Regenetation : Bertozzi & Casoni

A young mans wanders to all sorts of exhibitions and travels to the places where art is all that’s talked about. On a visit to All Visual Arts gallery in King's Cross for the Bertozzi & Casoni: 'Regeneration' exhibition.| By Teucer. 

Giampaolo Bertozzi and Stefano Dal Monte Casoni, an Italian artistic duo specializing in ceramics, had their opening in the midst of the Frieze frenzy and yet grabbed our attention because of its vivacity, sublimity, perfection and fetishizing alluring effect. The central axis of the exhibition was to encapsulate through the fragility of the medium the natural decay and deterioration of life. Through their elaborate artistic statements a maximalist sense of space if created which though evidently impressive through its muchness feels extremely well balanced in colours, textures and thematic approaches.

Courtesy All Visual Arts, photography Tessa Angus 

Those surreal assemblages by a myriad of objects united in their polyphony are made with such painstakingly and mind blowing mastery that one cannot fail to comprehend the playground of thought of the Italian duo. They tantalise us with their borderline kitsch art of imitation yet present this in such a form that we can’t help but feel snatched by their aesthetic desirability. Several pieces feature full of life blossoms erupting from a pile of rubbish comprised by amongst other things tarot cards, prosthetic false teeth, used condoms, plastic cutlery - all acting as an allegory to the decaying foundations of our societal structure. Yet the metaphor is not completed there. Nature prevails and erupts through the societal debris characterised by the historically unprecedented hyper-capitalism or out times.

 Regeneration gives out so much emotion and hope for the brighter and the enlightened possibilities lying ahead. In another instance a flock of butterflies try to raise the chopped off head of a flamingo, a process overlooked by another living flamingo; a symbolic scene representing the grotesque so nicely proposed in a humorous composition where the living and the dead coexist all within their central thematic frame of rebirth, change and reappropriation. There is ever so much to be described in the work of this Italian duo. Endless detailed analysis both on a prima facie factual analysis of their ever so elegantly brutal artwork as well as their theoretical apparatus. But, you know what, we left feeling recharged, full of positive emotions all created by Bertozzi and Casoni’s excellent ceramic simulacrum’s of the reality of life. We all often believe in the principle that ‘the truth hurts’ but it seems that when served in small doses and when so engagingly and ravishingly interpreted it can only do one extreme good to bare the truth before their eyes in those ceramic contemporary masterpieces.

Images: Courtesy All Visual Arts, photography Tessa Angus

Bertozzi & Casoni Regeneration is on until 10 November 2012. For more information [click here]

This article was commissioned by Art Wednesday.