introduction_
The aim of this portfolio is to show my artistic path since the end of 2009 to 2012. I am particularly concentrated to allow an understanding about my/ the artistic character. Then, clearly, essential features as the conceptual analysis and the aritistic process will be avoided or, at least, considered in a hurried way.
The contents are subdivided into three moments/ parts: first, oil on canvas works; second, oil and mixed technique on iron sheet; third, sculpture mixed technique on iron sheet. I would like to underline the continuity through these steps, identifying an artistic reasoning that droves me from the premises (is “premises” the right vocabulary or maybe better “intellectual approaches” or “initial position” or “basic idea”) of the two first steps to the conclusive moment. The portfolio is structured in the same way as the artistic process. The first premise (p.1) carries out the will to find a particular and radical sign. Such a sign is abandoned in my early works on iron while I began an inquiry on materials as second premise (p.2). As conclusion (c), I reconsidered the first results under the light of my experience on materials, coming back to the sign of movement reshaped considering the deepness of materiality.
Let me introduce that all the works are linked through conceptual analytical approach. An analysis that I can not avoid and which is given by interest on political theory. So, all of my outcomes try to grasp the concepts that I inquire in academic career. Hence, there is a necessity to link my artistic work with my intellectual work.
Consequently, the connection between sign of movement and materiality gives me the possibility to explore theoretical contents through a visual expressive way. Even if it is not my intention to address the claims of my conceptual analisys, I want to state that there is a strong conceptual meaning in all my works. My aim is to fill my art with theoretical content. I am not interested in the value of art in itself but I am fascinated by the instrumental value of art as vehicle of ideas and understandings. At the same time I want to vindicate the rigor of analisys. I am not interested in representing neither spontaneous ideas, nor meaningless, confused arguments.
p.1_movement_
Trying to represent the power of the light, I realized these works between the years 2009 and 2010. The research of a plausible sign drove me toward an abstraction that shows the idea of movement meanwhile the form of the objects disappears. The rejection of the form wants to underline the way in which the light destroys the objects into a relation of domination.
I mean with “domination” a relation in which an agent, in this case the light, changes a physical quality of another agent, in this case the form.The action as movement is represented by the flow of lightly colours.
I began to develop these works using the line as first graphic unit. The creative reasoning here asks to imagine a complex of lines with a unilateral direction. To semplify it is possible to think that light colours are the sum of lightly lines that together create a whole which goes toward the darkness. This idea suggest a radical movement that cannot be stopped.
p.2_materiality_
Through this work I tried to have my first approach with material and iron. As first exploration I collapsed in the action paintig to understand the reactions of materials and their rustiness. The abandoning of the sign apparently seems a strong breaking point with previous work. I can just say that probably action painting was the easier way to begin this research on iron. Nonetheless, it is possible to argue that the outcomes are artistically modest but I think they were also necessary to go further.
The difficulties here were to find a method to paint on iron and, at the same time, to carry out the potentiality of these materials. The substantial part of these paintings is the mix between oil colours and iron shavings. This mix is the main outcome of the research and allows me to achieve a strong deepness in two-dimensional works.
Conceptually, I think that this iron materiality is a robust outcome. Contrary to the flow of the line in the first step, here I mean robust as something fixed and in a way unchangeable. I can consider the materiality as a good way to represent the essential features of reality. Therefore, the deepness of materiality well shows this linking with the strong realism.
A second result was entailed by the use of acid on iron. My failed attempt was to stop the process of oxidation and use the rust as chromatic element. The difficulty here was to stop the process of oxidation in a satisfactory way. For this reason it seems me necessary to avoid further researches with rust.
Thanks to these results I was able to define my sign with new material, adding also deep components really linked with sculpture.
p.3_between.materiality.and.movement_
As a result of these two researches I began since the end of 2011 to use both (“elemento”, “methods” – can you use an umbrella term?) on iron sheet: the sign developed with oil and the technique of materiality. Anyway, as can be compressible (did you mean this? Or better: “consolidated”?), some substantial details of these previous results assume visible changings. These changings are given by the exigencies of new devices and by new aehestetic (aesthetics???) accommodations.
The outcome well shows the tension between the deepness of materiality and the stressed radicalism of sign. These combined elements allow me to arrange a large amount of expressive force. Nonetheless, I have to evaluate the risk to fall into an absurd and too heavy cumulation of artistic concepts. To avoid this, I deny the use of other tools as colour. Nonetheless, probably I was not able to find an optimal balance yet. For this reason I do not exclude that I could move toward a synthesis and these elements that could mean the rejection of one of the two: materiality or sign.
I think in the end that the property of materiality and the form of my sign allow me to inquire and represent strong realistic contents and abstract meta-theoretical contents as well as epistemological contents. Therefore, they are in this moment the main subjects by which I express my meanings.
biography_
Antonio Alberti was born in 1986 in Abbiategrasso, a town near to Milan, Italy. His career moves between art and study. He is graduated in political theory in Università di Pavia and is doing a Ph.D in political studies at Università di Milano. Based on his interest in political phylosophy, Antonio Albertis art production is strictly linked to and inspired by conceptual analysis. In the last years he participated in some contests and exhibitions in Italy. Since 2006 to 2009 he participated to the exposition “Pittori di via Bagutta”, a classic event for painter in Milan. His main exhibition was in the Galleria Blanchaert in Milan, 2011. Moreover, he is cited in the chapter 11 of the book "La Via Italiana all'Informale. Da Afro, Vedova, Burri alle ultime tendenze" (The Italian way of informal. From Afro, Vedova, Burri to the last tendencies), written by Virgilio Patarini, edited by Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori in 2013.
