Quite a few artists develop on their have at a time when the classical principles of possession and authorship are invested by the logic of profile, anonymity and community. From this consciously uncomfortable position, one particular can specific oneself freely, vulgarly.
Ladri di piastrelle
In the set up and functionality function Nunca fui turista em Lisboa! Giuseppe De Mattia translates the illegal trade in azulejos, glazed ceramics of Arab origin that adorn the partitions of quite a few Iberian towns, composing figurative, summary and geometric motifs into a gallery space. Azulejos burglars secretly take out the tiles to promote them to travellers as souvenirs, generating a black market that supports total households by exfoliating their cities. Furthermore, the 300 tiles put in on the partitions of OPR Gallery are destined to be taken off and then purchased separately by the exhibition viewers for the modest value of a souvenir. The De Mattia’s tiles are a unique interpretation of the most preferred sq. shape. All alongside one another they make up a attractive floral pattern. But taken just one by just one they reveal the stylisation of a male member. The parallelism in between black market place and gallery reveals how the artist showcases the mechanisms of artwork to refer to broader economic and social narratives these types of as the real estate speculation that plagues some places and the job of individuality in the management of widespread items. The false testimony of a thief of azulejos, which Giuseppe De Mattia presents in audio sort, is in truth centred on the self-legitimisation of the delinquent who, like any excellent artist, finds in himself the good reasons for his steps. At the conclusion of the operations, it is consequently vital not to be fooled by the enthusiasm of the exchanges. Acquire a very good look at what continues to be in just about every person’s hands.
Ingegno di Mola
This is not the 1st time that De Mattia has utilised procedures and equipment regular of avenue buying and selling, also generating irony out of the artist’s want to provide in purchase to make a living. In Ingenuity and Independence (Which is It, MAMbo, Bologna, 2018) he collects 7 performances concentrated on clandestine exchanges. In Esposizione di frutta e verdura (Materia, Rome, 2019. Curated by Vasco Forconi) he transforms the exhibition room into a shop by applying a substantial show for real and faux fruits and vegetables. Ingegno di Mola series is also along these lines, which reworks the unlawful apply, prevalent in the South, of setting up a chair around the front door with illustrations of solutions for sale in the personal house. For the black and white silver salts photographic collection, Giuseppe De Mattia shoots on area, portraying actual chairs/shows from the village of Noha, in Salento. A backdrop sketched with a white cloth, however, pretends a studio copy, abstracting the item from the city material and supplying the illustration an idealised worth. In the sculpture, on the other hand, the artists substitutes the Salento chair for a person constructed pursuing the guidelines dictated in the 1970s by the designer Enzo Mari, who noticed in self-style an escape route from the logic of capitalism. On this historicised chair, having said that, foods has turn into pretend and the treasured yellow gold, oil, is mediated by a black and white photograph.
Piccola storia ignobile che gli tocca raccontare
De Mattia utilizes historic and conventional languages and units in an sudden way. In the formality of the common, he drops the tale of negligible or marginal episodes, circumventing the narrative area of optimum units to denounce underhand economies and moralities of a diverse variety. A listing of values and behaviour, typically sweetened by the creative narrative of the current, demands criticism and notice. Gimmicks, thievery, petty malfeasance, deceit and subterfuge describe historic connivances in between male, picture and landscape. The representation of artwork as a metaphorical, social and anthropological item is the price about which the complete Giuseppe De Mattia universe finds its raison d’être. The terracotta whistling mask Testa di Gianni, Fischia! tells of the time when De Mattia compensated his artist buddy Gianni D’Urso to whistle on command and documents the acceptance. The get the job done evokes the Apulian custom of translating costume scenes and real figures into a terracotta whistle. The seem that goes by means of Gianni’s head helps make the memory ever existing and appropriate. The entire exhibition merges into a one style scene, from Bari to Lisbon, traversed by a breath of vitality that phone calls the viewers to take part in the feast (or slaughter) of the worldimage. Mustard all’ancienne “Those who have not regarded the Ancien régime can under no circumstances know what the sweetness of daily life was”. PrinceDuke Talleyrand, just one of the greatest exponents of political chameleonism, consequently fed the reactionary cravings of the French, manipulating the earlier in the kind of a unforgettable dropped paradise. Like the mighty Talleyrand, De Mattia provides an picture of the artist self that is acceptable for all seasons. On the one particular hand, he is able of pandering to the retro-refined preferences of the cultured (a dollar blackens the pupils at the clap of the money sign up). On the other it is nimble in moving, candidly, in the inadequate undergrowths of the impartial scenes. To be an artist, 1 may say, one will have to be in a position to invent at least a single (of artists). And to convey it to the stage. Giuseppe De Mattia is an tasteful, anti-magic and tragicomically sensible one particular. A dude who, with the buy and approach of an archivist of folklore, builds symbolic trustworthiness in purchase to reveal its falsehood, sowing question on the legitimate beliefs of white hetero cisgender Westerners and discovering their anxiety of using it or, even even worse, of not currently being ready to put it on.
Gabriele Tosi
at OPR gallery, Milan
till November 15, 2022
