A FUOCO CONTINUO_
2018
Enchantment, text by Maurizio Coccia - Director of Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary
In Dario Picariello’s recent works some recurring terms hit me: the centrality of the body above all. Secondly, the structural role of the concept of prosthetics. The set-ups of his photos, on a closer inspection, all respect the unit of measurement of the human body. Even in those where the body is missing, it is the whole representation of it. In fact, its absence amplifies its importance and function.
However, the focus of these depictions does not lie in the subject, in its evident narrative. It seems that Picariello’s interest in the original myths is more a mnemonic and familistic tribute than the result of an arid scientific reflection, between anthropology and sociology. Just as the torments of militant performances seem to be far away – by age and nature. I believe we must acknowledge Picariello’s rare and courageous ability to translate biographical elements into a coherent visual system with an autonomous meaning.
This is why I think that dwelling on his personal events would be incorrect. It is not modesty. The confluence of art/life, after all, is now common even in the least updated environments. This is instead something about the general structure of artistic expression.
As we all know, the body is always an extremely radical communication device, as well as one of the most widespread and studied. In the last century art has progressively shifted from its representation to its actual, physical presence. This involved various consequences. Just as philosophy, psychoanalysis and science have crumbled the compactness of the ego, art has introduced caducity, degradation, illness in its expressive repertoire. What matters the most, however, is that the artistic body, torn from the logic of contemplation and thrown into daily precariousness declares its political density. Since life never takes place in two distinct spheres, the organic and the social, the body exposition confirms the collective dimension of the artistic experi- ence and of the civilization that generated it.
The body, therefore, produces knowledge. For Dario Picariello, it transmits a somatic and sensual knowl- edge beyond empirical and rational boundaries. His bodies recall a crystallized imaginary, halfway between rituality and dream, dance macabre and hallucination. The accessories he assigns to nudity – found in the dusty location where he sets up his tableau – have a double task. On the one hand, they are anatomical extensions increasing the communicative capacity of the bodies. On the other hand, they produce hybrids that overcome physical limits and project these figures into the style of an alternative, wise, and non-Cartesian epistemology.
Therefore, the body is medium and message. In this way, also the principle of prosthesis leaves the rhetoric of visual language and becomes concrete support, mechanical integration of the image. Picariello adopts the typical equipment of the photographic sets and incorporates it into an aesthet- ics of the supplement in which the traditional hierarchies between the support and the artwork merge into a spatial and semantic continuum.
Photography – by definition – states an irre- versible zone. Picariello’s strategy, on the contrary, is based on entropy, on the refusal of fossilization. Since he accepts – as a loser like we all are – the biological challenge, he already knows the yearning for the impossible conservation. Disappearance. The obsession of memory. The loss. The final enchantment.
translations by
Alessandra Di Sante
However, the focus of these depictions does not lie in the subject, in its evident narrative. It seems that Picariello’s interest in the original myths is more a mnemonic and familistic tribute than the result of an arid scientific reflection, between anthropology and sociology. Just as the torments of militant performances seem to be far away – by age and nature. I believe we must acknowledge Picariello’s rare and courageous ability to translate biographical elements into a coherent visual system with an autonomous meaning.
This is why I think that dwelling on his personal events would be incorrect. It is not modesty. The confluence of art/life, after all, is now common even in the least updated environments. This is instead something about the general structure of artistic expression.
As we all know, the body is always an extremely radical communication device, as well as one of the most widespread and studied. In the last century art has progressively shifted from its representation to its actual, physical presence. This involved various consequences. Just as philosophy, psychoanalysis and science have crumbled the compactness of the ego, art has introduced caducity, degradation, illness in its expressive repertoire. What matters the most, however, is that the artistic body, torn from the logic of contemplation and thrown into daily precariousness declares its political density. Since life never takes place in two distinct spheres, the organic and the social, the body exposition confirms the collective dimension of the artistic experi- ence and of the civilization that generated it.
The body, therefore, produces knowledge. For Dario Picariello, it transmits a somatic and sensual knowl- edge beyond empirical and rational boundaries. His bodies recall a crystallized imaginary, halfway between rituality and dream, dance macabre and hallucination. The accessories he assigns to nudity – found in the dusty location where he sets up his tableau – have a double task. On the one hand, they are anatomical extensions increasing the communicative capacity of the bodies. On the other hand, they produce hybrids that overcome physical limits and project these figures into the style of an alternative, wise, and non-Cartesian epistemology.
Therefore, the body is medium and message. In this way, also the principle of prosthesis leaves the rhetoric of visual language and becomes concrete support, mechanical integration of the image. Picariello adopts the typical equipment of the photographic sets and incorporates it into an aesthet- ics of the supplement in which the traditional hierarchies between the support and the artwork merge into a spatial and semantic continuum.
Photography – by definition – states an irre- versible zone. Picariello’s strategy, on the contrary, is based on entropy, on the refusal of fossilization. Since he accepts – as a loser like we all are – the biological challenge, he already knows the yearning for the impossible conservation. Disappearance. The obsession of memory. The loss. The final enchantment.
translations by
Alessandra Di Sante