Manifesto 2014

Autore del Manifesto del Sorrento Meeting 2014:

RICCARDO ARENA

Artist Statement
In my work I develop a creative process founded on the accumulation, collation and study of diverse documents, which, in the process of assemblage, come to reveal accidental and unforeseen potentialities. These potentialities become in themselves active agents in the imagining of new, circumstantial paths of association that evolve independently from the original inspirational impulse. The constant movement between the intuitive gathering of study materials and their internal reconfiguration through the intuitive act is condensed into narrative structures that become the fundamental principle of the work: collage, films, drawings, archive objects, texts and animations, are all orchestrated into a visual constellation in mutual dialogue, becoming a vehicle for multiple references and interpretations.Over the past few years, I have dedicated myself to the creation of independent projects in different countries, the timing and content of which are suggested through the events that arise during the investigation.The first of these, “Four Times a Tree”, elaborated through a series of journeys in China, develops from the idea of “nature reserve”, garden or park, as a microcosmic reiteration of the universe. Describing the vision of a Chinese garden created by a catastrophic event, it narrates the adventure of this human generation, whose presence is felt through the harmonization of its remains in a melancholy celebration of a mythical future. The project was presented in 2008 in Shanghai 1918ArtSpace gallery, and in 2009 in Milan in the Mayr3 space and in Allegra Ravizza Art Project gallery, and in 2013 in Lousanne during Les Urbaines.
The second, “Dual Death Ellero and visual ecosystem” began in a Tibetan village in Sichuan and developed after a series of trips between Argentina and Bolivia. This project was inspired by the first fingerprint classification techniques; through an articulated physiognomic investigation conducted by a detective in search of an imaginary face. It reflects historically and symbolically on the differences between observation and contemplation, questioning the concepts of identity, identification, indivisibility and multiplicity. The project has been presented in various stages of development, in 2011 in Buenos Aires in the Wussman gallery as a consequence of the selection of 54th Venice Biennial – World pavillion, and in 2012 in MAGA, as a result of winning the XXIV Visual Arts Prize at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Gallarate and in 2013 in Milan in the Museum of Novecento during the exhibition ArtimortisThe third project “Vavilon” is currently in production and centers on the Solovki Islands, an archipelago in the White Sea only 160 km south of the Arctic Circle; an enigmatic territory inhabited by ascetic monks, that over thousands of years, attracted events of profound historical significance.Due to the richness of the themes that nourish “Vavilon”, it is my intention to develop within ISCP, a series of works that
will be integrated in the further project  stages; as introduced previously, the works that compose my projects are to be considered as “parts” of a composition, which their mutual interdependence outlines the whole imaginarium underlined in an evolving structure.