MAURIZIO BIAGI
Maurizio Biagi's is a conceptual procedure that starts from the recovery of a traditional material and technique - terracotta di Impruneta (a type of pottery developed in the Italian town Impruneta located in the region of Florence ( where he lives and works) – with the aim of creating an expressive synthesis which focuses on the color and the creative process underlying the work. Paraphrasing the title of a famous painting by René Magritte, Ceci n’est pas une pipe, we could say that Biagi's are not simply painted terracotta slabs, but much more complex creations that challenge the common way we interpret reality. Indeed, the piece can be considered as a contemplation of the way in which artistic language evokes a response in the observer's mind and affects the conclusions that they draw from it. In this case, the viewer is confronted by an installation of several colored blocks, exhibited together as componant parts of a single composition (a technique often implemented by Biagi in a personal reinterpretation of experiments on colour in minimalist art), captivated by the coordinating or chromatic contrasts they form and, as a result, forgets or fails to consider the base material of which the work is made. In other words, the concept and conceptual process takes precedence over the construction itself, confirming how the action of the artist, drawing upon an idea, and the very act of bringing it to life, as we see here, enables a simple material such as terracotta to be completely transformed. The material becomes a support that, like the canvas, welcomes the artist's intervention and offers up in return a rough, irregular surface, dotted with reliefs that add texture to the color, merging seamlessly with it to create an unicum.
[Daniela Pronestì]