Landing

(Re)Structuring

In the middle of now-where

A work is composed of ideas, choices, decisions taken to respond to an ever- open question about the meaning of art. The question being discussed here regards the nature of abstract painting and arose within the context of the broader Aedificante project promoted by Giuseppe Taramelli. “In the middle of now-where” is a possible and concrete response. Possible, because there are many ways of conceiving abstraction. Concrete, because this work with its many ways of being, bears witness to a few in particular, which are worthy of being discussed. Abstraction as a process, from ab-traere: “to draw away from”, as the Latins intended. And indeed “Inthemiddleofnow-where”isdrawnawayfromlife.Animpressionoffeeling,an expressionof what is essential: in this public exhibition what remains is that which has withstood, water, scrapings, ablutions. Abstraction as detachment, a radical rejection of the figure, an emptying of the imaginary, an iconoclastic ex-voto: “In the middle of now-where” suspends all forms of representation, after all that cinema passes by, scrutinises you and leaves. Abstraction as purification, to sublimate violence, re-channel energy, preferring Bach to Beethoven: “In the middle-of-now-where” is the effect of an emptying, the freedom of knowing nothing more. Abstraction until nothingness, where time is suspended and space is infinite, when every desire can be forgotten. Hic et nunc. Here and now. The abstraction is “In the middle of now-where”. And there is something edifying in the midst of things, time and space, where and when there is nothing left to say. The beginning of everything is “In the middle of now-where”. Between form and colour. There is abstraction that fills, like a cascade of new emotions open to our innermost pluralities, like a river that leads us to desire that which is truly ours. There is abstraction that structures, re-establishing the free space of the imagination: at the expense of the always familiar chronicles that plague the contemporary. There is abstraction that lives, as an active and restorative organism, always in relation to the world, always ready to ask, between time, space, form and colour: but what do you see in me? Art for re-structuring the spirit in the essence of abstraction. This is what “In the middle of now- where” proposes.