Monocromo Variationen

The 18 pieces on display included a new work devoted to Bolzano, “Rogo”, a 16 mm film shot in the city’s waste to energy plant. “Monocromo Variationen” also offered an overview of the Genoa artist’s oeuvre and his exploration of monochrome from the 1980s onwards. There was the chance to see “Le ceneri di Milano”, 2007 a large format work that is part of the Museion collection. In monochrome, also conceived as a form of anti-art, there was a resolution of the conflict between image and abstraction, work and idea, the visible and the invisible. Yet Vitone’s monochromes are the opposite of pure form or metaphysics.

For Vitone monochrome was a “pretext” for forging a specific relationship with a place, in order to explore its identity. The artist thus subtly yet decisively distances himself from the notion of the universal quality of monochrome painting, as disengaged from any specific references. The series “Ceneri di Milano” (2007) – made of ash from waste to energy plants on aluminium – and the works “Io Roma” (2005) and “Ich, Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz” (2008), spring from the idea of letting places create their own self-portrait, by depositing their ash and dust particles on the artist’s medium.

The same goes for “Finestre” – watercolours on paper painted using dust – and “Senza Titolo (Zafferano)”, 2000 and “Viva!”, 2005, pieces produced using foodstuffs like wine and saffron. The latest monochrome work specially created for the Bolzano exhibition is also volatile in nature. The fiery red image shot on 16 mm film at Bolzano’s waste to energy plant is a monochrome in motion, constantly mutating. Undoubtedly linked to the work “Ceneri di Milano”, in the Museion collection, “Rogo” is a continuation of the artist’s broad physical and expressive exploration of monochrome. And once more monochrome becomes a pretext for inviting a city to portray itself, in a process of constant metamorphosis.