GIUSEPPE RAGAZZINI: INCONTRI GROTTESCHI

29.11.2018 - 19.01.2019
Parma, Italy

Giuseppe Ragazzini is an eclectic artist with a vast and grand artistic background, able to experiment with different art forms. Ragazzini is a painter, set designer and visual artist. After earning a degree in Philosophy, he became fascinated by the vision of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s documentary “Le Mystère Picasso”, and in 2002 began using digital techniques to film the creative process of producing the pictorial image.

Dedicated to both painting and pictorial animation, Ragazzini has developed his own techniques for pictorial animation and digital set design, both of which use huge video-projections and mapping. Ragazzini’s body of work exists between the traditional and contemporary dimension where he can combine a classical aesthetic with new digital technologies. One can clearly see this coalescence in the living painting animation and in his digital collages which are the result of an unceasing metamorphosis of marks and shapes.

Giuseppe Ragazzini’ solo show hosts many of his artworks as well as different mediums, such as paintings, sculptures, ceramic, sketches, and videos. The curatorial choices were made paying attention to the visitor’s journey inside the gallery, trying to gift the most suitable insight of Giuseppe’s inner and grotesque world.

The art may look uncomplicated, but truly it hides as many deeper layers of meanings and identities as the layers of his subjects made of several sheets of paper. The viewer has the possibility to indagate those meanings by looking at the many sketches, initial drawings, and drafts on the wall of the second room. Here, one can really understand the study and the process of the artist.

The installation “Misteriosa Routine” (2018) in the first room portays sixteen grotesques figures observing the viewers, returning the eye contact through bus windows. The exhibition concludes with the video projection “Il Bacio” (2007). This video art piece is one of the most significant and poetic artworks by Ragazzini, a romantic and passionate kiss made of over 60 collages from Rinascimento masters works of art, put together using the morphing technique.

The exhibition invites the viewer to enter a totalizing dimension made of colors, sounds, lights, and shadows.