Endeavour.
Milano, 2011, Fondazione Mudima.
what a beautiful life (x3), 460x230, oil on canvas
“Paolo Barlascini’s Endeavour thus becomes an attempt to keep the inner temperature of his work as low as possible in order to achieve a sort of common and anti-expressionistic quality that is capable of reflecting the image of a world that lies beyond reality itself. In discussing the relationship between space and its poetic definition, Gaston Bachelard observed that “the duality of the subject is spread, refracted, constantly active in its inversions.” Barlascini’s endeavours also remain somehow open to development, avoiding exhaustive definitions and demanding a more subtle and unexpected approach. In this way their evocative nature, by asking questions rather than providing answers, structures the representation as a sequence of facts assembled as an organic accumulation of discrete parts. A series of singular cases and moments are gathered together into one and the same scene (as is the case, for instance, in L’ultimo atterraggio di Umberto N. and What a Beautiful Life), offering a few scattered clues to deciphering the general sense of the composition. It’s as though Barlascini provides a draft map to ease the journey, though not too much of it, as he has here by placing a large drawing of an undetailed map at the end of the exhibition”. (Gianluca Ranzi, exerpt from the catalogue to the exhibition).
Special thanks go to Sergio and Giuseppe De Petri, from Valfon, for the technical support that once again made possible the making (and transport and installation!) of the two “Space Explorers”. The resulting glass “monolites” that stand in the space are ca. 150kg heavy, as some of us well know, and required long and good care. Thank you for the crucial support!
The complex and delicate process we called “stratification” allows the canvas to be “fused” between two sheets of glass, sealing the material under void and creating almost a magnification effect of the texture of the canvas and the structure of the pigments. Not without risks.
view of the installation of astronautenanzug at the fondazione mudima.
Endeavour is a crucial chapter in the long (and on going) project. Some of the studies marking the steps were on show, but as it often happens, for space reasons, a lot of the material remained stacked in the studio. Here a few more sketches of that 2010-2011.. Endeavour:
Download the full catalogue in pdf format:
