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Curator's Statement
Introduction
Last and Universal: the Semantics of Judgment
Thought Through Images
Seduced by Freedom of Thought
Art in the Age of Short-Term Memory
A Call to Artists and Audience
Seventeen Modern Tales
Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Seventeen Modern Tales, pt. 8
There
cannot be justice without knowledge; it takes time to collect and interpret
information, to ponder and evaluate, to learn and understand, to weigh
and compare. With closer analysis we understand how every installation,
painting or sculpture comes to fruition only when we learn enough about
it to take our interpretation beyond the surface. Like an internal clock,
artistic time regulates the aesthetic experience, challenging the viewer.
Only in this perspective may we understand the work of Mario
Ricci, which requires that people project their own shadows
over the red canvas of Rosso (Red). Closer inspection reveals
a red-on-red shadow of a slightly darker tonality under the apparently
uniform red tone: the painted shadow of Michelangelo’s Christ from
the Sistine Chapel. With Rosso, Ricci asserts that the very essence of
judgment is the impossibility of avoiding it. Ricci’s Giudizio
Velato (Veiled Judgment) is a scaled-down version of Michelangelo’s
Last Judgment in its entirety. Every major figure and group of minor figures
has been reproduced and positioned inside a grid of frames, then covered
with a stretched veil of gauze. Gestures and bodies filter through the
gauze, emerging blurred or indistinct. With the gauze the artist places
a mist before our eyes, thereby asserting the ethical difficulty of judging.
But the gauze is not simply a metaphor. The closer we get to the piece,
the more difficult it becomes to perceive the content behind the veil.
The screen takes on an opacity that prevents us from seeing through it.
And conversely, although distance makes the veil more transparent and
allows a deeper vision, it reduces our ability to discern detail and makes
it impossible to describe–judge--the real content.
Accurate judgment, then, involves a precarious balance of
aspiration (to truth and justice) and information, while recognizing the limitations
of human nature (the eye stands for the intellect) bespeaks the impossibility
of any ethical certainty.
Flashback
Scanning the surfaces of all the Last Judgment frescoes and canvases, we see
the gesture of the Judge above, almighty and final in his verdict. Below,
the bodies emerge from the grave and are sent to join either the elect or
the damned. There is salvation and joy for some, despair and fear for others.
Resurrection, Judgment, Salvation/Damnation: a drama in three acts, telling
the story of the end of history and the beginning of eternity. It is a drama
we play out each and every day.
