Bacchetta magica, 1976
mixed media, installation |
Two personal exhibitions in Rome and Bari propose again the works of Ettore Consolazione, shedding light on its specific characteristics. The relation between the two exhibitions is so restricted to the extent that the possibility of image that could be deduced is unitary and at the same time show particular facing of a research rich with tension and a sense of adventure.
The chivalry epos, down from the rarified atmosphere of the myth, ha lost weight and force, divinity and majesty, to be the image of a dream or the incredible semblance of the mirage of desire. The heroes of Ettore Consolazione – canvass, clay, colors, space and blocked movement – seem like thrown Don chisciotte rather than defenders of Saint Graal. The irony is powerful and seems to be draining life and destiny over the time when the heraldic insignia soar on twisted turrets o the steed faces an imaginary tornee. So far comes “Il Sogno di Costantino”, that first white suspended image and clearly metaphysical that Ettore Consolazione has composed some years ago. The rarified atmosphere of the dream is today polluted by a major awareness of the fragility of the possibility, while the irony in an ambush seems warning that even the dream sleep and that the everyday life relentlessly pursues.
The “necessity for a narrative and romancing sculpture” to which Filiberto Menna was alluding did not fade away but the artist constructs wonderful stories caught in the fragments of the sunset and proposed as fragments of uninterrupted journey to which he never gives up and which may be proposing itself today determination and stubbornness.
The handiworks of Ettore Consolazine is strengthened by “the dangerous and fascinating relation” between color and from, painting and plastics, elements which bring together the cultural references without falling into the trap of indifferent repetition, but rather dominating them into an inimitable image exclusively personal which reveals similar overview with the most lively part of the Italian artistic atmosphere which maintains and underlines its uniqueness. As Laura Cherubini has recently wrote “The Story That Ettore Consolazione narrates to us is that of adventure of matter and its inexorable metamorphosis into an image”. It is an unrestrainedly metamorphosis, that is to say a process which solidifies into a dense handiwork but that never quiets into save havens thus starting its journey and try new paths. As in any true story which respects itself the dangers of the unknown which in the moment of encountering reveal their fascinating ambiguities: true or false. In such a story, the fable deforms into illusions and realities which encounter as if a perspective game with an inescapable physicality in everyday life. As if in a hall of mirrors which reflects the image into a desirable object such as the art works of “Il Pittore” in Bari and that of “Il Gigante” which lies in the museum of Ariete in Rome. If the first one reads the divine proportion of the Renaissance man, making it a haunted interpretation in which the elements reveal themselves in complex forms, while the smell of the sulfur seems to pollute and enhance the human dimension. “Il Gigante” looses every terrible aspect and stand on the feet of clay as disjoined puppet.
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The signs of power and history is quite evident such as: the armor, the flag, the chivalry insignia – but the poor piebald Rodomont seems little more a theatric costume forgotten than an example of a victorious humanity. Even in the myth of Orlando the horn does not resound the enchantment: The precariousness, the fascinating irony in every situation, the pleasure of continuing to narrate even though knowing that the fable is surrounded by trivial images of everyday life.
Evan a sense of nature enters in the artist’s game intended to counter the intoxicating proposals of the new technologies into a hypothesis of images that trace back to the complexity of essence of humanity. Ettore Consolazione in fact foils turrets and vissili transforming them into organic and vegetal forms from which drips essence and perfumes as if they were pistils of unknown flowers. From the painted backdrops arise ambiguous forms, extremely vital in which the physicality seems condensing in a soft material always as if it were a feminine body. Apparently, the handiworks such as “L’albero rosso” or that of “Senza Titolo” and “Terra-acqua-fuoco” seem responding to a different logic from that of the motionless appearance of “Pittore” and “Il Gigante”, but a thoughtful consideration seem the result of a unique, sensible, as the composing instruments differ in that every images reflects in the other to create the illusion of a parallel universe of an unexplored world beyond the horizons of everyday life which consents to select as fellow travelers the halved knights of the artist, finding in them that graceful aspect of humanity which renders them capable with enthusiasm.
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