Art on the Alert
Art on the Alert
Published by Timia Edizioni
2021
p.256
Italy
www.timiaedizioni.it
Introduction
By Marcello Sestito
If the world could, in one swoop, show itself to consciousness, it would certainly assume the resemblance of an art work. Even a mathematical formula or a sign paradox could not give the snapshot of what art offers placing itself as the thing of men par excellence, that same thing that is unrivalled by the Creator. To keep this expedient awake or, if we prefer, to make sure we do not forget, Stefania Carrozzini’s art activity stands as a gesture of generosity towards the humankind that struggles to listen. There are at least three attitudes that liven up Carrozzini’s spirit: 1 – An intangible need of confrontation with topics that seem secondary only if seen from a wrong angle, a need that makes her move in time and in space looking for artists and their art works, like if she could feel comfortable in this rollercoaster of happenings and events. Convinced that the art work does not divorce from the artist that produced it. 2 – The attitude towards the different and the non-standard, which awaken in our consciousness through switching on the gaze, although bringing her to unexplored territories. It is like saying that during her long and passionate work as operational critic, the topics that are on the carpet almost become those thesis that probe social relations, those aggregative skills of the groups channeled in the same sky. 3 – Explorer of parallel universes, she moves confidently between Europe and America, absorbing and dissipating, channeling and keeping, conversing yet preserving the steadiness of the words that will describe a work, an object, a figure. Being a healthy carrier of the art virus and therefore ambassador in the two continents.If all of this was not enough to describe the courage of the author in this recent text, that tries to give an account of a long process of art alternations and their contemporary outcomes, we must say that Stefania ties up to the attitudes listed upon an equal number of work methods that characterize her path.Worried yet brave, she ventures into the artistic unknown like a pearl diver, always coming back with fruitful results. The foretold methods are themselves included in another trilogy: 1 -Stefania does not settle on describing the work of the artists that she presents, nor does she want to grasp the intimate traits – hence some sort of emotional flirting connects the critique to the artist, like if a knowledge sparkle could only spring from this kind of dialogue; an intense dialogue, that foreshadows a real proximity to the art work – an initiation path not void of obstacles. 2 – Passionate as few, she invests all her femininity in daily commitment, while some sort of healthy ingenuity drags her into unidentified territories that she slowly researches the structure of – a drawing, an organic set able to relate to the art status. She tries, I am sure, to transform even political commitment into knowledge to spread. 3 – The artworks that she presents often have a common denominator, which is not only connected to the proposed topic; in a more subtle way, in their ensamble, they want to pass on a unified and addictive message. Even in the knowledge that, in art, the sum doesn’t make the whole of the single work, she tenaciously insists in making a cultural path democratic and objective. The risk to dispel has two symmetrical sides. If on one hand, as we said, adding more subjects to the artistic event takes on the social value of involvement, on the other hand there is the danger of devaluating the uniqueness of the work, that, in the best case, stands out of the crowd like a diamond between rocks. Perhaps the contemporary age rejects attempts of uniqueness with homologation? We do not believe so. We believe that the line is thinner, that it needs more knowledge, that history or else history of art are not enough anymore. The heterotopia of the world, as Foucault perfectly seized, demands the total immersion in the multiple languages and tendencies, under the penalty of some sort of unnecessary cultural amateurism. The long stay in “D’Ars” magazine, that was led by the unforgettable Pierre Restany and that saw us involved in the editorial staff for a long time, gave its fruits – who was once a young emerging art critic became one of today’s most needed figures to keep Art Awake, especially in an increasingly mediatized panorama where the truth has the same value of deception, where looks count more than being, where if you , it is like you never died for die.
www.timaiedizioni.it