Giuseppe De Mattia “Produzione Propria” at OPR gallery, Milan
Many artists create on their personal at a time when the classical ideas of ownership and authorship are invested by the logic of profile, anonymity and group. From this consciously uncomfortable place, one can categorical oneself freely, vulgarly.
Ladri di piastrelle
In the installation and performance do the job Nunca fui turista em Lisboa! Giuseppe De Mattia translates the illegal trade in azulejos, glazed ceramics of Arab origin that adorn the walls of numerous Iberian cities, composing figurative, abstract and geometric motifs into a gallery room. Azulejos robbers secretly eliminate the tiles to offer them to vacationers as souvenirs, developing a black market place that supports total family members by exfoliating their towns. Likewise, the 300 tiles put in on the walls of OPR Gallery are destined to be taken out and then procured independently by the exhibition viewers for the modest value of a souvenir. The De Mattia’s tiles are a individual interpretation of the most popular square shape. All alongside one another they make up a decorative floral sample. But taken a single by one they expose the stylisation of a male member. The parallelism concerning black marketplace and gallery reveals how the artist showcases the mechanisms of art to refer to broader financial and social narratives this sort of as the true estate speculation that plagues some areas and the function of individuality in the administration of popular products. The bogus testimony of a thief of azulejos, which Giuseppe De Mattia provides in audio type, is in actuality centred on the self-legitimisation of the delinquent who, like any superior artist, finds in just himself the good reasons for his steps. At the finish of the operations, it is consequently critical not to be fooled by the enthusiasm of the exchanges. Choose a fantastic glimpse at what remains in each and every person’s fingers.
Ingegno di Mola
This is not the to start with time that De Mattia has utilised techniques and units typical of avenue investing, also creating irony out of the artist’s will need to offer in purchase to make a living. In Ingenuity and Independence (Which is It, MAMbo, Bologna, 2018) he collects 7 performances targeted on clandestine exchanges. In Esposizione di frutta e verdura (Materia, Rome, 2019. Curated by Vasco Forconi) he transforms the exhibition place into a shop by working with a big display screen for genuine and bogus fruits and greens. Ingegno di Mola collection is also alongside these traces, which reworks the illegal observe, common in the South, of location up a chair around the entrance doorway with examples of items for sale in the private house. For the black and white silver salts photographic sequence, Giuseppe De Mattia shoots on spot, portraying serious chairs/shows from the village of Noha, in Salento. A backdrop sketched with a white fabric, nonetheless, pretends a studio copy, abstracting the item from the urban fabric and supplying the illustration an idealised price. In the sculpture, on the other hand, the artists substitutes the Salento chair for just one designed next the recommendations dictated in the 1970s by the designer Enzo Mari, who saw in self-design an escape route from the logic of capitalism. On this historicised chair, however, food stuff has develop 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 works by using historic and regular languages and units in an unforeseen way. In the formality of the basic, he drops the tale of negligible or marginal episodes, circumventing the narrative area of highest units to denounce underhand economies and moralities of a various form. A list of values and conduct, generally sweetened by the inventive narrative of the current, calls for criticism and attention. Gimmicks, thievery, petty malfeasance, deceit and subterfuge describe historic connivances amongst man, graphic and landscape. The illustration of artwork as a metaphorical, social and anthropological item is the worth all-around which the overall Giuseppe De Mattia universe finds its raison d’être. The terracotta whistling mask Testa di Gianni, Fischia! tells of the time when De Mattia paid his artist buddy Gianni D’Urso to whistle on command and documents the acceptance. The perform evokes the Apulian custom of translating costume scenes and authentic characters into a terracotta whistle. The seem that goes as a result of Gianni’s head will make the memory at any time present and pertinent. The complete exhibition merges into a single genre scene, from Bari to Lisbon, traversed by a breath of vitality that phone calls the audience to take part in the feast (or slaughter) of the worldimage. Mustard all’ancienne “Those who have not acknowledged the Ancien régime can under no circumstances know what the sweetness of lifestyle was”. PrinceDuke Talleyrand, one of the greatest exponents of political chameleonism, as a result fed the reactionary cravings of the French, manipulating the earlier in the form of a memorable lost paradise. Like the mighty Talleyrand, De Mattia features an image of the artist self that is suitable for all seasons. On the just one hand, he is able of pandering to the retro-refined preferences of the cultured (a dollar blackens the pupils at the clap of the cash register). On the other it is nimble in transferring, candidly, in the poor undergrowths of the impartial scenes. To be an artist, just one might say, just one must be equipped to invent at least one particular (of artists). And to convey it to the stage. Giuseppe De Mattia is an exquisite, anti-magic and tragicomically sensible one particular. A person who, with the get and technique of an archivist of folklore, builds symbolic credibility in purchase to expose its falsehood, sowing question on the genuine beliefs of white hetero cisgender Westerners and discovering their fear of getting it or, even worse, of not becoming capable to put it on.
Gabriele Tosi
at OPR gallery, Milan
till November 15, 2022