Carloalberto Treccani

In Google We Trust

OPENING
sabato 5 marzo 2011, ore 18
saturday, march 5, 18.00 pm

5 marzo – 22 aprile 2011
march 5 - april 22, 2011



Fabio Paris Art Gallery è lieta di presentare In Google We Trust, la prima personale dell'artista italiano Carloalberto Treccani (Brescia 1984), a cura di Domenico Quaranta. La mostra raccoglie gli esiti recenti di due progetti distinti, ma accomunati da un'analoga riflessione su come i mezzi di comunicazione stiano cambiando in maniera irreversibile la nostra percezione del territorio e della sua rappresentazione simbolica.
La “democratizzazione” della visione satellitare, fino a pochi anni fa privilegio di enti e autorità politiche, attraverso servizi come Google Earth, non ha solo normalizzato la rappresentazione simbolica – sovrapponendo perfettamente mappa e territorio – e tolto al nostro pianeta ogni aura di mistero; ha anche offerto a chiunque un punto di vista nuovo sul mondo e sulla realtà. Il ciclo “Alfabeto per l'edilizia” (2006 – in corso), rappresentato in mostra da tre lavori, raccoglie i frutti di una paziente esplorazione di Google Earth alla ricerca di edifici che, osservati dal satellite, rivelino analogie con le lettere dell'alfabeto. Questa pratica, ormai condivisa da un ampio numero di persone, serve a Treccani per mettere a punto un linguaggio poi utilizzato per comporre frasi che sono, di volta in volta, delle ambigue allusioni al proprio lavoro di esplorazione, scoperta e di composizione (come In Google We Trust, 2010 o Inaspettatamente. Omaggio a Boetti, 2010) o delle tautologiche descrizioni dello spazio reale in cui questo spazio simbolico si ricompone (come Travel Around the World in 324 Centimeters, 2011).
Questo interesse per la cartografia ritorna nel ciclo “Google Map” (2011), in cui Carloalberto Treccani si serve dell'iconografia a cui Google e analoghi servizi di mappatura e geolocalizzazione ci hanno abituati per tracciare viaggi immaginari su mappe reali, terresti o celesti.
Ritorna, in questo lavoro, un tema caro all'artista, esplorato in forme diverse in tutto il suo lavoro: quello dello schermo come costante del vissuto contemporaneo, perno di una svolta antropologica che stiamo vivendo nel suo svolgersi. In questo caso, lo schermo diventa la metafora a cui si adatta ogni rappresentazione simbolica, compresa la millenaria pratica della cartografia; e il luogo in cui il viaggio non viene solo rappresentato o simulato, ma anche, in molti casi, realmente compiuto.
In questo modo, Treccani si riaggancia alla tradizione, esplorata da Luigi Ghirri nel suo Atlante (1973), della fotografia come rappresentazione di rappresentazioni e del viaggio come “scoperta dell'avvenuta scoperta”.




Fabio Paris Art Gallery is proud to present In Google We Trust, the first solo show by the Italian artist Carloalberto Treccani (Brescia 1984), curated by Domenico Quaranta. The show brings together the recent results of two separate projects, both however characterised by a reflection on how means of communication are irreversibly changing our perception of the earth and its symbolic representation.
Thanks to services like Google Earth, the “democratisation” of satellite vision, until recently the privilege of official bodies and political authorities, has not only normalised symbolic representation – perfectly superimposing map and territory – and stripped our planet of any aura of mystery, it has also offered us all a new perspective on the world and reality. The exhibition features three works from the series “Alfabeto per l'edilizia” (2006 – ongoing), which present the results of a time-consuming exploration using Google Earth to seek out buildings that, from a satellite’s eye view, resemble letters of the alphabet. Treccani uses this practice, now undertaken by a large number of people, to create a language that is deployed to compose phrases, forming ambiguous allusions to his work of exploration, discovery and composition (such as In Google We Trust, 2010 or Inaspettatamente. Omaggio a Boetti, 2010), or tautological descriptions of the real space into which this symbolic space is recomposed (like Travel Around the World in 324 Centimeters, 2011).
Treccani’s interest in cartography returns in the series “Google Map” (2011), where he uses the iconography we are now accustomed to thanks to Google and similar mapping and geolocalization services to trace imaginary journeys on real land and sky maps.
This work features a theme close to the artist’s heart, something he explores in different ways in all of his work: that of the screen as a constant presence in our daily lives, the pivot of an anthropological turning point that is currently under way. In this case the screen becomes the metaphor that all symbolic representations now adapt to, including the time-honoured practice of cartography, and the setting where journeys are not only represented or simulated but also, in many cases, actually undertaken.
In this way, Treccani references the tradition, explored by Luigi Ghirri in his Atlante (1973), of photography as a representation of representations and travel as the “discovery of previous discovery”.

ALTERAZIONI VIDEO

Don´t Eat the Yellow Snow


Solo Show
Curated by Maruska Mazza

12.02 - 22.02.2011
Ateliergemeinschaft Milchhof e. V.
Schwedter Straße 232,
10435 Berlin

Opening day: Friday 11.02.2011, from 19 o'clock
Opening hours: everyday 24 h



Alterazioni Video is a group of five artists who have been working together for six years, and are currently located in Milan, New York and Berlin. The distances between the various members of the group and their constant movements have made communications between them – mostly mediated by phone and the net - one of the key aspects of their work: communications hindered by time differences, erratic connections and the inherent problems to do with operating as a group. In this way, over the years communication between the group’s members has regressed, going from schizophrenic clashes in person to shorter and shorter chatroom messages to the current situation of preverbal interfacing.
The Violent Paintings are in fact the result of an intense exchange of images found on the net, manipulated each time they change hands: a dialogue of cut and paste, the product of an irrepressible urge to create visions. At times the image becomes a work in its own right, at others it remains a study, a model to deconstruct and recombine to give rise to new representations. The Violent Paintings bear witness to the ongoing construction of an artistic idiom, the result of a dialogue between five individuals who no longer have anything to say to each other but continue to feel the pressing need to communicate. The violence in the title varies from that unleashed in the heated exchanges between the members of the group, to the content of the images themselves, images which are then transferred onto a medium, a light pvc which is bent and deformed, or that afflicted by classic painting, parodied in an appropriation and amateurish use of Photoshop, or lastly that which the images inflict on the spectator, who is challenged to make sense of this mish-mash of amateur photos, porn, hentai graphics, second-rate effects and art classics.
In this sense the Violent Paintings are also the result of the reflections of Alterazioni Video – which has always been interested in the cultural implications of the digital revolution, from copyright to censorship – on the increasingly widespread practice of social processing of images.