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Io sguardo - Superficie Totale
Volantino, fotocopia, 30,4 X 21,4 cm.
Fotografia b&n, 12,6 X 8,9 cm.
Fotografia b&n, 12,9 X 9 cm.

Io sguardo

Performance


February 1981

Venice Academy of Fine Arts,
Emilio Vedova’s atelier.

My grandfather was a butcher, my father was a butcher, I was a young butcher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.

I worked in a small room, almost the vestibule of the Vedova classroom. From there, I watched the work of my classmates and felt myself in Duchamp’s Great Glass cooler. I was part of the whole without being either here or there.

My head peeped to observe with detachment what flowed daily in the laboratory.

I had already decided not to paint anymore and I was developing different possibilities to be able to express myself artistically. I approached cautiously but decisively to behavioral experiences without however having a clear idea of ​​how to formalize my ideas. I thought that just as my studio colleagues hung and displayed their canvases, I could and should have exhibited my meats.

One day, rummaging through the family stuff, I found a stack of butcher paper. It was “cover” paper, the one that covered the oily sheet in direct contact with the meat. The sheets were large, of aqua green and air force blue color, with the imprint “Macelleria MORBIN GIOVANNI. First quality meat “. It was me!!!

Shortly before, looking at Rembrant’s work, I was struck by his quartered ox. What attracted my attention was not so much the slaughtered animal as the head of a figure peering into the room from the background. It was still me !!! … watching the others paint from the vestibule. At that moment I decided that my first Venetian action should have contained the elements just described emphasizing the presence and detachment from the body of the painting.

 

to G. Morbin Sr. and Rembrant