The title, Élevage de cadres, obviously refers to Marcel Duchamp’s Élevage de poussière, in which there was already the play on words about “to elevate” and “to raise”, applied to a subject strange and impalpable like the dust, that Resta goes back to conjugating them in a different way.
Luca Resta, Élevage de cadres, 2013 , collection de cadres en cours paysages et portraits gris ( poudre à canon sur papier)
The work is made of more than one hundred pieces, small framed pictures – at a first glance, actually almost empty frames temporarily leaning against the wall before being hung or taken away – grey monochrome, but not painted but covered with dust, a very particular dust. Try to rub something on it and you will realize: it is indeed gun powder. The energy is here, all hidden, potential, but explosive, disruptive. The metaphor for art is clear from this point of view.
Dust, we know, accumulate, “elevates” on a surface and its height gives us the sense and measure of the time that goes by. Here the gun powder is applied by the artist, but with the same slowness, dedication and care with which on “raises” a human being. Time on time, accumulation, overlapping, each surface, each “painting” is a meditation. Instead of an image, the subject is the process.
As they get finished, the little pictures are framed, then stacked up against the wall. Here the single piece connects to the others in an inextricable way, no longer separable, as in a collection rather than an accumulation. The “work” is no longer the individual, but the totality, a whole, nevertheless, that changes at the entry of each piece. At the same time the picture, the bi-dimensional “painting”, becomes “sculpture”, three-dimensional work, and installation, the particular placement of the space in which it stands. The genres, or media, have thus in turn “exploded”; the energy became also linguistics, aesthetics. E. Grazioli
Luca Resta: Paper (marbre blanc)
Luca Resta, Papier, 2013 marbre blanc de Carrara, 12,8 x 8 X 0, 025 cm .
Il s’agit d’un processus de rétrogradation : un morceau de marbre (2 cm d’épaisseur) et des papiers de verre. Au travers d’une action de lissage, j’enlève graduellement des millimètres de matière stratifiée au fil des années, jusqu’à rejoindre l’épaisseur d’une feuille. Il s’agit d’une action apparemment inutile ; il s’agit de temps qui enlève d’autres temps. Ce qui reste est, alors, un fragment, un laminé ayant une épaisseur d’1/4 de millimètre, un écran petit et blanc. Luca Resta
Objets envellopés
Luca Resta, Objet enveloppé #2/1, 2017 ruban papier (66,40 m) , verre, lg. 120 cm
[...] Luca Resta is an Italian young artist based in Paris who, for 12 days, has literally covered the gallery space (from floor to ceiling) with layers of paper tape, through a manic gesture of overlapping.
Superposition is a performance, but also a sort of decorative technique exasperated by a manic overlapping of strips of tape stretched out horizontally, from the bottom to the top. Each strip is overlapped to the previous one (with 4/5 mm distance), to create a wallpaper, a second skin that adapts and redesigns the architecture. The performance connects the action and the time; it is a mechanical and repetitive gesture that does not have a point of arrival, it could ideally go on forever. Only the duration of the exhibition determines the performance time. On this subject, the artist speaks about a specific “time” dedicated to something apparently useless. Resta plays thus with the main significance of the manual work and, in doing so, he puts into discussion the daily condition of the man and the paradoxes of society.
In the case of Superposition's first realization, in a Parisian gallery, the exhibition lasted 12 days. The artist used 11,850 meters of tape (that is 237 rolls), thus obtaining a membrane compact and geometrically perfect. He worked, like an employer, for 10 hours a day, trying to cover the entire space. However, since the work focuses on the idea of repetition and monotony, there is not a real objective. The artist doesn't want to cover the entire space, Resta wants only spent his time making a useless, a repetitive and alienated action. It is a slow and regular movement that simulate the action of a printer. Furthermore, the mechanical and rhythmic noise produced during the action marks the time and articulates the action, dilating the sound's repetition in the space.
Even if the idea is based on the repetition of the gesture, each repetition of the performance is different as the place of the action. It is thus a creative repetition, unique and different, every time. Last April, for example, the artist realized this performance on the staircase at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris, during Do disturb, a 3 days’ manifestation. For this exhibition, the duration of the repetitive action was three days, 12 hours a day.
In the work of Luca Resta, the concepts of space, duration, and repetition intersect each other, visually translating what Bergson defined as the essential dimension in the constitution of the number and series. In this regard, without going into the specificity of the Bergsonian thesis, I nevertheless want to see in the duration notion, the passive synthesis of which Deleuze talks in his text Difference et Repetition. In other words, I consider the concept of duration as the juxtaposition of quantifiable impressions in an auxiliary space, where the clock's hands (just to evoke Bergson famous example) lose their uniqueness to become part of a whole, of a time.
In his performances, the exhibition space becomes a theater in which the repetitive action is built. In this regard, the artist superposes not only strips of scotch, but also instants which mark the rhythm and draw the representation. The automatic and mechanical gesture becomes a ritual act, a sort of mantra played in a specific temporal dimension. This proposes thus a new skin for the space, a new gaze on the place. The artist’s movement is thus the device that highlights the repetition as an artistic, performative and creator act. In this sense, for the Luca Resta the concept of series and sequence must be understood as a unit and simultaneously as a plurality of different repetitions. The recurrence of a performative action in different spaces becomes an event, a total work. That’s why, finally, according to Deleuze, we can see in the iteration “an active force [...] producing difference” (Deleuze Dictionary, 223).
To conclude, according to the role that repetition takes on in their gestures, the four artists exploit the concept of time and temporality differently: 12 hours for the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, one year for the curatorial project of Tino Sehgal, one minute for Nadia Vadori Gauthier, 12 days, or a time of exhibition for Luca Resta. The performance's duration is, therefore, a constitutive parameter both for the importance given to the repetition and for the constant presence of the gesture in the time. Here, the difference lives in the sense of spatial dilatation of the gesture which articulate repetitive actions.
That is repeated in the time is not the Identical, but identical is the repetition of what is repeated: that's the difference, the aesthetic specificity that, in doing so, puts into the question the ontological sense of the artistic creation and the performance exhibition.1 P. Bianchi
1 * « The Repetition of the Difference: Time and Space in Contemporary Performance Art", (extract conference), International Symposium, REPETITION/S Performance and Philosophy in Ljubljana, University of Ljubljana, 21/24 September 2016
Education 2008 - B.A - M.A. in Carrara’s Academy of Fine Arts, Bergamo, IT `` Solo exhibitions 2014 - J-12 SUPERPOSITION, Paris 8 University Gallery, curated by Jee-Young Kim, Paris, FR 2013 - CHAMBREQUATREVINGTCINQ, ARS+L, curated by Luciano Passoni, Bergamo, IT 2010 - FUNZIONI CONTINUE, PROGETTI SENZA SOLUZIONE DI CONTINUITÀ, BoomBoom Gallery, curated by Stefano Romano, Carrara, IT 2009 - MAN AT WORK, Placentia Art Gallery, curated by Marinella Paderni, Piacenza, IT 2009 - BOXES,ARS+L, curated by Luciano Passoni, Bergamo, IT Selected group exhibitions 2016 - DAMA, Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana, by Lorenzo Balbi, Turin,IT 2016 - METAMORPHOSIS, Galerie Italienne, Paris, FR 2016 - REPETITION/S, City Museum of Ljubljana, Ljubljan - SLO 2016 - BRAVE NEW WORLD, K-Gold Temporary Gallery, curated by Nicolas Vamvouklis, Agia Paraskevi - GR 2016 - ARTI DESIGN IMPRESA, Ancient spinning mill, curated by Gianni Macalli, Soncino - IT 2016 - BABEL, Former Church of S. Michele all'Arco, curated by Paola Tognon, Bergamo, IT 2016 - HASARDS HEUREUX, Friche la Belle de Mai, curated by Mathilde Guyon, Marseille, FR 2016 - 9e ÉDITION - EXPOSITION COLLECTIVE, Salon du Salon, curated by Philippe Munda, Marseille, FR 2016 - DO DISTURB, Palais de Tokyo, curated by Vittoria Matarrese, Paris, FR 2016 - NO PLACE, Fombio Castel, curated by Umberto Cavenago and Ermanno Cristini, Fombio, IT 2016 - UNA QUESTIONE PRIVATA, Yellow artist run space, curated by Daniele Astrologo, Varese, IT - (Catalog) 2015 - T - A - X - I, Web site, curated by Francesca di Nardo, IT 2015 - COMMON PLACE, Rajattila Gallery, curated by Emanuele Rinaldo Meschini, Tampere, FIN 2015 - BG5 2015 - BIENNALE GIOVANI MONZA, Arengario Palace, curated by Elio Grazioli, Monza IT - (Catalog) 2014 - ESTMAN RADIO, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Marinella Senatore project, Stiftung, CH 2014 - T, Former post office, curated by Giovanni Oberti, Monza, IT 2014 - CALCIO D’INIZIO, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, curated by Lorenzo Balbi, Turin, IT 2013 - RAGAZZE (Openstudio), Viafarini in Residence, Milan, IT 2013 - ALL IN GOOD TIME, Palazzo della Misericordia, curated by Stefano Raimondi and Mauro Zanchi, Bergamo, IT - (Catalog) 2013 - WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO, Upper-Lab, curated by Emanuele Rinaldo Meschini, Bergamo, IT 2012 - DAL TRIBUNALE DELLA MENTE, S. Maria Maggiore Cathedral, curated by Corrado Benigni and Mauro Zanchi, Bergamo, IT 2012 - MANDATO A MEMORIA, Former Athenaeum, curated by Rossella Biscotti, Bergamo, IT 2011 - LA GRAMMATICA DEL CONTEMPORANEO, Betta Frigeri Gallery, curated by Marinella Paderni, Modena, IT 2011 - TRACCIABILI. SEGNI DI APPARENTI SPARIZIONI E RITROVAMENTI, Door of S. Agostino, curated by Sara Mazzocchi, Bergamo, IT 2011 - STATE OF THE ARTS, Tese of S. Cristopher, 54° Venice Biennal, Academy Pavilion, Venice, IT - (Catalog) 2011 - VERSUS XVII, Velan Center for Contemporary Art, curated by Francesca Referza, Turin, IT - (Catalog) 2010 - QUALI COSE SIAMO, Triennale Design Museum, curated by Alessandro Mendini, Milan, IT - (Catalog) 2010 - IL RACCOLTO D’AUTUNNO CONTINUA AD ESSERE ABBONDANTE, Docva, curated by Chiara Agnello and Milovan Farronato, Milan, IT 2009 - INAUGURAL EXHIBIT, Art Raw Gallery, curated by J. Wohl, New York, USA 2008 - BANG BANG – IL RUMORE DIVENTA MUSICA, Oberdan Space, project by Steve Piccolo and UnDo.Net, Milan, IT 2008 - ACCADEMIE, L’ARTISTA NEL SUO FARSI, XXV Sculpture’s Biennal, Fabiani Building, curated by Giorgio Bonomi, Gubbio, IT - (Catalog) 2007 - 1.60 INSURGENT SPACE, curated by Stefano Romano, Bergamo, IT 2007 - FINAL EXHIBITION, Vanna Casati Gallery, curated by Nicoletta Freti and Eva Marisaldi, Bergamo, IT 2007 - IDENTITÀ SOSPESE, Cloister of S. Agostino, curated by Ferdinando Ferrario, Bergamo, IT 2007 - KUNST BRULE, curated by Umberto Cavenago, Brugherio, IT 2006 - FOYER 2, Theater of S. Domenico, curated by Gianni Macalli, Crema, IT - (Catalog) 2006 - DISSONANZE, Cloister of S. Marta, curated by Enrico Baleri, Bergamo, IT - (Catalog) 2005 - FOYER, Theater of S. Domenico, curated by Gianni Macalli, Crema, IT - (Catalog) 2005 - SOUND FETISH, 51° Venice Biennal, project by Steve Piccolo, Venice, IT Residencies / Workshops 2016 - Astérides, Marseille, FR 2014 - Curry Vavart (Atelier temporary program), Paris, FR 2013 - VIR (Viafarini in Residence), Milan, IT 2011 - LA MEMORIA DELLO SPAZIO, visiting professor Rossella Biscotti, Bergamo, IT 2009 - Spinola Banna Foundation for Arts, visiting professor Luca Vitone, Turin, IT Prizes 2009 - L’AZZURRO PER L’ARTE, Jade Art Gallery, first prize, Bergamo, IT - (Catalog) 2007 - EXTEMPORE X, Medieval town, curated by Pino Modica and Stefano Fontana, critics award, Suvereto, IT 2006 - ARTEIMPRESA, Academy of Fine Arts and Industrial Union of Bergamo, third prize, Bergamo, IT - (Catalog) Lectures and talks 2014 - L’APPROPRIATION DE L’ESPACE CONTEMPORAIN, University Paris 8, curated by Pamela Bianchi, Paris, FR 2014 - WELCOME TO BERGAMO #2, Carrara’s Academy of Fine Arts, curated by ContemporaryLocus, Bergamo, IT 2014 - UNA FETTA DI PIZZA, Expogate, curated by Federica Tattoli, Milan, IT
