UTOPIA Giuseppe Stampone – Emigrazione
€100.00
In stock
SKU
3012261
Artist’s poster
By using the BIC ballpoint pen, for the Utopia project Giuseppe Stampone has chosen the word Emigrazione (Emigration), inspired by his own life: in fact, he is the son of emigrants and was born in a French banlieue (suburb). Two children can be seen from behind, who the viewer can easily relate to: they are holding hands while plucking up the courage to enter an inhospitable world. ‘Wayfarers on the Sea of Fog’, yet in a condition quite unlike that of Romantic sublime, they are bare-chested and barefoot, appearing defenceless and vulnerable. Their actual identity is irrelevant; their young age reminds us of childhood innocence, while the colour of their skin brings up a universal problem that is frequently overlooked by superpowers. The boulder in the foreground highlights the need to revert to a primordial condition to re-establish a connection with the earth, living alongside nature; against the backdrop of a skyline, filled with geometric skyscrapers, we are projected into a global and, therefore, undefined metropolitan city emerging from a thick layer of smog, as if sketched out with soft hatching. The reference to consumerism in industrial society is also apparent in the ‘pop’ reproduction of the Paramount logo, which emerges from the top of a snow-capped peak – possibly, the Monviso mountain – which sweeps us from a scenery that seems as if suspended in an uncertain future to a scenario of cultural homogenisation, which is brought about by capitalism. The artist, who draws a sharp line between the immigrant protagonists and the Western setting, urges us to overcome anthropological and geopolitical differences so as to regain awareness of a single origin. In the title of one of his recent solo exhibitions, he wonders: ‘Why does the sky belong to everyone and the land does not?’ In the Emigrazione (Giosè and Maria Crispal) poster, the only elements in the sky – common goods par excellence – are the stars of the logo of the Hollywood movie production company.
Product details
The frame is not included in the purchase of the work to allow buyers to customize it to their taste and the style of their space
2022
Offset printing on 170 gsm paper
50 x 70 cm
100 copies, numbered and signed by the artist
2022
Offset printing on 170 gsm paper
50 x 70 cm
100 copies, numbered and signed by the artist
More informations
Born in 1974 in Cluses, France, he now lives and works in Teramo, Brussels, Rome and Bologna. Through multimedia installations and drawings made with a BIC ballpoint pen, Giuseppe Stampone engages in a dialogue with ancient iconographies and contemporary symbols, looking into the social responsibility of art which, in a participatory context, plays an important role in educating the community. In cataloguing an archive of the recent past, his poetics reflects on issues such as alienation, war, immigration and the monopoly of information controlled by political elites. Stampone calls himself an ‘intelligent photocopier’ and crystallises ‘liquid’ and ephemeral images found online. The actual copying process is reminiscent of pop appropriation, but only one copy is reproduced. More recently, the artist has been working on modernising art history masterpieces; by incorporating modern elements such as provocative slogans, portraits of intellectuals or metaphysical still lives, icons speak of modern-day contradictions. In Lampedusa (2020), the protagonists of The Luncheon on the Grass have North African features and are sitting beneath the inscription ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ou la Mort’, while Carl Gustav Jung is portrayed among the members of the Sacra Famiglia (Holy Family, 2020) and, in Narcosis (2018), the reflection in the water shows an industrialised world. In La Zattera della Medusa (The Raft of the Medusa, 2017), historical figures are replaced by migrants, whose conditions prompt us to rethink a value system that dates back to the French Revolution to bring it in line with multicultural pressures. Referencing other works of art, Stampone brings back Piero della Francesca’s perspective, Flemish details and geometric repetition inspired by Escher, creating a chiaroscuro effect with a powerful emotional impact. By rediscovering his dexterity and committing himself ‘day after day, like a monk’ to his drawings, a form of opposition to the lightning-fast digital age, the artist is able to expand time. As a believer in engaged and inclusive art, in 2008 he set up the Solstizio network, co-funded by the EU and spread across several countries across the globe, aimed at raising money for schools in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Works by Giuseppe Stampone, who was awarded the Third Maretti Award and the ‘Pacco d’Artista’ Award, have been on display at Italian and international institutions such as the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), the Liverpool Biennial (2010), and the 14th and 15th Rome Quadriennale (2004 – 2008). For instance, the solo exhibitions Stampone - Banerjee and the third meaning, Italian Institute Cultural Centre in New Delhi (2016) and L’ABC dell’Arte nei confini sociali del gioco (The ABC of Art within the social boundaries of play), Palazzo Reale, Milan (2014). He has participated in various group exhibitions, such as La collection BIC, Centquatre, Paris (2018) and Dada and Merz, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich (2011). As part of the Treccani Arte project Utopia, Stampone also designed the limited edition artist’s poster Emigrazione (Giosè and Maria Crispal).
Works by Giuseppe Stampone, who was awarded the Third Maretti Award and the ‘Pacco d’Artista’ Award, have been on display at Italian and international institutions such as the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), the Liverpool Biennial (2010), and the 14th and 15th Rome Quadriennale (2004 – 2008). For instance, the solo exhibitions Stampone - Banerjee and the third meaning, Italian Institute Cultural Centre in New Delhi (2016) and L’ABC dell’Arte nei confini sociali del gioco (The ABC of Art within the social boundaries of play), Palazzo Reale, Milan (2014). He has participated in various group exhibitions, such as La collection BIC, Centquatre, Paris (2018) and Dada and Merz, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich (2011). As part of the Treccani Arte project Utopia, Stampone also designed the limited edition artist’s poster Emigrazione (Giosè and Maria Crispal).
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