D'Aprèsor an investigation on the endless iconic historical heritage

Taking into account the enormous amount of artistic strategies, the diversity of ideas and the speed with which artistic movements and personalities have been alternating at the end of XX century, art did not prove that braving and iconoclastic attitude it did at the beginning of the century, when Marcel Duchamp and international Dadaism ironically engaged with tradition. Art and all its manifestations, the main works and styles and even the social contest have become the very art material for contemporaries. Art achieved through art begins in the last thirty years of the XX century in the most contrastive forms, ranging from Pop Art to Appropriation Art. Marcel Duchamp and, treading the latter's footsteps, Andy Warhol are essential figures in this new approach.

Conceptual art could be quoted as a superordinate definition suitable for all the phenomena wherein artists (not the critics) thematise art itself, its strategies, the iconography and the theoretical and material presuppositions. This general concept groups collective definitions such as "individual archeology" or "anachronistic painters" or, again, in German, "Spurensicherung"¹, which, in the meanwhile, have already assumed an historical connotation.

By no means this exhibition claims completeness, yet it affords the richness of forms and lines up the different generations. The development of this theme is owed to Japanese artist Morimura; a theme, which would otherwise be limited to the figures of classical painting, which with Morimura find a personification leading to an appropriation of western traditions, and which are extended to the great western film stardom and to Hollywood culture.

American and European manifestations are dominating, and within Europe, Italian art in particular covers a very important space, from Italian Poor art to the present situation represented by Avveduti, Fogli, Massini and Scheda, emphasizing the remarkable amount of the employed techniques such as collage, painting, sculpture, object use and ultimately photography, the fundamental medium, which allows to create pre-existent settings. 'Après does not aim at indicating a style, but rather an attitude, without implying to pick up someone else's way of feeling either, but indeed suggesting to rethink over the art work with a productive approach and from different perspectives. One of the best examples is Andy Warhol's pencil drawing on a guiding-motive of German photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden, whose picture was already a resetting of an old theme itself.

D'Aprèsis the creative frequentation of history perceived as dominant which can be sensed both as burden and richness.

Prof. Peter Weiermair

Director

Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Bologna

¹ Translator's note: This term identifies an artistic trend, which took place at the beginning of the '70s in which "Spuren", i.e. suggestions from daily use objects, photographs, etc., became creative material.