Inventio Urbis Inventio Temporis
By Maurizio Barberis
Curated by Silvio Fuso
Art is made of hidden interweaving threads, of snaking caves, of profound connections that many seem to mistake for fortuitous coincidences. The references to reality are slim, less umbilical cords and more arcs of electricity that jump the gap between the symbolic and the imaginary. Time is much the same, it loses linearity and makes it so a contemporary artwork seems to “predate,” or sometimes even influence, the past.
This premise on the “quantistical” nature of aesthetics is necessary to explain the special bond that is formed between artists, a connection that links works of art like the biblical Berakhah.
The secret dialogue that emerges shatters preconceived notions and upsets every standard history of art, but places artists in the correct gravitational system. Buzzi and Barberis and the (Franciscan?) treasure of the Scarzuola, or rather, Barberis in front of the Scarzuola with a camera, his gaze and the “magic rituals” of a new pictorialism: I feel superfluous, images and affection should be enough for one of Buzzi's pieces.
But I too rely on “blessings,” and hope to be able to add something to history.
Maurizio reflects on the scenery: he sees in it the presence of the GARDEN, knowing that even in the best of cases his representation will not be enough to discover its imaginary plan, such is the nature of photography.
Photographs therefore multiply within the same image, and Barberis creates a dimensional diorama on the resulting vertical axis.
Buzzi used traditions, styles, and raw materials to affirm the spacial qualities of time, the inadequacy of the linear model of time's evolution. Ceramic, glass, houses, and decorations all unequivocally attest to this, and the satisfaction of the patron, far removed from avant-garde tendencies, is paradoxically the best confirmation. Barberis has investigated the feeling of inhabiting as an artist and a designer, and through his photography has made the contemporary “genius loci” accessible.
La Scarzuola, Buzzinda, The Theater-City, or simply the city of Buzzi: different names for an absolutely unique creation. There is no need to recompose its history, and it isn't my job to reinterpret it, embarking on yet another meta-linguistic endeavor.
While the semantics of this extraordinary “model” have been sufficiently eviscerated, its symbolic vector has mostly remained intact. And this is the way it should be, who knows what Buzzi saw in the small Acapulco convent that brought him to the Scarzuola and set this entire endeavor into motion.
It has entrusted us with its most precious treasure, but we are excluded from it, overwhelmed by the feeling that it isn't for us to understand.
Neither a museum nor a memorial: seven theaters is an ironic surplus, with no show but the certainty that one must jouera vital role.
After substantial exploration, after professional and personal work, Maurizio seeks the meeting point between the landscape and the Inventio Urbis.
With his aforementioned language of photography he explores the limits between GARDEN and CITY, and in many ways he too, like Buzzi, is accompanied by noble and esoteric predecessors.
The palaces of spiritual imagery are well known to both, and seem to be reliable guides to reach beyond aesthetics through the labor of art. But a special case is created, which I have referred to earlier: a short-circuit between artists, a “new life” which ties their work together. The Scarzuola that Buzzi left to the erosion of time has found an unlikely conclusion in the images of Barberis. And I'm not saying this to flatter a friend, I am simply asserting the prevalence of the symbolic world on the literal.
Let me reiterate: Literal is thinking about the architectural continuation of the Scarzuola, about its fruition, about the thousands of ways to “give” it value. Symbolic is bringing it to another place, where nature and history live together eternally and where the spiritual path of both artists is finally our own.