For a history of Italian art from 2000 to the present. Relational art, intimist perspective

The element that most of all makes it difficult to be an artist, or to work in art, nowadays is fragmentation. Indeed, with the dawn of the new millennium, the idea of current or movement has definitively waned, with artists moving essentially autonomously, free to range across (and continuously) expressive techniques and themes. This in itself is not a bad thing at all, a symptom of an increasing professional awareness on the part of the category.

Yet, such fluidity, referring to the much-used but fitting concept developed by Zygmunt Baumann, clashes with the almost total lack of will and resources on the part of major museums and institutions in giving confidence and opportunities to mid-career artists, i.e., precisely those who fall within our field of inquiry. The result is a broad but disjointed picture, where local and extemporaneous initiatives fail to serve as a launching pad for new talent, but on the other hand represent its main opportunity for expression. It is as if the artist today has the opportunity to walk alone, but then he lacks the ground under his feet. While this returns an extremely heterogeneous system, it also makes the process of legitimation that each author pursues tortuous. Yet, even if parcelled out, that path continues all the same and allows us to identify a core of artists who have distinguished themselves in recent years and who we expect will continue to do so.

Starting with what can be considered the putative father of them all, namely Maurizio Cattelan (Padua, 1960). Perhaps the most important living Italian artist, certainly the last to have earned a solo show at the Guggenheim in New York. A linking figure between the 1990s and the 2000s, capable of paving the way for much of the productions that came after him. If only as an element of transition from a sculptural-installative approach of a poor matrix, thus focused on processes and matter, to an inclination much more willing to encounter reality and interpret it(The Revolution is Us, 2000). If his lens has been one of sarcasm and provocation, subsequent artists to him have filtered the ironic element while remaining tied to the three-dimensional dimension of art. To which is added the other major artistic influence of the last century, namelyRelational Art.

The definition, elaborated by Nicolas Bourriaud in the 1998 publication of the same name, sees significant antecedents in artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto and especially Maria Lai, who in 1981 tied - ideally and concretely - the houses in Ulassai, Sardinia, with a blue ribbon. The work(Tying oneself to the Mountain) gathered in itself all the precepts of Relational Art, that is, a form of expression that identifies as a key element the co-participation of artist and user of the work of art. Thus, the antecedent concept, founded on collectivity and the aggregative need of man, is evident. A path that artists such as Piero Almeoni, Maurizio Donzelli, Emilio Fantin, Eva Marisaldi, Luca Quartana, Massimo Silvano Galli, and Michele Stasi would then follow throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. And, as mentioned, to some extent also the much better known Maurizio Cattelan.

In the 2000s, although varying in modes and aesthetic solutions (thehappening loses its centrality, as does direct participation with the audience), the artists nevertheless retain a fundamental dictate of Relational Art: man is a being embedded in the universe of relationships and the social context in which they take place. A branched and connected image of existence that finds more and more adherence to reality thanks to the constant and rampant globalization, which has expanded borders and blended cultures, pushed artists to compare themselves with their colleagues abroad, or even to move far from their own country to find their own dimension. In this context some contents common to artists working at the beginning of the third millennium arise, and can be identified today: the relationship between objects and everyday reality, the experiential dimension of art, the relationship between work and architectural space, the relationship between individuality and the context in which it moves. Always and in any case with a view to ultimately investigating one’s own identity placed in crisis by modern contingencies.

It is no coincidence, then, that often this attempt at reconstruction, precarious and fragmented, has taken on the multifaceted nature ofassemblage. As is the case in the creations of Luca Trevisani (Verona, 1979), who combines lightweight elements such as fishing rods, paper, nylon and wood to create structures of sensitive balance, stretched to their limits, on the verge of disintegration(Gravare, levare, 2005). Improvisation for them seems the only survival strategy, adapting from time to time to the context. Exactly as man does, exactly as the artist does, gradually moving toward video and graphics, increasing the number of mediums involved(A chain of chains, 2008). Anchored instead to sculpture has remained Alice Cattaneo (Milan, 1976), who has made lightness and fragility the expressive force of her poetics. Her works are calibrated but incisive operations of alignment, suspended compositions where everything promises (or threatens?) to change from one moment to the next. As with Trevisani, Cattaneo’s works require co-presentation to be fully understood. If materials are involved, it is inevitable that the physical element will be rediscovered as central. Famous is the work Untitled I, II and III with which in 2010 he participated in the exhibition Terre Vulnerabili at Hangar Bicocca in Milan. Slender metal structures left to dialogue, interact, unite with the dark air of the museum, until they mutated within it, taking on different perspective forms.

Even more evident is the relational matrix in the practice of Chiara Camoni (Piacenza, 1974), who in her drawings and installations totally renounces claims to authorship, preferring to entrust to the observer’s design or filter the piece that completes a narrative she only hints at. It may be an object found and elevated to a work, or an experiential journey that gains artistic value in its production. Like Great Mother, 2002, in which she makes 365 drawings with her grandmother, 1 per day for a year. Processuality also entrusts ample space to Diego Perrone (Asti, 1970), who ranges from photography to video, from drawing to painting, from installation to sculpture to recreate alienating situations, sometimes grotesque, in other cases imbued with history and conceptualism(La fusione della campana, 2007). These types of works function like sponges, open to absorb any suggestion. They are creative craters where simple elements precipitate, yet placed in relationships take on complex implications.

Examples are the sophisticated assemblages of David Casini (Montevarchi, 1973), each of which represents a kind of Renaissance Wunderkammer. Exemplifying Krystallos from 2008, in which the artist placed an ice sculpture inside a vintage nightstand, which kept the work intact through a refrigeration system. As seen before, here again the web of meanings sought are not clear, rather the nebulousness serves not only to potentially make interpretation more open, but also to stimulate the intimacy of the viewer placed in direct contact with that of the artist. An open glimmer is also always left by the sculptures and installations of Patrick Tuttofuoco (Milan, 1974), who also evades (even if only slightly) from his own self by lacing himself with literary and artistic references. Hooks that make his creations accessible, also because they are often winks to the theatrical dimension (masks, gloves, wigs) that suggest aggregative and playful contexts(Cameron, 2009). But, on the other hand, also potentially misunderstandable, at the eventual sinister, perhaps even disturbing. The choice, perceptually, lies squarely with the observer.

As we will see better in the next articles in the series, we might identify a certain path that gradually leads Italian artists of the early 2000s to move from a purely intimate analysis of the self to a reflection that expands the discourse not only to space and architectural context, but also to the social and public dimension within which their personality has been building. Without losing the filter of subjectivity, artists increasingly intercept the collective imagination, adopting or distorting narratives, interpreting or bringing back shared memories and experiences.

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