Florence 1926-2007

The artistic practice of painter, musician and composer Giuseppe Chiari is based on a multidisciplinary approach. The 2020 Art Quadriennale presents the most conceptual component of his research, a series of written statements that question the status of the work of art in a disruptive way. By treading the line between provocation and non-sense, they do not assertively close a conversation, yet they open a participatory and ironic dialogue with the public.

Se questa è arte tu sei pazzo (If This Is Art, You Are Crazy, 1999), or Voglio vivere senza capire, posso? Grazie (I Want to Live Without Understanding, Can I? Thanks, 1999), for example, reflect on the legibility of art and the barrier that is created between the work and the viewer, whose frustration is exaggerated to the point of claiming that Nessuno può insegnarti niente (Nobody Can Teach You Anything, 1999). The phrases are proposed as a series of performative approaches suggested to visitors in order to read the exhibition: an apparatus of mediation and interpretation of the work that takes on the same oblique point of view guiding the FUORI exhibition.