"Castelgrande"
Roberta Mazzola
If there is something that might be useful to describe the present relations
between art and photography, it is the unreleased tension that has been
formed between the two by the photography of artworks (Walter Benjamin,
Piccola storia della fotografia).
If we approach the painting of Felice Varini with the aim of describing
it, in its fundamental components, the most productive concepts - in
particular those of "vantage point", "focus" and
"framing" - all closely related to the vocabulary of photography.
If we begin with the device Varini employs in each of his artworks,
the differences between painting and photography are, effectively, reduced
to a minimum. The artist's work, concentrating on the problem of falsehood
of images in relation to the truth of perception, makes use of photography,
going so far as to equate it with painting in the strategies of constitution
and unmasking of iconic status. The roots of photography - the "machine
à dessiner" and the camera obscura - closely connect it
to the tools of the painter. Photography demonstrates the functioning
of perspective as a construct based on the fixed gaze and monocular
vision, thus radicalizing the theme of painting as illusion: "in
the window and in the photograph the framed world seems to inscribe
and represent itself in an immediate manner" (1). In Réversible,
made in 1986 at the Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris,
photographic reproduction is placed in relation to painted reproduction,
visualizing the portion of space covered by a panel which is also the
surface for the painted image, i.e. of the design of the concealed architecture.
As Johannes Meinhardt has remarked in his essay on the artist, from
the end of the 1970s to the present, "the basic principle consists
in juxtaposing two incompatible modes of perception or interpretation,
stimulated by the arrangement in space of paintings or photographs,
and at the same time in the demonstration that both these modes are
merely different visual effects, depending upon the viewpoint of the
observer" (2). In the shift between viewing the figurative plane
and the space always seen only partially in the minimalist, interpretation
involving the painted marking of architectural elements, Varini confronts
the relations between aesthetic reality and perceived reality, with
all the difficulties involved, relations that were central to the interests
of the artists of the early Renaissance, are particularly important
in contemporary art, in keeping with an analytical and phenomenological
approach focused on perception. In particular, the experience of a doubling
generated by the movements of the observer between a purely visual,
aesthetic plane and a material plane that no longer subordinates itself
to image, brings the device employed by the artist closer to certain
strategies found in the field of analytical painting influenced by Minimal
Art (3).
Another aspect considered by Meinhardt is that of the inscription of
the pictorial form by means of light. Varini utilizes light projection
of a drawing in space, which is then "pictorially" retraced,
like a copy, a print of a slide, reversing the illusionistic import
of the projection and giving space the role of a "screen",
a place where a certain visibility is offered. The invisibility of the
support makes it possible to again bring photography closer to the model
of painted imagery: "photographic film is also a transparent surface
of this type, though it objectively retains traces of the inscription
made by energy " (4). On this topic Adachiara Zevi has written
that the artist acts like a painter in three-dimensional space that
violates the spatial essence of the architecture to which the painting
is anchored, causing a reversal of the perspective logic through reduction
of the space to its two-dimensional image. But, "as in an anamorphosis
that is deformed and becomes unrecognizable with distancing of the fixed
viewpoint, so in a work by Varini a minimum shift in focus reveals fragmented,
discontinuous images, conforming to the enclosure, respecting the quality
of the space" (5). In this reversal of three-dimensionality and
two-dimensionality, the artist gives up the convenient plane of the
painting to come to grips, like the photography, with the rebellious
and heterogeneous three-dimensional material of reality. Inevitably
the question of the "affinities" between painting and photography
leads to a movement of attention away from single media to a general,
implicit model of artistic activity, bringing out as Claudio Marra suggests
one of the key questions of the entire 20th century, with its focus
on "the painting, on the one hand, and everything else on the other"
(6). "As it is no longer the sole means of reproduction - Pierre
Francastel has written, on the mutual influences of the two media -
painting has increasingly turned to analysis of processes of perception"
(7). The "maieutic" role played by photography is also mentioned
by Meinhardt in relation to the breakdown of the absolute hegemony of
projective consciousness: with its appearance, the causal nature of
the inscription is turned upside-down, and "doubt is cast regarding
the dominion of the gaze over space and objects" (8).
We should not overlook the function of photography, for Varini, as a
document, undoubtedly a partial, illusory one, but capable of being
available even after the event it documents is over. Collaboration with
photographers allows the images of the artist's work to circulate, through
publications. These are souvenir photos, as Daniel Buren would say,
bearing witness to the appearance of the work in a given situation.
These photos, especially in the case of temporary works, are comparable
to other forms of certification that establish the coordinates for possible
implementation in other contexts: "certificates, titles, technical
explanations, diagrams and schemes on the installation constitute -
writes Maddalena Disch - a whole series of secondary products and devices
that accompany the work, elements unknown until a few decades ago in
the field of study, documentation and conservation of artworks. The
site-specific work, which makes the time and the place of its display
part of its very reason for being, also involves this type of discourse,
related to the status and the existence of the work" (9). To capture
the three circle fragments freely floating in the space of the view
of Bellinzona and its vicinity, the observer has to find the correct
vantage point, looking toward Castelgrande, amidst the crenellations
of the Castle of Montebello (10 ). This is the point from which the
artist projected his drawing, the tracing already familiar to the observer
thanks to the surfaces in red, accidental, without any apparent coordination,
that have marked the city and its buildings in a signifying but arbitrary
manner for several months, to celebrate the inclusion of the castles
and the walls in the list of Unesco heritage sites. Just one moment
earlier the image of the three arcs of the circle seemed divided on
different planes, ready to spread out and dissipate in the changing
space of our everyday movements; only from this immobilizing "window"
can the resemblance of color of the fragments, the continuity of direction
of the lines and the "good form" of the circle contribute
to put things into focus, moving toward a necessary, overwhelmingly
evident solution.
The experience of a constellation of painted surfaces positioned for
no apparent reason, dissonant with one another, that suddenly converge
in an image plane and a defined geometric figure is central to the project
entitled Signs. For Varini this represents another possibility to investigate
vision and, with it, painting. With Maurice Merleau-Ponty, we know that
"from Lascaux to our time, from whatever civilization, faith, motivation
or thought it springs, surrounded by whatever ceremony, pure or impure,
figurative or not, painting, even when it appears to be made for other
purposes, celebrates no other enigma than that of visibility" (11).
The painterly device staged conserves certain premises of the artifice
of perspective, calling for an external observer, immobile in front
of the image plane. But at the same time it also confirms our participation
in the sense of what is manifested, through movements in the given space,
and in this diversity of viewpoints: "in short, I'd say one viewpoint,
a hundred thousand viewpoints", says the artist, with reference
to a viewpoint that is above all strategic and pragmatic, as the place
of conditions of visibility of one corner of the world (12). In a phenomenological
perspective, perception is not simply the mirror image of things, but
an active, forging vision, a process, because "the world is made
of the same stuff as the body" and "vision is suspended from
movement" (13). Therefore we are not only dealing with given space
(the existing architectural context) or represented space (through the
iconic illusion of a "figurative plane" perpendicular to the
visual axis of the viewer), but with the very capacity to explore the
spatial as an experience of perception, in the "here and now"
of the event, through the active participation of the spectator (14).
How does space make itself visible to someone in a given context, from
a particular vantage point? In the latest work by Felice Varini the
questions that lead to the manifestation of the work, its occurrence
and appearance to the viewer, remain the same. The situation in which
the artist has worked, however, is quite unusual, and in a certain sense
this is therefore an "extreme" case. The exceptional character
of the situation is due to the great distances involved and the variety
of the surfaces to be concretely marked, in an extreme test of techniques
of projection and realization of the image, composed of monochromatic
strips that can be fastened to different surfaces. This is fundamentally
an "extreme" work also because of the urban dimension involved,
which shifts the emphasis to the perception of individual fragments,
the partial view, in the spatial dilation and temporal discontinuity
of the perception experience. Another contributing factor is the nature
of the image the place has suggested to the artist, because this time
the image does not match a completed pictorial gestalt, a simple, geometric
figure like those we are accustomed to seeing. Even from the "correct"
vantage point the image maintains its multi-centered, fragmentary character,
completed by induction on the part of the observer. The center of the
image is composed of a geometric void and the interruptions in the bordering
line give the three circles a virtual aspect, a connotation as fragment
that might suggest a relationship of similarity to the fragmented, multi-centered
character of the contemporary city. We should also note that this temporary
work is aimed at a vast, heterogeneous audience, which must be addressed
with the right instructions and the right questions, putting the space
of habit, the space of the event, of discontinuity, and the qualitative
space of the possible, into circulation. The route that connects the
castle to Piazza del Sole and to the street, but also to its horizons
composed of the mountains and the sky, must come to terms with certain
dangers, including that of indicating rather unproductive or even misleading
frames of interpretation.
"While the site influences the type of intervention, the intervention,
in turn, influences our perception of the site" (15). Customary
perception of space is challenged by the inclusion of "pictorial"
signs in the everyday city, but also by the image that presents itself
to the observer when he takes aim from the favored vantage point. The
figure-ground relationships are not fully ranked in hierarchical terms,
and the gaze is anything but immobilized. The view of Bellinzona does
not passively allow itself to be replaced by the floating image, disconnected
from things. The viewer is left with a different vision of the city
and its buildings. Those red signs make us see another image of the
castle, reducing it to a two-dimensional design with its vectors and
discontinuities, its lights and shadows generating spatial sense. And
a car crossing one of the circles is sufficient to shift the gaze toward
another type of segmentation. In its context, in the encounter with
the observer and the place, the painted intervention aims at bringing
out a precisely aesthetic dimension, inscribing, above all, "a
project approach designed to not immediately reduce the world to stereotypical
figures, to not transform it into pure vocabulary... seeking, instead,
to cause perception of a dimension of what can be sensed, another interpretation,
simultaneous impact of a setting inhabited by figuratively recognizable
objects and the minimum features, motivated by perception, of those
same objects" (16). In many ways the work for Castelgrande is comparable
to a series of temporary artistic experiences for which photography
has represented a true condition for existence. We have already discussed
the modes of certification of site-specific works. More generally, at
this point we can also make reference to many artistic phenomena connected
to an event or characterized by an unstable situation in time and space,
to emphasize a true dependence on photography as a means of immortalizing
works, presenting them from different viewpoints that might also be
inaccessible to direct observers, increasing the potential impact and
visibility of the work. In many cases - above all in Land Art and Body
Art - what is shown in an exhibition is precisely the photographic documentation
of the work, and the photography relies on a spark of authenticity,
an "aura" that makes it attractive. The analytical possibilities
of the lens make it a precious tool in strategies of selective description,
aimed at capturing, in a single fragment, the vital spirit of the work
(17). In his “Small History of Photography”, Walter Benjamin
defines it as a veritable "technique of reduction" that makes
large-scale works of sculpture or architecture more accessible: "the
effect of photographic reproduction of artworks has much greater importance
for the function of art than the more or less artistic manipulation
of a photograph" (18).
"Photography - Rudolf Arnheim states - springs in a primary way
from the environment in which it finds itself so inextricably immersed
": "it is the absolute necessity of the pragmatic viewpoint",
according to Philippe Dubois, considering the photographic act from
the point of the specificity of the luminous imprint as a trace that
does not correspond to the logic of other systems of representation
such as painting or drawing (19). Charles Sanders Peirce informs us
that photography belongs to the category of indices rather than icons,
because its way of being is not only a "standing for", a simple
relationship of atemporal resemblance, but is triggered by an existential
relationship with things: "photographs, especially snapshots -
we read in Speculative Grammar - are in certain aspects exactly equal
to the objects they represent. But this resemblance is due to the fact
that they were produced in such conditions that they were physically
forced to correspond, point by point, to the object in nature. In this
perspective, therefore, they belong to the second category of signs,
those based on physical connection" (20 ). Photography can only
attest to the existence of what it shows, and lends itself to the function
of a "certificate of presence", according to the well-known
definition of Roland Barthes (21). As an "index" it is also,
at the same time, a tool of designation, and here lies its force of
metonymic expansion, its "irradiating virtuality" (22).
The idea of leaving evidence of Varini's intervention through images
made by four photographers - Pino Brioschi, Jordi Bernadó, André
Morin and Pino Musi - calls into play the non-painted identity of photography
while, at the same time, re-positing the difficult challenge photography
sets for itself in its relationship with artworks. An exhibition of
these photographs offers the possibility for a critical interpretation
of the work, an interpretation that can "give voice" to the
work in relation to its appearance in the urban context, and through
the activity of the observer, in the continuous "interference of
concrete, even extra-aesthetic values" (23). Connected by its genesis
to the uniqueness of the situation of reference, photography brings
out the close link between the work and the context, while reflecting,
not in an impartial way, a concept of temporal experience of the work.
The arbitrary succession of images reflects multiple vantage points
and the discontinuous, contradictory nature of the perceptive and cognitive
experiences involved. It becomes evident that through the specificity
of the photograph the exhibition can center precisely on the possibility
of contamination, the character of tension, "at the limits of the
possible", which the artistic intervention at Castelgrande, due
to its extreme openness to the context and the great size of the territory
addressed, produces in the device that forms the basis for all the work
of this artist. Pino Musi approaches Varini's project as a photographer
of architecture. Avoiding the use of color, he makes use of luminous
contrasts, leaps of scale and the directional potential of architectural
glimpses, capturing the pictorial sign inside the rectangular photo
frame as a further structuring element. The sign becomes independent
of the figure that generated it, establishes relations with all the
other signs that function as force lines, interacting with the shadows
generated by architecture, echoing them with its geometric logic and
becoming an instrument of breakdown and recomposition of spatial essence.
Often a clean break or a deformed surface permits deeper study of the
method of reversal of the three-dimensional into the two-dimensional,
and more in general of the processes of assimilation between space and
its representation. Seen up close the painted fragment and the architectural
detail loom like extraneous presences, prompting the gaze to linger
over the material differentiations of the surfaces, the texture variations.
The work done by Varini in relation to architecture offers the photographer
the possibility of heightening its image values, in keeping with a pursuit
of the form and minimum connotations of expression that is not without
concerns of an aesthetic order.
A photographer of the works of many artists who operate in close contact
with architecture and the city, André Morin has already collaborated
with Felice Varini on other projects. In his photos the painted elements
occupy a minimum of space and tend to vanish in the wings composed of
buildings, narrow streets and buildings of a village that just barely
preserves something of its specific identity. Castelgrande, with its
arbitrary markings, appears against the backdrop of a stratified city,
and makes the views of Bellinzona unusual. The optical distance apparently
remains that of a normal postcard, but the observer explores the photographs
recognizing the clues of artistic expression in the red features, in
their distance from the places of everyday life, in their lack of import
with respect to the movements that take place there. Where are the places
of experience of the work? What force in those apparently meaningless
signs triggers the gaze to experience iconic illusion, bringing the
observer closer to knowledge of the device in its inseparable duplicity?
What is the relationship between the work and its audience? In the hic
et nunc of the shot, in the capacity to capture that "fraction
of a second in which the pace quickens" and to be open to the intrusion
of chance, the unexpected, Morin shows us Varini's project in its most
open, and yet at the same time most closed, dimension of interaction
with the urban context and the dynamics of the city (24).
Pino Brioschi offers us a series of images closely linked to the castle,
taking advantage of the opportunity to utilize unusual vantage points,
moving inside and outside, approaching and retreating, observing from
above and below. Bridging distances he lets us perceive, almost beyond
the visible evidence, the hardness of the rock on which Castelgrande
stands and, at the same time, as in the case of Musi, the capacity of
the colored film to adhere to the architecture. Brioschi lives the work
as a note of color, far from everyday life, a moment of collective reception,
in the city he knows so well and in the dimension connected with the
festive event that favors encounter, the capacity to spend time together,
as happened in the past, before art got separated from every other function,
before historical centers lost their capacity to be a fulcrum for social
life.
We are reminded that Bellinzona is in Switzerland by the little flag
in the photograph of the dwarves, recognized in the images by Jordi
Bernadó that lead us to the Castle of Montebello. Approaching
the vantage point selected by Varini for viewing of the configuration
entitled Signs, we cross the empty streets of a place that hardly manages
to avoid the globalized taste of any and every urban periphery. A photographer
of suburban landscapes, Bernadó concentrates on the architectural
typologies that survive in a situation of uprooting. But above all he
shows us the interactions among signs - from shop names to street signage
- through which the city narrates its story. The present in which the
work is inserted must come to terms with these temporal instabilities
and intersections that belong to the reality of the place, and to the
time of the experience of the work, adapting to the urban context and
assuming the observer has a motor vehicle. The design of the timing,
the process of the observation are conveyed in all their subjectivity
through the movements of the photographer, in the sequence of images
that suggest unexpected, even digressive focal points, reminding us
that every visual path is also a path of meaning. The photographer's
gaze thus plays the role of attention orientation center, fundamental
in the construction of a spectatorly viewpoint that lays claim to margins
of autonomy and participates, with its own découpage, in the
attribution of values and pertinence, through predictable configurations
and legitimate "oversights" (26). Isolating little segments
in the perception continuum, Bernadó takes us toward our destination,
without sacrificing a lightning bolt of irony about the "voyeuristic
gaze" that reduces our relationship with space mere seeing things
in terms of framings, of shots. In the image that closes the sequence
the vantage point of the photographer becomes a viewpoint of a viewpoint,
by the place from which one can have the experience of the iconic illusion
is already occupied by not one but two observers. In the friction that
surfaces in the viewfinder due to these ulterior doublings photography
collaborates with painting to unmask the "visual trap".
1 ) Johannes Meinhardt, La realtà dell'illusione estetica. Le
"trappole visive" di Felice Varini, Lugano, Edizioni Studio
Dabbeni, 1999, p. 29. The definition machine à dessiner dates
back to France in the 17th century. On the forerunners of the camera,
see: Heinrich Schwarz, Arte e fotografia, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri,
1991.
2) Johannes Meinhardt, op.cit., p.13.
3) For comparison of the work of Varini with that of other artists in
the sphere of European postminimalist painting, apart from the essay
by Meinhardt readers can turn to the lecture given by Maddalena Disch
at the Architecture Academy of Mendrisio on 27 November 1999: Maddalena
Disch, "Felice Varini", Temporale , 50-51, 2000, p.16-22.
4) Johannes Meinhardt, op.cit., p.109.
5) Adachiara Zevi, "Felice Varini: artificio antiprospettico",
L'architettura , 427, 1991, p.476.
6) Claudio Marra, Le idee della fotografia. La riflessione teorica dagli
anni Sessanta a oggi, Milano, Mondadori, 2001, p.185. The book contains
an anthology of critical texts on the relationships between photography
and other visual arts.
7) Pierre Francastel, Lo spazio figurativo dal rinascimento al cubismo
, Torino, Einaudi, 1957, p.125.
8) Johannes Meinhardt, op.cit., p.113.
9) Maddalena Disch, op.cit., p.20.
10) This second part, focusing on the work of Varini at Castelgrande,
includes certain considerations found in my recent article in Rivista
tecnica, and develops them in terms of the relations between the project
and the photography exhibition. Roberta Mazzola, "Segni. Un intervento
artistico a Castelgrande di Bellinzona", Rivista tecnica , 13,
2001, p. 94-100.
11) Maurice Merleau-Ponty, L'occhio e lo spirito, Milano, SE, 1989,
p.23.
12) Felice Varini quoted in Johannes Meinhardt, op.cit., p. 19.
13) Maurice Merleau-Ponty, op.cit. , p.19 and p.17.
14) On the contribution of phenomenology to the study of problems linked
to concepts of space and point of view: Sandra Cavicchioli (ed.), Versus.
Quaderni di studi semiotici, 73/74, 1996 (monographic issue entitled
La spazialità: valori, strutture, testi ).
15) Maddalena Disch, op.cit., p. 18.
16) Sandra Cavicchioli, "Spazialità e semiotica: percorsi
per una mappa", Versus, op.cit., p.33.
17) Emphasizing that photography would not have been useful of the Renaissance
art of composition, Peter Galassi discusses strategies of analytical
description in painting and photography: Peter Galassi, Prima della
fotografia, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1989.
18) Walter Benjamin, "Breve storia della fotografia", in L'opera
d'arte nell'epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, Torino,
Einaudi, 1966, p.73.
19) Rudolf Arnheim, Intuizione e intelletto, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1987,
p.140. Philippe Dubois, L'atto fotografico, in Claudio Marra, op.cit.,
p.177.
20) Charles Sanders Peirce, Semiotica, Torino, Einaudi, 1980, p. 158.
A questo proposito si veda anche Rosalind Krauss, Teoria e storia della
fotografia, Milano, Mondadori, 1996.
21) Roland Barthes, La camera chiara, Torino, Einaudi, 1980
22) Philippe Dubois, op.cit., in Claudio Marra, op.cit., p.322.
23) Valentina de Angelis, Arte e linguaggio nell'era elettronica, in
Claudio Marra, op.cit., p.223.
24) Walter Benjamin, op.cit., p.62.
25) The theme of the "oversight" is prompted by a contibution
of Giulia Ceriani on the focusing of the theater spectator: Giulia Ceriani,
"Vista, montaggio, svista: a proposito di ricezione teatrale",
Carte semiotiche , 4-5, 1988, p. 292-295. The text is part of a monographic
issue of Carte semiotiche on a conference on the subject of the vantage
point, organized by the Associazione Italiana di Studi Semiotici.
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