a l e s s i o a n c i l l a i Human species

Human species-specific
Dirty deaths
project
project
alessio ancillai
Studio:
Via Riccio da Parma, 14
00176 - Roma
Mobile: +39 328 3638115
info@alessioancillai.com
studioancillai@gmail.com
www.alessioancillai.com
Some theoretical reflections
My work takes off and develops around the human being and
interpersonal dynamics. I explore the characteristics that distinguish human beings as such: the physiological and pathological
aspect, my research progresses along these two directions as if
they were two sides of the same coin. . . similar to the scientific
method . . .the concept of illness is indissolubly linked to a previous state of health. And thus I carry forward two parallel projects: on the one hand, with "human species-specific", I aim
to represent the characteristics that distinguish human beings in
their original beauty and, on the other hand, with “ dirty deaths”, I borrow the abhorrent tragedy of work deaths to talk
about how our declining interest in others, can bring about the
total destruction of such poetry.
Among those characteristics which are specifically human, there
is one which fascinates me more, and that is the idea that lines
don’t exist in nature and only humans have the capacity to imagine them. At birth, children have a nebulous and uncertain visual perception; it begins to define itself around weaning, which
coincides with the development of the organic elements that
permit visual perception (occipital lobe and ocular fundus) and
with the child’s autonomy from the mother’s breast. It is interesting to note that weaning is one of the four fundamental separations humans experience throughout their lives and lines are
conceptualized as an idea of separation.
Memoria fluida #1 (Fluid memory)
2011
Oil on line, white thread
130x90
Children, spontaneously, even before learning to write, draw uncertain signs through which they express themselves. This spontaneous sign also characterizes man’s passage from Neanderthal
to Sapiens: the hypothesis that this anthropological passage may
have been carried out by women, the likely authors of cave
graffiti, while men were out busy hunting, is certainly fascinating. These invented figures do not arise as a result of a material need, but satisfy a greater need for expression, which I
would call irrational. The primordial sign is then developed and
becomes lines, language, numbers, writing, musical scores, geometric figures, which are all expressions of the uniqueness of
human beings: animals don’t invent signs or geometric figures,
draw, write poems or music scores.
Everything starts from an internal need, from an internal image
and the need to express it as one’s identity.
With my works I try to express these irrational images, explore
how thought is formed from its origin, time/movement internal
to man and his affections.
Everything, always and however, related to lines as a human
presence; continuously looking for an equilibrium, of a stylistic
nature too, a harmony sought for in the colours, forms, lights,
as long as it is not glossy, fabricated; rather, a harmony within
the work and the image represented, a solidity that opposes incoherence or dissociation, and cold rationality. My attempt is to
represent images that talk about a fundamental sanity and to
dispel the false myth that when reason sleeps monsters are generated.
Pensiero Rosso (Red thought)
2011
Oil on line, white thread
85x60
Dentro l’ombra (Inside the shadow)
2012
Acrilic on juta, nails, black thread
60x85
Saldamente (Firmly)
Pictorial installation
Acrilic on line, red led light, elettric welder
Variable dimensions (250x115)
Canvas 100x70
2011
My work
When I explore a theme I try to always represent it in different
modalities: painting, videos and installations.
In some cycles I explored the theme of birth, an identity which
exists but is still uncertain, and therefore, in my paintings, I
insisted more on the internal structure of the work, with plots
of lines, a mesh of colours that support the canvas and at times
dominate, bursts of light, which at times are completely covered, nevertheless they exist, the structure of an identity that sustains human existence and forms its basis.
I use different techniques, including drippings, to create a vision that is less clear, more hazy or dream-like, regressive, or an
overlapping of colours and signs to add more structure to the
canvas but allowing the structure to be only guessed at, and not
seen, typical of human affections.
In other cycles I focused on sound and silence and then on writing, and I started putting threads on my canvases.
Memoria fluida #2 (Fluid memory #2 )
2011
Oil on line, white thread, red thread
85x100 (canvas 85x60)
The threads on the canvases initially represented pentagrams or
lines of writing to me, then they became voyages, guides that conversed with the images represented; I like attaching these threads
in my search for the external, going beyond the canvas, looking for
the boundary between the internal image of the painting and the
overall image that arises after their application, verify whether that
application emerges from the painting, completes it, is in harmony,
is part of its structure or remains extraneous to it, disturbs it, makes it lose its identity.
The thread that I often introduced in my works today represents a
line as movement that tends towards infinity; up until 2011 I inserted it inside my works by attaching it to the pictorial surface, during this last year however I position the thread outside the work
placing it one or two centimetres far, as if the matrix of the work,
represented by the thread, had taken on, as a result of a separation,
its own autonomous but complementary identity within the work,
that has in the meantime become an installation.
After the shadow
2012
Juta on wall, white led stripe
180x200
A volte c’è del rosso nell’ombra (Sometomes there’s red in the shadow)
2012
Acrilic on line, red led stripe
90x200 (canvas 90x170)
Tra memoria e ricordo (Between memory and remember)
2012
Acrilic on juta, nails, black thread
60x85
Gutturale (Guttural)
2012
Acrilic on canvas, sands, grey thread
102x145
Notturno
(Nocturnal)
2011
Oil on line
85x60
Memoria verde (Green memory)
2012
Oil on line, white thread
30x85
The projects
On my last project, “human species specific”, the thread draws either an “open” line or a geometric form… . .the specific reason for
this I have not yet understood, but I can see and feel that it works well for me and I see it is the stylistic synthesis of t he many experiments carried out over the last years. The external line perhaps talks about that image that pushes and moves the hand and bo dy of the
artist to compose an image to make it become communication, creativity.
Relinquere ratione #1
2012
Acrilic on wood, nails, white thread
37x34
Relinquere ratione #2
2012
Acrilic on wood, nails, black thread
37x34
Relinquere ratione #3
2012
Acrilic on wood, nails, red thread
37x34
In fact, I am still elaborating and working on this major question: what happens in the phase in which the artist transforms an idea into
something perceivable? What is the mental passage between the non -oniric unconscious image and artistic language? If we conside r
painting, my hope is that from the image it is possible to move onto pictorial thought to then arrive at a pictorial languag e, a little like
what happens in language, where articulated language is preceded by verbal thought. Obviously one is not aware of these proce sses as
they occur, just like one is not aware of what is happening in the midst of creating a work. And so I paint canvases or other supports,
looking for indefinite images, shadows, the different colours of human affections, the passage from one to the other and the link with
the thread/ thought/image that I flank, attach superimpose.
Relinquere ratione #4
30x85
Acrilic on wood, nails, black thread
2012
Relinquere ratione #5
2012
Acrilic on wood, nails, black thread
35x35
Relinquere ratione #6
30x85
Acrilic on wood,srews black thread
2012
Still frames
Author_Alessio Ancillai
Title_Memory comma line dot
Lenght_04:18"
Dim: 1920-1080 Dvd (3 copies)
Year_2012
With_Romina Krieger
Sound Design_Luca Marrucci
Thanks to_Simone Artibani, Cristiano Spaziani
http://vimeo.com/45354754
The videos and the installation works are always communicating with the pictorial works and I use them to explore and reach different levels of research into the image. In this cycle dedicated to the “physiological” dynamics of the human being, what is r ecurrent is
the invisible movement of the interpersonal relationship, which I represent in the videos, at times, with more recognizable a lbeit indefinite images, sometimes choosing a more abstract language.
In the installations my curiosity/obsession is the line. It often interacts with the pictorial work, overlapping it like a f lash of light (in
general I use a led light), the light that stimulates the retina at birth and allows the creation of human thought. Invisible threads suspended in the air, with broken lines of writing that can be sensed. Lines that form geometries/thoughts in harmony with the structure
that sustains them, painted in layers and drippings of colour, always in movement, like the human unconscious.
Still frames
Author_Alessio Ancillai
Title_Does the line exist? #1
Dvd 5 copies
Lenght_4:17"
Year_2011
With_Alessia Berardi
Sound Design_Luca Marrucci
http://vimeo.com/45746810
Linear composition
2012
Acrilic on wood, red led light, nails, black thread
75x65x190
Memoria verticale (Vertical memory)
85x60
Oil non line, red thread
2012
Memorie orizzontali (Horizontal memories)
85x60
Oil on line, two red threads
2012
Linee di terra (Lines of ground)
2009
Acrilic on canvas, withe thread
30x120
During the “physiological” work that explores beautiful, pleasant, dimensions which distinguish human beings as beings end owed with
a fantasy that aims to respond to greater needs, my research quickly took a “turn” because I started lingering on a thoug ht that would
not abandon me: is social identity instrumental to human identity? A social identity is necessary to satisfy the primary need s that allow us
to survive; a human identity is needed to realize those greater needs that go beyond primary needs: How does one realize thes e greater
needs, one’s human identity, if still today in the XXI century many die trying to satisfy basic needs, in their quest to r each a social identity?
Thus the project “dirty deaths” came into being, which I bring forward in parallel.
In dirty deaths I explore what happens inside man when he
loses touch with himself and others and regards them merely as
something to exploit and not protect; I want to understand
what stops man from shouting out and affirming his own existence in the absence of others. I take the theme of work deaths as a pretext, as a provocation. I say it is a pretext not because the issue does not affect me or make me suffer, but because I am not interested in exposing the phenomenon in itself:
despite its gravity and horror, it is only a point of departure,
what interests me is why it happens ? Not at a material level, but
from a psychic point of view.
I am interested in exploring this annulment of the human person, apparently for material reasons, the belief in “mors tua vita
mea” that inevitably brings about the death of both parties, because if I annul the other I automatically annul my humanity,
which can only develop in relation to others. And I am interested in exploring this pathology of the annulment of human
identity, not only at an individual level, in the single relationships, but as a social phenomenon, linked also to a historical period in which the satisfaction of one’s needs has, by and large,
been achieved, creating somewhat of a paradox.
TUSL con scarpe (TUSL with shoes)
2010
Sheets of the Unique Test for labour security, white
shoes, wood basis
Variable dimensions
Informazione negata (Denied information)
2010
Acrilic on canvas, disk, thread
40x160
In this cycle, the presence of the manifest figure sometimes appears to suggest coldness and rationality. I apply objects t o the canvases, almost always used up discs from a whisk or other appliances, because annulments reduce human fantasy to the material world,
and humans are not people, but workers, numbers, brought to life by their work tools. I impose the object on the canvas, t o disturb,
to recall the worker who is no longer present, the human being who has been made into and has allowed himself to be made into a tool.
In this cycle, the haziness seems to lose its force, disintegrating, and taking on an altogether different meaning, often becoming
layers that overlap and hide, cancelling and eluding its internal reality. The lines, however, continue to exist, the threa ds have become
in themselves an expression of human presence, even if at times intertwined, bridled or interrupted by material objects. It is the possibility of once again finding one’s fantasy, and rejecting annulments.
Giogo #3 (Yoke #3)
30x30
Acrilic on canvas, disk, thread
2010
Giogo #4 (Yoke #4)
30x30
Acrilic on canvas, disk, thread
2010
Giogo #1 (Yoke #1)
30x30
Acrilic on canvas, disk, thread
2010
Giogo #5 (Yoke #5)
30x30
Acrilic on canvas, disk, thread
2010
Hand-painted designs on paper
Still frame
Morti sporche (Dirty deaths)
Lenght_2:06”
Dvd 3 copies
2009
http://vimeo.com/10232109
In the video I explore, on the one hand, a side of daily life/ repetitivity that renders us puppets to the point of smashin g an identity
which by now resembles glass; on the other hand I recall a work death, a social plague that is underestimated, not “felt”, t hat generates
confusion and exposes one to danger, to tragedy and to the subsequent cancellation of the tragedy. I do it, however, not by narrating
facts but by inventing a story which is a cross between animation and material reality transformed into something else where the human
presence dominates the video entirely without manifestly being present.
Elle 5 (El five)
2011
Five assembled shovels
71x28x20
La Trebbiatrice (The threshing machine)
2010
Acrilic on canvas, disk, thread
80x80
Uncomfortably numb
2010
Acrilic on canvas, disk
40x160
Biography
Rome 1973. Alessio Ancillai lives and works in Roma, Pigneto area; expresses his research in the field of painting, videoart and installations. Leads a research on interpersonal dynamics and in his latest works he is studyng either a project that explores and de epens the specific human being (line as human characteristic) and the internal images of human fantasy, or a second project which explores the dynamics of lost and absence of humanity, starting from a peculiar social point of view (deaths on job). Trained in medical scientific subjects,
he is professionally devoted to artistic research since 2000. Are underlined the personal exhibitions at historic book shop “ Amore & Psiche” of Rome (2004), at Palazzo dei Congressi of Rome (2006, 2008, 2009), at Castello Caetani of Sermoneta (2007), at Museo C ivico
“Emilio Greco” of Sabaudia (2008); the group exhibitions at World Fine Art Gallery of New York (2005), at Beijing World Art M useum
of Pechino (2007), at Micro Museum of Brooklyn (NY, Usa, 2008), at Moscow Contemporary Center (2009), at Art Home of Brno Cit y,
Praha (2010), and the selections in Premio Celeste and Celeste Prize International (2012), in Abstracta Film Festival (2011,2 012) and in
Festarte videoart festival (2010).
Awards
2012
Finalist, Premio Adrenalina, MACRO La Pelanda - Roma (Installation)
Finalist, AbstractaFilm festival, Campo Boario -Roma (Videoart)
Finalist, Premio ACCDA, Museo Antinum - Civita D'Antino (Painting)
Selected, Celeste Prize International (Installation)
Selected, Premio Celeste Italy (Painting)
2011
Finalist, Abstracta Film Festival, Casa del Cinema - Roma (Videoart)
2010
Selected, Festarte Videoart Festival, MACRO - Roma(Videoart)
Finalist, Premio Combat, I Bottini dell'Olio, Livorno (Painting)
2008
Finalist, Circolo videoart, Circolo degli Artisti - Roma (Videoart)
2006
Selected, Festarte Videoart Festival, Rialto Sant'Ambrogio - Roma (Videoart)
Group Shows
2012, La nuova era tra simbolismo e tecnologia, MACRO - La Pelanda, Roma, a cura
di Premio Adrenalina
2009, Liquid Cities, National Center for Contemporary arts, Mosca, a cura di international
artexpo
2009, Immaginary Geometries, Chelsea Gallery, Londra, a cura di N.Perrotta e C. Prudente
2012, Abstracta Film Festival, Ex Mattatoio (sale accademia delle belle arti di Roma), Roma,
2008, Mad, Museo Emilio Greco, Sabaudia, a cura di Giorgia Capurso e Fabio D’Achille
a cura di Valentina Domenici
2012, Battuta d'asta battitore Luciano Carnaroli, Galleria Pio Monti, a cura di Nicola Monti 2007, Il piccolo formato da collezione, Lydia Palumbo Scalzi Gallery, Latina, a cura di Lydia
Palumbo Scalzi
2012, Inquadrando paesaggi, Galleria Pio Monti artecontemporanea, Roma, a cura di Nicola
2006, Sottosuoli, itinerante Co.Tra.L, Roma, da un’idea di Pablo Echauren
Monti
2012, Inquadrando paesaggi, Museo Antinum, Civita D'Antino, a cura di Nicola Monti
2012, Artnoise, ex Cinema Preneste, Roma, a cura di Giulia Zamperini – Daniela Cotimbo
Solo Shows
2011, Morti Sporche, quartiere Pigneto, Roma, a cura di Pigneto Art Project
2012, Decresce, Villa de Sanctis, Roma, a cura di Fabrizio Pizzuto
2010, Video Talk Exhibition, Atelier Meta Teatro, Roma, a cura di Elena Abbiatici
2012, Art in-box, Istituto Culturale Ceco, Milano, a cura di Susanna Horvatovicova
2011, Violenza Invisibile, Triennale di Milano, selezione Festarte Videoart Festival, sezione
Monitor, a cura di Lorena Benatti
2009, Tu Linea, Palazzo dei Congressi E.U.R., Roma, a cura di E23
2008, Leggendo scrittura, Palazzo dei Congressi E.U.R., Roma, a cura di E23
2011, Art in-Box, installazione Centro Culturale Vltavská di Praga a cura di S Horvatovico- 2008, Scrittura di colore_tempointerno, Museo Emilio Greco, Sabaudia, a cura di Giorgia
va e T. Rullerova.
Capurso
2011, Abstracta Film Festival, Casa del Cinema, Roma, a cura di Valentina Domenici
2007, Suoni e silenzi_tempointerno, Palazzo e Castello Caetani, Sermoneta, a cura di Son et
Lumiere
2011, Videodivagazioni, Officina Dinamo, Roma, a cura di Fabrizio Pizzuto
2011, Art in-box, La Porta Blu gallery, Roma, a cura di S. Horvatovicova – T. Rullerova
2006, Pagina Bianca, Palazzo dei Congressi E.U.R., Roma, a cura di Susanna Horvatovicova
2010, Premio Combat, Bottini dell’Olio, Livorno, a cura di Micòl di Veroli, Cecilia Antolini, 2005, Alcuni suoni, Torretta Valadier, Roma, a cura di S. Casule
Francesca Baboni, Stefano Taddei, Alessandro Romanici, Alice Barontini.
2004, Il colore nei libri, Libreria Amore & Psiche, Roma
2010, Violenza invisibile, Macro “La Pelanda” Festarte Videoart Festival, sezione monitor,
a cura di Lorena Benatti
2010, Art in-box, installazione presso la Casa dell'Arte della cittá di Brno / Dům Umění
města Brna, BRNO (Czech Repubblic), a cura di S. Horvatovicova e T. Rulerova
Study for a neon writing on brick wall, in english language, of the phrase “abbandonare la ragione
genera fantasia”
2012
Principal bibliographical referencies:
“L’architettura e la morte dell’arte”, Atti del convegno, Roma, Teatro Eliseo, 26-27 gennaio 1996, a cura di C. Alessandrini, V.
Edizioni Romane, Roma 1996
Caporioni et al., Nuove
“Immagine della linea”, Atti del convegno, Firenze, Palazzo dei Congressi, 26 ottobre 1996, a cura di S. Facchini, F. Sani, Nuove Edizioni Romane, Roma 1996
Presentazione del libro “L’arte di abitare la terra” di Ugo Tonietti – L’Asino d’oro edizioni
Palazzo delle Esposizioni, via Milano N°9 - Roma
Con l’autore sono intervenuti: Telmo Pievani, Donatella Coccoli, Federico Masini, Massimo Fagioli
Incontro a cura di Paola Vassalli 24 febbraio 2012
Atti del Convegno “Uomo Natura Energia”, Palau 1999 in “Il sogno della farfalla” N.E.R. 1, 2000
Roma, 18 dicembre 2011, Libreria Amore e Psiche – Roma – Via Santa Caterina da Siena, 61 Presentazione del libro “La medicina della mente” di Daniela Colamedici, Andrea Masini, Gioia Roccioletti – L’Asino d’oro edizioni.
Sono intervenuti: Paola Esposito, Annalina Ferrante, Antonio Marinelli, Annamaria Zesi, Anna Maria Zulli, Massimo Fagioli, Giovanni Del Missier, Patrizia Grande.
Atti del Convegno “Le forme del linguaggio” presso Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli in Il sogno della farfalla, wichtig ed. n.4, 1995
Cataloghi e Saggi di arte contemporanea