PAOLO FABIANI
22 September – 24 November 2007
Inauguration: Saturday 22 September at 6.00 pm
After the summer break, the Sincresis Association reopens its exhibition spaces with a solo exhibition by Paolo Fabiani
who participated in the project The state of the art promoted by the Municipality of Montelupo Fiorentino e
by the Montelupo Cultura Institution in collaboration with the Industrial Design course of the Faculty of Architecture of
Florence and with our association.
Paolo Fabiani, a well-known artist, began his avant-garde creative journey towards the end of the 1980s
moving towards the raw earth sculpture, worked to compose with a few combined touches and assembled elements
slender and fleeting figures, deformed in elementary plastic, examples as indicated at the time by Laura Cherubini, (Paolo
Fabiani, Galleria Margiacchi, Arezzo, 1995), of a “domestic sculpture” that draw inspiration from the characters of the
commedia dell’arte, like the figure of Pulcinella, a symbolic expression of an adventurous life and tragicomic image
of the existential experience that feeds on childhood memories and suggests an innocent look at the world.
On the occasion of this exhibition he presents new works, including an installation consisting of objects found in the collection
and from figures elaborated with terracotta sheets to which, for the first time, color is combined, which draw inspiration from
manga characters. In them, as in the Neapolitan mask, the artist projects his imagination and his irony
vision of life, capable of derailing from the usual tracks and amorphous schemes to suggest a different look, so as to
shattering at the foundations and undermining certain certainties and preconceived paradigms.
In fact, his creative approach is essentially playful and poetic, both in the realization of his subjects in material
poor, which seem to derive from emptiness, both in the study of the space in which to place or from which to create the work, such as
in the environmental installation designed for the exterior of the Fortezza da Basso in Florence for Pitti Immagine in 2005.
Lately engaged in the design of domestic objects, dishes, pots, glasses of Pulcinella’s kitchen, presented
at the recent ArteFiera in Bologna with the Fabjbasaglia Gallery in Rimini, so deformed as to become functional e
desecrating the design product, proposes on display a dialogue between some of these and the figures that seem to be generated by
nothing.
Ludovico Pratesi wrote that “Fabiani studies the expression of form, while he works terracotta”, a form
indeterminate, which seems imperfect, which gives the idea of precariousness, of the fragment in vain.
The artist’s language is oriented not towards construction, but towards “the dissolution of form” and allows
perceive “the tactile pleasure of shaping matter”, so that “the sculptures retain the joy of a game, of building with
hands something ephemeral […] ”.
“Neither ends nor ends are fundamental in his sculpture, but development and intertwining, the more entangled the more
they remove any possibility of dissolution and resolution of the image “(Paolo Fabiani in The new identity of
sculpture, Teseco for art, Pisa, 1998).
“A few, minimal touches – indicated Paola Ballerini – which nevertheless fully restore the amazement of doing with little, almost
from nothing, an authentic discourse, rejecting common codes for a language that adheres to the profound, out of the din
metropolitan […]. Traces, glimmers of gestures and actions barely sketched in the disarming poverty of materials.
It acts against the trend to rediscover the most authentic poetry, the most profound lyricism, “choosing essentiality starting
from the void to recreate with few elements, few signs, a proper and radical language “(Come dire Splendori, Prato,
1994).
“Revelations, evocations of an incomprehensible reality that opens up views on interior landscapes – said Maria Luisa Frisa
– as an unfinished one waiting to be finished or rather a new image that can complete it ”(Paolo Fabiani in
Our souls will chase colors in the distant abyss, Galleria Carini, Florence, 1989).
“Everything seems improvised, provisional, – said Saretto Cincinelli, speaking of his work – escapes the idea
of completeness, like the multi-basin fountain of an unfinished scenography, so as to capture the self-portrait of the work, to
return not a fullness, but a latency destined to remain so “(Je t’aime, Note contemporary art, Arezzo,
2001).
The inauguration evening will end at Borgo dei Lunardi in Cerreto Guidi, where the artist has placed and set
his new ceramic work.
Information: Wednesday to Saturday 5.30pm – 7.30pm.
For visits by appointment: Tel and fax 0571/73619; e – mail: a.scappini@virgilio.it
To get there: S.G.C. FI.PI.LI. EMPOLI exit; FS: FI –PI; FI – YES; Empoli station