain period, from the photographic subject to the character. The reality, which is usually defined as occasional, has become magic moment. And magic moment, is in fact that theme, always so dear to art, which is the tree, the olive tree that the artist has chosen here, firmly present and decisive to affirm its existence, even in the unquestioned contribution of a small stone temple classically perfect and self-sufficient, which in turn then becomes "The temple of the olive."
There is always a constant, and it is memory. If this term, which is so frequently used to indicate one of the fundamental aspects of De Filippi’s research, it might imply at first sight a sort of recording operation. Nothing is, instead, farther from an alleged passivity in this explorer on leave in the mass of events that, in recent decades, have variously put him into action (from performance to photography, for example). In the control room, space is filled by a crowd of actors who are doing their part far from secondary, including significant formal aspects, in always substantial sizes (humani nihil alienum), why not? Under the magnificent umbrella of beauty.
In this way, in the counterpoint between self-promotion of the object and skilful organization, between synthesis and detail, between experienced time and real, and consciously enlarged perspective (a long shot), harmony is perfect in the firmness of a solid wire.
The relationship is sometimes more evident in the theme of the tree which, while it is talking to the environment, falls in love with bright and brilliant colors, sometimes, with the subtle lightness of the design, other times, up to suggest a new alliance with the poem "The tree of the poet", where any possible distance is cancelled in the name of a sign unambiguous and always coherent in the artist. It is a cultured allegory of a way of life and art.
Vittoria Coen
Translated from Italian into English
by Gaetana Giarratana
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