A FUOCO CONTINUO_
2018
A melancholy theater to move forward, text by Sabino Maria Frassà - Art Director of Cramum
Dario Picariello is a visual songwriter. His art was born to tell a story: be it a one-day performance or a whole lost world, the installation work is narrative above all. The single photographic shot, even though more and more valuable from a technical point of view, loses its meaning and power as a beautiful quote from a novel. Each work by Dario Picariello is then like a page of a story, a fairytale for adults, often ending bitter and melancholic. In this regard, how much melancholy of the Neapolitan theater can be found in the work of this visionary artist from Campania! Eduardo De Filippo said that the desperate effort that mankind makes in trying to give life any meaning is theater. It is no coincidence that in the work of Picariello the fairytale feature merges with the mature restlessness of theater. Masks as well as theatrical poses, sets and still lifes are always in the foreground compared to the characters, who ultimately seem to move like puppets in the hands of the artist, of the space and time created for them.
The artist’s invitation is not to see the works passively, but it is an invitation to the theater. For this reason, it would not be worth talking about the single works in the exhibition, but rather about the set-up conceived by the artist: even a frame has a meaning in his artistic research. After all, Dario Picariello, far from being a neorealist, draws inspiration from everyday life and reality like many contemporary writers and playwrights, which then descends into his world. Mimesis and figuration stand in relation to their being functional to the meaning and the symbolism. They pervade all the research of the artist and recall the sacredness and socia function of Greek tragedies as well as a reinterpretation of the fifteenth-century Tuscan art, with the importance of the theatrical space the characters are portrayed in.
These details find a blessed synthesis in the last story by Dario Picariello. A Fuoco Continuo (On Constant Fire) is focused on the history of the Kiln Guerra-Gregorj to create a community in which the factory was a moral and cultural center as well as an economic one. The culture and social welfare of the workers could be non-conflictual complementary aspects to the role of the company and the entrepreneur. Thus, On Constant Fire is the story of a dream, more than the story of an industrialist and the bankruptcy of his business that led the kiln to abandonment.
The installation by Dario Picariello makes us relive a utopian feeling through shots that reelaborate Arturo Martini’s poses and most famous characters. This artist marked an extraordinary passage in the creative heart of the Gregorj kiln, the Artists’ Hall. Also Dario Picariello’s human figures never reveal their faces in this story, always covered as in Greek tragedies by masks. The bodies merge and almost disappear in embraces and plastic poses, as well as in Arturo Martini’s Le Collegiali and La famiglia degli acrobati. On Constant Fire ends with the image of the Artists’ Hall today, abandoned and in ruins but relived by the artist thanks to the workshop with the students of Treviso Art School. This is the only framed artwork, hanging on the wall beyond the central setting, as it concludes the story. The kiln stopped its production in 1963 and, although it was declared a precious testimony of a disappearing world in 1987, today it is in a state of serious decay. However, we are not interested in why and how getting to this. What matters is that it existed, that Guerra-Gregorj Kiln was a genuine attempt to do something different. The history – industrial and political – of our country is not the protagonist of Dario Picariello’s story. The protagonist is the faceless hero, the Prometheus who decides to take the risk to contribute to the wellbeing of his com- munity at any time.
After all, what does failing mean? Ideals and pas- sion never fail, although they might perish their realization in front of the weight of History. What has been – thought and proven – stays in all those who have lived it, who – enriched – will spread the seed of change. Dario Picariello has the courage to pay homage to this story by reworking and reliving the original utopia. There is therefore no hagiographic rewriting of the past. The decadence of the ruin is reworked in a melancholic way so to create new ethereal still lifes, using the elements of space (bricks, abandoned kiln tools) where human figures move. On Constant Fire helps us start from the past, keep the kiln fire burning to revive the dream of a better world made of community, work and culture.
translations by
Alessandra Di Sante
The artist’s invitation is not to see the works passively, but it is an invitation to the theater. For this reason, it would not be worth talking about the single works in the exhibition, but rather about the set-up conceived by the artist: even a frame has a meaning in his artistic research. After all, Dario Picariello, far from being a neorealist, draws inspiration from everyday life and reality like many contemporary writers and playwrights, which then descends into his world. Mimesis and figuration stand in relation to their being functional to the meaning and the symbolism. They pervade all the research of the artist and recall the sacredness and socia function of Greek tragedies as well as a reinterpretation of the fifteenth-century Tuscan art, with the importance of the theatrical space the characters are portrayed in.
These details find a blessed synthesis in the last story by Dario Picariello. A Fuoco Continuo (On Constant Fire) is focused on the history of the Kiln Guerra-Gregorj to create a community in which the factory was a moral and cultural center as well as an economic one. The culture and social welfare of the workers could be non-conflictual complementary aspects to the role of the company and the entrepreneur. Thus, On Constant Fire is the story of a dream, more than the story of an industrialist and the bankruptcy of his business that led the kiln to abandonment.
The installation by Dario Picariello makes us relive a utopian feeling through shots that reelaborate Arturo Martini’s poses and most famous characters. This artist marked an extraordinary passage in the creative heart of the Gregorj kiln, the Artists’ Hall. Also Dario Picariello’s human figures never reveal their faces in this story, always covered as in Greek tragedies by masks. The bodies merge and almost disappear in embraces and plastic poses, as well as in Arturo Martini’s Le Collegiali and La famiglia degli acrobati. On Constant Fire ends with the image of the Artists’ Hall today, abandoned and in ruins but relived by the artist thanks to the workshop with the students of Treviso Art School. This is the only framed artwork, hanging on the wall beyond the central setting, as it concludes the story. The kiln stopped its production in 1963 and, although it was declared a precious testimony of a disappearing world in 1987, today it is in a state of serious decay. However, we are not interested in why and how getting to this. What matters is that it existed, that Guerra-Gregorj Kiln was a genuine attempt to do something different. The history – industrial and political – of our country is not the protagonist of Dario Picariello’s story. The protagonist is the faceless hero, the Prometheus who decides to take the risk to contribute to the wellbeing of his com- munity at any time.
After all, what does failing mean? Ideals and pas- sion never fail, although they might perish their realization in front of the weight of History. What has been – thought and proven – stays in all those who have lived it, who – enriched – will spread the seed of change. Dario Picariello has the courage to pay homage to this story by reworking and reliving the original utopia. There is therefore no hagiographic rewriting of the past. The decadence of the ruin is reworked in a melancholic way so to create new ethereal still lifes, using the elements of space (bricks, abandoned kiln tools) where human figures move. On Constant Fire helps us start from the past, keep the kiln fire burning to revive the dream of a better world made of community, work and culture.
translations by
Alessandra Di Sante