Simone Berti Untitled

cm 190 x 210

Simone Berti’s work is influenced by his training in electronics and astrophysics. While attending the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, where he studied under Alberto Garutti, he became part of the Via Fiuggi group, a community of some of the most promising artists of the mid-1990s. Thanks to his training as a scientist, his working method uses a kind of logical reasoning that employs varied techniques chosen not based on a special preference but rather in terms of the postulates that they are called upon to check. Through his painting, Berti questions the public’s certainties, an aim that has affinities with the lucid cynicism that unites Italian artists of his generation. In "Untitled", a white canvas serves as a background for a moose, the belly of which touches the ground, making it impossible for the animal to move. The link between the painting and 18th century scientific prints is enhanced by the flat, non-evocative, deliberately scientific painting style, while the depth of the frame favors the perception of the white background, against which the subject stands out in all of its banality. The use of alkyd paint assists the precise description of the subject, favoring a technical, anonymous brush stroke that leaves no margin for interpretive doubt. The moose finds its raison d’être in the work, like a sculpture that represents nothing other than itself.

No

L. Cerizza, Simone Berti, in S. Chiodi, G. Maraniello, S. Risaliti (eds.), Espresso. Arte oggi in Italia, Milan 2000, pp. 68-69. L. Cherubini (ed.), Simone Berti, in PS1: Italian bureau selections 1998-2000, Rome 2000, p. 33. S. Chiodi (ed.), Una sensibile differenza. Conversazioni con artisti italiani di oggi, Rome 2006, pp. 53-71.

Foto Roberto Galasso

Donation by Claudia Gian Ferrari

Painting