Affordable Chaos
Typically my job requires me to write down introductions to up to date artwork exhibitions, one thing I get pleasure from doing, turning a deaf ear to, or relatively, not on the lookout for solutions to, the query about whether or not these textual content are literally any use, as the reply will surely be no. I personally assume {that a} textual content about an exhibition can be extra constructive after its inauguration, just a few days after it opened. You could possibly name what I’m about to write down a pre-text, one thing that occurs earlier than and because of my privileged place as curator, which supplies me the chance to see the works and have lengthy conversations beforehand, nevertheless it is also referred to as a pretext: one I exploit each time to know how and what each artist and each single paintings produced, have to supply, that one thing which is particular to everybody that sees it, feels it or touches it.
“WHO’S GOOD BOY?” is the provocative and evocative title of Sebastiano Pallavisini’s first solo exhibition in his hometown (Udine, Italy,1999) with which SMDOT/Up to date Artwork is completely satisfied to start out its fifth 12 months of analysis and programming. “good boy” is an expression used to gratify a pet, most often a canine, for behaviour that conforms to human expectations. In our case, the animal, amazed and unaware, wonders: “Who’s Good Boy?”. Ranging from this straightforward and ironic query, the place topic and object, adjective and correct noun are twisted up and confused, with a grammatical change between lowercase and uppercase letters, Sebastiano Pallavisini, with wit and irony, shifts and modifies our standard factors of view. Many of the works within the exhibition are new: medium and huge work, sculptures and drawings. The artworks set off an aesthetic battle with human beings and their presumption in evaluating and judging, compelling and alluring us to rediscover a brand new, nearly primordial relationship with nature, encouraging us to see ourselves as an extension of the world round us. Because the thinker and anthropologist Bruno Latour stated, there isn’t any exterior setting, and we should develop into conscious of this as a way to start to think about how interconnected we’re with one another and with all different types of life, and study to switch our actions.
We would recommend that the conceptual framework underpinning Sebastiano Pallavisini’s work displays a conviction expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau within the mid-eighteenth century, who asserted on the top of the Enlightenment, that man is born good however is corrupted by civilisation, which, along with the abuse of his schools, make him sad and evil. …” O Man! search no additional for the writer of evil; thou artwork he … (J.J.Rousseau, Emile or Schooling, E book 4). Sebastiano Pallavisini’s portray and sculpture plunge us into the artist’s battle between primordial chaos, evil, clichés and looming disaster. He abandons the ability of sight in favour of contact, inviting us to affix him in prioritising what we really feel over what we see. He repays our efforts with photographs that don’t resemble actuality, with figures that we appear to recognise, however have no idea. The works within the exhibition don’t illustrate, they don’t present us the identified seen world, they don’t depict. As an alternative, they face the chaos, they convey it to the canvas, drawings, and sculptures. They attempt to dominate it, with palms, with the physique, with the comb, the spatula, rags and paint. Earlier than the autumn from the nice heights expressed within the works, earlier than the arrival of an imminent disaster, for a short second, we will see the invisible forces which can be hidden amongst issues, which can be the reason for our steady motion and due to this fact the continual chance and hope for change. Phrases written on the web page or stated out loud discover it arduous to explain the invisible, however that is no motive to not strive. They’ve a linear development, they may change tone or depth, however regardless, they observe a path, they happen one after one other. Sebastiano’s work is an aesthetic observe that’s undertaken in depth on a number of planes on the identical time. These planes are at all times precariously balanced, the place a chaotic, tragic, and typically violent motion is given only a contact of wit. Maybe it’s exactly his manner of utilizing this ironic wit that lets us into his work.
Within the photographs within the exhibition we will see canine, wolves, lynxes, wild boars, bears, and bonobos… however are they actually animals? What habitat do they exist in? What are they actually doing? The viewer turns into just like the canine who hears himself referred to as “Good Boy”, and wonders, fairly disoriented, Who’s “Good Boy”? What’s going on? What am I doing? Why am I being referred to as? What’s going to the results be? Which is the best approach to go? How do I develop into a great boy? Clearly there aren’t any unambiguous solutions, however we will profit from the ability of sharing experiences, as usually occurs in a spot the place you may meet up bodily within the presence of works of Artwork, a particular place the place you may disagree with one another and revel in non-confrontational and non-polarising conversations about our variations. This sort of area appears to have disappeared utterly from our every day lives. More and more our essential talents are eroded, changed with easy and purposeful options, buffeted by an infinite variety of outlined and figuring out photographs.
Artwork, the murals, isn’t resolved or figuring out, it’s by no means completed or outlined, there’s at all times one thing lacking. It’s at all times poised between chaos and the opportunity of disaster, which may give us an perception past the identified, the already-seen, the already-created, that allows this second of steadiness. Sebastiano Pallavisini’s works additionally use a level of irony that may be seen within the titles. These make us uncomfortable, forcing us to maneuver from Descartes’s “cogito ergo sum” to the “sentio ergo sum” of Aristotle, thus shifting the main target from the rational to the perceptive dimension, bringing us again, with irony, to what’s cheap.
On this manner “Brodino Primordiale, bruciato”(collection, 2025, eight drawings, Repap mineral paper, ecoline ink, 25 x 17.5 cm), calls to thoughts the color and heat of scorching broth (brodino), a traditional consolation meals for winter evenings, transporting the physique to our chaotic origins of the primordial broth within the title. Territorial pissing (2025, oil and acrylic on canvas, 150 x 130 cm) depicts the battle for territory, it’s the battle for one’s personal area, it’s the delight that overcomes the love for oneself, there are animal our bodies (?), emptied, out of steadiness, in a false equilibrium. “Ocio!”, (2024, glazed ceramic, 30 x 25 x 10) is the top of a bear (maybe) it stares at us from one standpoint with one glass eye, and with the opposite invitations us to replicate. “The orangutan gang”, (2024, oil and acrylic on canvas, 200 x 300 cm), exhibits us the potential violence of a gaggle and the dangers of induced polarisation, but in addition the opportunity of escaping from it, on this case by color and gesture. “Bonobos”, (2024, acrylic and oil on canvas, 200 x 190 cm), is as misleading as they’re misleading, they appear like us, and are unhappy, perplexed, maybe smiling, maybe making an attempt to recommend one thing. “Good Boy” (2025,glazed ceramic, 25 x 15 x 10 cm), seems similar to a canine, though personally this resemblance doesn’t persuade me, he’s biting his tail, and is clearly not completely satisfied, he’s in ache or is bored, I prefer to assume that he’s bored.
The hope is that this boredom, this going spherical in circles, however above all, the self-induced ache of the chunk, can metaphorically shake us out of the compulsion to behave at any prices and the fixed acceleration of life. By painfully stopping the circle, we will study to hear, which is a type of inaction the place the ego, which is often busy with differentiations and delimitations, falls silent. “Good boy” is the voice of the person who tries to hunt and uncover his id within the different, which is the place issues fade and mingle collectively, the world shines in a pleasant tangle, and an emotional translation is made on this “cheap chaos”, a traditional instrument of the murals (maybe).
—Stefano Monti
at SMDOT/Up to date Artwork, Udine
till March 29, 2025
