American Lexicon: Flavio Favelli's new project dedicated to consumption

At the Cortina d’Ampezzo venue, from August 1 to September 10, 2023, Farsettiarte presents Lessico Americano, a special project by Flavio Favelli(Florence, 1967) created in collaboration with Norberto Ruggeri ’s Studio SALES and introduced by a critical text by Francesco Guzzetti.

Lessico Americano presents a selection of works, including collages and assemblages - made with vintage postage stamps, chocolate wrappers, vintage chewing-gum wrappers and tin cans -, compressions of silver plated objects and cans overshadowed by shades of spray colors, that outline an evocative path in the imaginary of the reality of consumption. The works are accumulated by the use of signs, images, products and objects of past use, traceable, as the title of the exhibition suggests, to a possible “American lexicon,” understood as the language and imagery of seduction.

The story that the surfaces of the objects and the ideograms of the brands in the artist’s works tell,“ Guzzetti writes in the catalog text, ”is inevitably marked by the impact of the American world on Italy. The plot of Favelli’s personal history is interwoven with the warp of the generational and collective story of those who grew up in the Italy of the transition from the 1970s to the 1980s and have memories of the country’s cultural, social and economic history from that time on.

Favelli’s works contain not only a trace of the history of our country, but are also an expression of the artist’s personal history, in a continuous cross-reference of anecdotes, memories, fascinations and obsessions. That of duality is an aspect that characterizes the artist’s work on various levels, for example in the appearance that many of these works evoke: at first glance they communicate a sense of preciousness, but on closer examination they turn out to be characterized by the use of deliberately commonplace materials, derived from the world of industry, curio collectors, and old things markets, though cloaked in glossy films, gilding or shimmering gold and silver foil that make them look like something else. What the artist makes is not a criticism of consumer society. In these objects he captures precisely the tension toward the “Eldorado,” which is manifested precisely through the imitation of the noblest material, which betrays the true desires of the province.

Finally, there is the history of art, through a personal reinterpretation of its codes: seriality, repetition, reiteration - Favelli has nothing to do with the motivations of Pop Art, but of those mechanical gestures he recovers the playfulness, the flat calm of images totally cleared of their meaning - the use of monochrome, the “divertissement” of color shading.

Flavio Favelli was born in Florence in 1967, lives and works in Savigno(Bologna). After graduating in Oriental History at theUniversity of Bologna he took part in the most innovative season of the Link Project. He approached contemporary art by participating in 1995 in the TAM residency directed by Arnaldo Pomodoro in Pietrarubbia and in the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at the Antonio Ratti Foundation in Como with Allan Kaprow in 1997. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato (2005); Projectspace 176, London (2006); Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris (2007); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2008); Museo Marino Marini, Florence (2009); Museo Riso, Palermo (2010); MACRO - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2011); MAMbo - Museo d’Arte Moderna; Bologna (2011); Museo del Novecento, Milan (2012); Maison Particulière, Brussels (2014); MAXXI - Museo delle Arti del XX Secolo, Rome (2015); Albergo Diurno Venezia, Milan (2017); Cà Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Venice (2019); GAM - Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Turin (2022); Palazzo Collicola, Spoleto (2023). He designed and realized the installation-environment for the celebrations of the lay funeral Sala d’Attesa in the Pantheon of Bologna at Certosa Monumental Cemetery in 2008. He has participated in two Venice International Art Biennials: Clandestini, curated by Francesco Bonami (2003) and Vice versa, Italian Pavilion, curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi (2013) and the 11th Havana Biennial (2012).

For all information, you can visit Farsettiarte’s official website.

Pictured: Flavio Favelli, Green Mint (2023), assemblage of pressed cans, cm. 42x61x10. Courtesy Farsettiarte and Studio SALES di Norberto Ruggeri, Rome

American Lexicon: Flavio Favelli's new project dedicated to consumption

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