Tradition is dead: it has never been so alive
by Irene Biolchini | Funzioni Finzioni
Todays’ exhibition is conceived as a dialogue between the works of Andrea Salvatori and the ones of CaCO3 (a collective composed by three members). It is necessary to reflect upon two of the most important traditions of Romagna (ceramics and mosaic) to understand their works. Both the crafts characterise deeply the culture and the economy of the periphery in which they were developed. Throughout the years both Ravenna (for mosaic) and Faenza (in ceramics), in fact, had been able to invest into their own tradition, implementing museums and schools, conquering a hegemonic role in the craft sector.
To grow up in this context, to live within those traditions, obliges you to understand their rules and prohibitions. The crafts live upon the empiric knowhow, a deep knowledge of the matter, based on a daily practice. Abiding to the rules, in Romagna, craftsmen were able to defend and promulgate their uniqueness. The works of CaCO3, and of Andrea Salvatori, are nourished by the tradition. CaCO3 decided to isolate some specific characteristics, to develop some aspect, to enlarge some details till the point in which the same tradition fades away to leave space to their work of art.
CaCO3 creates works that have a memory of the classic technic: despite that, by doing what they do, they destroy it. When we are in front of a work made by the group, in fact, we are absorbed by colours and hypnotised by the lines. The technique is no longer an instrument through which the craftsman can build the image: on the opposite, in CaCO3 way of working the tiles cease to be a matter (as in the classic technique) to become a subject matter. The subject of the work, in fact, is the technique itself: the lines – created by the artists while they were fixing the stones and glasses to the background – suggest emotive association to the spectator; even the change in colour, especially its tonal variation between light and chiaroscuro, is obtained through the different inclination of the tiles.
While adopting the secular tradition of the micro-mosaic, CaCO3 destroys it: and that’s because the main characteristics of the micro-mosaic, i.e. the technical capacity of making a clear drawing, are not adopted at all by the group. The tiles, made in stone and glass, are not negating their matter anymore: they do not allude to any final image, but – on the contrary – their materiality is at the centre of the work of art. The cuts, the different orientation of the tiles, they all help in giving different tonalities and colour variations, becoming the real protagonists of the work of art.
In the mosaic tradition, in fact, the image is built thanks to the conscious juxtaposition of the tiles, which are selected on the base of their colour and shape to build the final perception of the image. Adopting different matters, the craftsman can obtain a chromatic differentiation: distinctive stones and glasses guarantee the different colours that might be necessary during the image making process. On the opposite, CaCO3 uses the same matter for a whole work. The chromatic effect is not obtained combining different matters, but it is built throughout the different orientation of the tiles: by changing the way in which the tiles are glued to the surface, the group also changes the way in which the light touches them, creating different shades. The principal characteristics of the micro-mosaic, its variety, is negated and destroyed. In the same way, even the classic meticulous control over the creation of the work of art, is subverted by the way in which the group operates. After a first draft, discussed by the whole group, the chance becomes the central element of the creation: during the day each member of the group works alone, following the automatism dictated by the repetition of the gesture. At the end of the day the group examines the work and decides on how to proceed. The day after they start again, following the rhythm, not to say the chance.
We are in front of the formation of compromise: the CaCO3 adopts a classic technique, known for its precision and control, but they renounce to any kind of conscious construction. Like Miró – who used to reiterate the drawing of his famous star millions of time till when he was not able any longer to control the shape and the gesture- the group chooses to reiterate their gestures in the act of working, losing control. The sign is not the Informal one, which was coming directly from the gesture, but it is generated by the slowness of the repetition. The sign becomes the symbol of the flow of the work, which destroys any possible construction, the basic characteristic of mosaic.
In a similar way, when the spectator is in front of the work of art he is absorbed by the same flow, he is captured by the shadows, by the lines. The spectator is lost in the matter of the work, as the artists before him. The contrast between two opposite forces, the love for the tradition and the destruction of the same, nourishes the creative process and the greenmagenta diptych is a correlative objective of this opposition: the two colours, complementary colours, are obliged to live in the same space (as the two opposite forces are called to live together in the practice of the group). Other works, rigorously white, intervene to balance the final effect.
It is possible to isolate some characteristics from the opposition between the violent colours of the diptych and the neutrality of the whites: the importance of the shadows and the centrality of the lines. These two elements are recurrent in all the production of the group: the fact that the two are the direct result of the drastic refusal for the drawing and the mimesis (both typical of the micromosaic tradition), is the ultimate result of CaCO3 research and of their compromise formation.
