FABRIZIO PASSARELLA

FABRIZIO PASSARELLA
RETROPHUTURE
The Gallery Apart - Via di Monserrato, 40, Rome
Opening: February 20, 2012 6,30 pm
Retrophuture is a music/media project presented by Fabrizio Passarella for his new solo exhibition at The Gallery Apart in Rome,
in which not only he plays the part of the visual artist, but where he also assumes the role of the composer and of the poet.
Temporarily laid aside his brushes, but certainly not his method to create images through sampling, Passarella formulates his own
interpretation of that universe made of sounds, styles and suggestions so well known to any electronic music buff. Art and music
have been Passarella’s greatest passions since he was a child and, on such occasion, he takes his technical and theoretical
approach to the extreme, aiming at deconstructing or rejecting all traditional languages. The result is, as a first conceptual step
of the project, the exhibition contained in a box, consistently with a popular tradition related to the enjoyment of the creative
process, an artist’s multiple, each complete with the whole creative kit that composes Retrophuture, namely a CD featuring 24
songs composed by the artist, a booklet containing 24 poems plus 24 images inspired to the tracks, and also a DVD featuring a
video.
Retrophuture is a project influenced by musical minimalists such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley and La Monte Young, Bowie’s
decadent Berlin Trilogy, Eno’s ambient sounds, the frozen romanticism of John Foxx, the first “mechanic” pop of Gary Numan,
Krautrock and the industrial post-Riley mantras of Kraftwerk, the experimental eccentricity of Steven Brown and Blaine Reininger,
as well as the hundreds fleeting flexi/synth-pop groups discovered on the Internet.
Passarella, moreover, makes extensive use of the iconographic and propaganda material from 1930s Germany and Russia,
obviously without any ideological linkage, though the artist is perfectly aware that he is walking on thin ice, faced with due irony,
highlighting the aesthetic connections of totalitarian regimes and the use of rhetoric as a sort of a basic poetics (as in the
Stadium of the Marbles, the monument to kolkhoz workers, or in the refined films of the Riefenstahl), extolling the Titans’ as well as
the machine heroism (later drawn on by Bowie for what became the hymn of the last fin de siècle), symbol of the reactionary
and modernist acceleration of time towards a hypothetical bright future. Applied to the music, the result is a composition
derived as from an automatic, surrealist and fast writing, consequence of the perfect mastery of easy-to-use music software,
maybe recreating analog sounds through a user-friendly and genial Mac software designed for beginners; perfect means for
non-musicians as well as artists having a well-trained eye, working more as a sort of video editing or a sound photoshop than as
a traditional blank sheet music. Real design-music or sound painting achieved by adding, subtracting, deleting, copying.
In addition to scoring the music, Passarella also wrote the lyrics (terse metrical structure, basic rhyming, visionary language from
the texts of the aforementioned musicians), and worked on the images, creating for each piece a poetic and visual
counterpart.
He is not interested, however, in performing an operation that harks back nostalgically to the past or in carrying out a
technological archaeology work but, rather, in reflecting on the deep sense of the clear and definite
collapse/decline/decadence/downfall/demise (in a word, Untergang) of a historic era characterized by the combination of an
abiding European romantic heritage with the post-war industrialism and the contemporary omnipresence of technology. The
strength of the project conceived by Passarella is the objective and crude evidence whereby the artist depicts the ideological
and cultural deepening crisis that Western societies and Europe in particular are currently experiencing. The economicist drift
whose current interpretive frameworks cause the crisis, according to Passarella should give way to new categories of thought,
starting from the History of mankind and of the ideas from which we can draw inspiration for a possible future.
However, the essence of the Retrophuture project is the video, conceived as a fast synthpop video clip featuring a soundtrack
whose lyrics characteristically read: Art is like an old toy/ a cumbrous museum piece of junk / We build in solitude/ the beat of
the multitude/ We create sound sculptures/ immaterial paintings/ monumental minimalisms/ portable/ Visionary detoxifying
artistic conceptualisms/ which can be carried everywhere/ in a small music case/ to stimulate the brain/ We are electronic
(audio) Engineers / Romantic constructivists / We are electronic (sound) designers / Oxymoronic Retro-futurist.
The video includes historical clips downloaded from YouTube and then edited: among others, documentary films on Mao’s Red
Guards, on the Hitler’s Pimpfe, the Red Army choir and dance ensemble, Carmen Miranda, Rudolph Valentino, tango dancers,
a rare video on the “The Monument to the Third International” by Tatlin, the “Lichtskhatedrale” from the “Triumph des Willens”
(“Triumph of the Will”) film made by Leni Riefenstahl, on the utopian urban plans of Stalin’s Russia and on Speer’s model planned
for the new Berlin. The protagonist is the actor Michael Rennie who starred in 1951 film “The day the Earth stood still”, the
archetype of the retro-futuristic spirit of the scientist who neutralizes the electric power (here transformed in electronic sound),
and drawing on the 1980’s robotic poetics, in the robot-like and stereotyped motions realized through a primordial animation.
Thus, the exhibition in the box becomes an exhibition in an art gallery featuring visual works, unique pieces mounted on
aluminum, eye-catching black and white digital images that throw emphasis on the atmosphere where deco, retro pre- and
post-war and futuristic elements are combined.
Finally, a fanzine purposely devised and realized by the artist will also complement the project.
THE GALLERY APART
Via di Monserrato 40
00186 Roma
tel/fax: (+39) 06 68809863
[email protected]
www.thegalleryapart.it
INFORMATION:
EXHIBIT: FABRIZIO PASSARELLA - RETROPHUTURE
LOCATION: The Gallery Apart – Via di Monserrato, 40 – 00186 Rome
SHOW OPENING: February 20, 2011- 6:30 pm
DURATION: February 20, 2012– April 07, 2012
HOURS: Monday/Saturday 4pm-8pm
CONTACT: The Gallery Apart – tel/fax 0668809863 – [email protected] – www.thegalleryapart.it
Fabrizio Passarella was born in Contarina (RO) in 1953. He lives and works in Castenaso (BO).
SELECTED SOLO SHOWS
2011
Floating Tales #1 e #2
2007
Ay mi corazón fileteado!, curated by I. Arestizábal, The Gallery Apart c/o Istituto Italo-Latino Americano, Rome
2005
No border-L’arte del delitto, curated by M. R. Bentini e S. Simoni, MAR-Santa Maria delle Croci, Ravenna
2004
Ex-statica, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea d’Ac, and Buenos Aires Expotrastiendas
2003
BollyMood!, The Gallery Apart c/o Studio Gobbi, Rome
2001
Worlds in a small room, Temple Gallery - Temple University, Rome
2000
Doguya Dogru (Verso Oriente), Çankaya Beledyesi, Çagdas Sanatlar Merkezi, Ankara
1999
Sexdeath&prayer, Galleria Graziano Vigato, Alessandria
1995
Saluti da Harar, Il Campo delle Fragole, Bologna
Seeing out the Angel, Musei Civici, Reggio Emilia
1994
Vertigine Divina- un invito alla danza, Galleria Rugerini e Zonca, Milan
1992
Tantrica, Galleria Placentia, Piacenza
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2010
In What We Trust, The Art Miami Pavillon, Miamicurated by J. Draganovic
Mediamorfosi 2.0. Act _01 | Contributi alle lingue dell’arterità. Between the images, experiences and contexts,
Sudlab, Portici-Napoli, curated by G. Perretta
Out book. Moltiplicazioni e sconfinamenti del libro d'artista contemporaneo, Palazzo Mauri, Biblioteca comunale
G. Carducci, Roma
Here and Now, curated by J. Draganovic, various venues, Bologna
Jeratica, Bologna Art First 2010, Palazzo Re Enzo, Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, curated by J. Draganovic
2009
A Sud (del mondo). Identità culturali e diversità geo-politiche nell'arte contemporanea, curated by R. Branà, Palazzo
Delli Ponti – ARSMAC, Taranto
2008
ABRE TUS OJOS, curated by A. Forconi e A. Martínez Quijano, various venues, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2007
On the edge of vision. New idioms in Indian & Italian contemporary art, curated by L. Canova e R. Lohan, Victoria
Memorial Hall Calcutta; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai,
India
2005
1905-2005 Cento Anni Fabbri: 28 artisti interpretano un'azienda, curated by M. Sciaccaluga, Fondazione del Monte,
Bologna; Esposizione Universale, Aichi (Giappone); Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Shanghai; Accademia russa di pittura,
Mosca
Bologna contemporanea, curated by P. Weiermair, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
Biennale del muro dipinto, Dozza, Bologna
2004
Media.comm(unity)/comm.medium, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, MASEDU, Sassari
Arte italiana per il XXI secolo, Collezione giovani, Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Roma
Mito, auto, moto: dal Futurismo alla videoarte, Palazzo d’Accursio – Sala d’Ercole, Bologna
2003
Futuro italiano, Parlamento Europeo, Bruxelles
2002
Nel corpo dell’immagine. Nuove prospettive italiane, Musei Civici in Palazzo d’Avalos, Vasto
Misura unica per una collezione, Palazzo Tiranni-Castracane, Cagli
Una Babele postmoderna, Palazzo Pigorini, Parma; galleria S. Ludovico
Desire, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
Effimera, Villa delle Rose, Bologna
2000
Cover 2000, Museo Civico, Palazzo Ducale, Larino. Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea, Termoli
1998
Mitovelocità, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Repubblica di San Marino
1997
Von Kopf bis Fuß, Ursula Blickle Stifftung, Kraichtal; Kunstraum, Innsbruck; Städtische Kunstzentrum, Eisenstadt
Arte italiana, ultimi quarant'anni: pittura iconica, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
1996
XII Quadriennale - Ultime generazioni, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma
1994
Così lontano, così vicino, Castello Svevo, Bari
Icastica, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
1993
Nuove acquisizioni, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
Emergenze 1993, Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea, Trento
Medialismo, Flash Art Museum, Trevi
1992
Medialismi, Villa d’Este, Tivoli
1991
Anninovanta, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
THE GALLERY APART
Via di Monserrato 40
00186 Roma
tel/fax: (+39) 06 68809863
[email protected]
www.thegalleryapart.it