BASE progetti per l’arte | GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO

MAURIZIO NANNUCCI has given us all a new mantra to live by. N O M O R E E X C U S E S is a light and sound installation at the Fabbrica Europa at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence that opened May third and will be up only until the 11th of the month. The exhibition is part of FabbricaEuropa’s 20th anniversary. If you’re in the area at the time, you should go.

fabbricaeuropa

Here’s a bit about the foundation:

Fabbrica Europa was born in 1994 from an idea of Maurizia Settembri and Andres Morte Terés with the aim to create a home in Florence for the culture of all Europe. In eighteen years of activity Fabbrica Europa has become a recognised space for new artistic languages and the contemporary arts. Florence is a city historically designated to house art but burdened with the weight of tradition. It is therefore perhaps one of the most difficult places to deliver a project that is not simply a festival but a concept, a hub of international, multicultural, creation and training. By transforming the Stazione Leopolda into a workshop, stage and laboratory of research and experimentation, Fabbrica Europa has given the ex-railway station back to the city, animating a location of industrial archaeology with a new cultural function.

For more info click ——-> here

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The installation is stupenda. Just after entering the venue and passing through a moment of almost pure darkness, I turned the corner and was confronted by this:

n o m o r e e x c u s e s

NO MORE EXCUSES - MAURIZIO NANNUCCI

NO MORE EXCUSES - MAURIZIO NANNUCCI KELLIE RIGGS MAURIZIO NANNUCCI

NO MORE EXCUSES - MAURIZIO NANNUCCI

It ain’t everyday that one gets to walk through such a fantastically transformed space. After turning the dark corner a breath of disbelief is taken then exhaled with amazement when seeing the long room for the first time. A childlike wonder is assumed almost immediately, and you could sense that being shared too. If I were to speak personally about my own initial impression, the only words that escaped my lips for the first five minutes I think were holy f*ck. It felt like my infantile ideas of what space might be like plus the inside of my brain responsible for self doubt were manifested together in this room, in a slightly mocking, yet delightful way, even gentile. The looming and almost melancholic cool blue lights spelling out, no more excuses across the 100 meter floor that beamed down on me remain to be quite affective even three days later. And I don’t think the necessity I acquired to repeat this mantra over and over in my head will diminish in the future for that mater, by any means. I was challenged by this piece in the simplest of ways, as if Nannucci wanted to offer us all a big and humble favor, reminding us of what’s fundamentally important. I’m grateful, really. The lights could have also spelled, hey dummy, you might want to think about getting your shit together!; a personal message that I felt like I was actually telling yourself, no one else. The universality of this experience could have only left visitors with an echo of their own lingering, suppressed thoughts or doubts, yet with a new feeling of drive and tranquillità; just the right ingredients to prevent feeling too overwhelmed when reentering the real world. That’s how I felt anyway, and like I said, i’m grateful.

As I was standing under a singular cascading blue light, looking up, I felt like I had to answer to my own doubts, assume responsibility for something. And I am still thinking about it. Do objects have the ability to ignite this kind of everlasting emotional experience? Can they similarly act as physical triggers of big existential questions when relatively experienced, touched, held… worn? It ain’t easy, but perhaps they can.

If you can think of some examples, please comment. I’ll do the same.

NO MORE EXCUSES - MAURIZIO NANNUCCI

Maurizio is seen in the center of this crappy photo on the right of the group. I am lucky to call him a dear friend and neighbor. Thank you for consistently bringing the only dose of contemporary culture to Firenze.

To learn more about the work, please click —-> here for a statement as well as the artist’s bio

LAWRENCE WEINER OPENING AT BASE PROGETTI PER L’ARTE, FIRENZE 2.18.2012

(UPDATED) I don’t like to brag, but for one lovely evening, Lawrence Weiner and I were best friends. I never really expected to go around barking about jewelry to a man like this, but he was mildly enthusiastic about what it is that I do after only just a tiny bit of schmoozing. Looking back, this night for me was kind of a game changer in a way for my research, as I had to continuously introduce myself and my interests to a bunch of people only really interested in contemporary art, which was exhausting. Honestly from that point on, my research thus shifted to the ways in which we talk about contemporary jewelry, and how to represent it as a related field worthy of interest to people that attend Lawrence Weiner openings, instead of something superficial only hovering far below. Although quite the task at times (as it really takes about an hour to do a thorough enough job of explaining so that the other person sort of gets what I mean, but instead only having about five minutes of small talk to do the job if you’re lucky), speaking to Lawrence about it was a delight. He’s the most seasoned of veterans of conceptual art, and if explained in the right way, contemporary jewelry can be nothing but conceptual. Here’s a quote from him that explains how he views what he does: I have attempted to devote the majority of my adult life to placing work within structures where they would function irregardless of what culture they found themselves in. HEY EVERYONE! THIS CAN ALSO BE SAID ABOUT JEWELRY.

Let’s try something.

“____________ is something that’s looking for a place and banging against the walls and that’s what you think of in terms of shaking things up, It’s just looking for someplace to be. Once it finds that place, it’s no longer ____________, it’s some thing, it’s culture.”

Is this quote about art or jewelry?

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Lawrence also said that about art, yet notice that the words art and jewelry are entirely interchangeable. If they each function on the same basic level and can be spoken about in similar manners, could it mean that perhaps they could be considered as the same thing?? COULD IT? No, not all the time of course, but perhaps it’s at least worth the thought, a nice exercise if you will.

That night the two of us chatted a bit about the interference to daily life sculpture or objects can have when they are created to do just that; his work obviously functions on a much larger scale while jewelry functions much more subtly, yet they both speak of the now similarly, the confrontations each create reflecting one another. When thinking about the idea of the encounter, jewelry needs this to function, for it to truly live, so does conceptual work like Weiner’s. I tried to explain this to him, how I felt that objects or jewelry could be the physical manifestations of the same textual, emotional confrontations that artists like him put forth (how I feel that my field relates to his work in particular) and he was really receptive.

If I were any good at writing narratively, I’d now digress and tell you about the dinner a group of us went to after the opening and as we were gathering around the table, Maurizio Nannucci (super amazing artist himself/ one of the runners of Base/a dear neighbor and friend) held up a round, shiny copper dinner plate behind Mr. Wiener’s head and called him San Lorenzo. It was a superb moment.