For some years, Massimo Chiti has concentrated his work on a consideration of contemporary society’s shared languages. Massimo has distanced himself from his elite intellectual status and used his work to redefine the artist’s role as society’s medium, as a critical voice, yet one that interprets a common feeling. From among the countless experiments provided to us by the masters of modernity/modernism, Massimo has chosen those capable of interacting with the diverse layers of society. Starting with clear references to Pop Art, he has focused on iconic faces and figures, developing them by means of a visual worker’s tools, as Warhol previously experimented with. Nevertheless, the analogies end there. No longer is it enough to condemn this mystifying aspect of a consumer society; globalization requires more subtle and articulate analytical tools. Massimo uses complex concept mappings to direct one’s thinking and to suggest additional critical paths. His works use a combination of collage and décollage, tweaked during printing as well as through pictorial actions that reintroduce classic compositions and chromatic balance. Nothing is ready-made, torn from everyday life. Even when he recycles bottle caps, he manipulates them, transforming them into mosaic tiles, caps, rhinestones, and bits of glass that lead to combine-paintings, but only so as to reinforce the expressive energy of the images constructed. We immediately recognize the faces of David Bowie and Sophia Loren. Yet they are composed – or is it decomposed? – by this indistinct mishmash of iconographic fragments that trigger a reaction that multiplies their associations and references. Various responses intersect, making the nature of the image even more polymorphous as the whole and its pieces lose their original form and acquire another identity. We could let ourselves be drawn by those popular myths that Massimo Chiti offers us. However, his works can be seen as meditation tables in which to seek out the oxymorons and palindromes that construct other, completely personal connections.
[Roberto Agnoletti]