On December 1st 2022, the gallery BIANCHIZARDIN, will CONTEMPORARY ART will present Prina's new series of works, the "Secret Papers", in a solo exhibition curated by Domenico de Chirico entitled "NICE PRICE".
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Jacopo Prina - Milan 1971 - was born in a family where uncles, parents and friends used to work in the design, graphics, art and publishing field. He walks down the corridor of his house countless times - dotted with abstract, minimal, conceptual, indecipherable art from the 1960s and 1970s.
Influenced by this extraordinary world of shapes, buildings and figures, Prina dived into study and research from a very young age, tackling different kinds of media with passion – from ceramics to painting – and investigating concepts in depth.
'Secret Papers' is the title of a protest writing by Procopius of Caesarea, dating back to 550 A.D. In the protest, the author denounces the vices and malpractice of Justinian's court in Constantinople.
The text tells the secret story of an attack on imperial power launched against despotism, unbridled flattery and rampant complicity.
From Giustiniano to Gagosian
Jacopo Prina's work shows a strong and critical meaning through the use of pages from modern and contemporary art auction catalogues where non-cultural values prevail and dictate the law. The papers, transformed by scratches and reassembles, reveal and document a rebellion that, in the recomposition of the parts, takes shape in a new aesthetic subject.
The words of M. Meneguzzo in “The Ignorant Capital” lucidly outline the motivations of this research into the current state of art.
NICE PRICE denounces the flattening of the art system to financial data.
By processing the pages of old auction catalogues with different methods and techniques, all visual and semantic references of the works represented are almost completely void, while the origin, date and additional data such as the author’s name are highlighted.
The composition of the restructured elements lead to a variation of the original meaning with a new artwork.
The transformation, in fact, brings to light other qualities. New balances arise between instinctive gestures and aseptic forms, through folds, compositions and lines. New forms emerge through precise juxtaposed pieces of paper.
The dramatic loss of value in the artwork due to its absence within the catalogue is worked upon a coherent conceptual and aesthetic proposal that wishes to reconstruct and rediscover a taste for art.
We are all part of the game, so let's keep playing.
For instance, to create monetary value in a well-established system: creating art to make money, through the act of buying as an act of art.
Whoever exhibits or buys an artwork by the artist participates and becomes in turn a protagonist in this action, with the declared intention of entering into the business of the economic revaluation of the work itself.
Since beauty is very subjective, and the only value left is the monetary one, let the act of buying art be the art itself.
Cover Image: Jacopo Prina, Cakes, Secret Paper Series, 2021. Courtesy of Bianchizardin Gallery
Written by Kooness
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