Reception for the artist 13th October 2004

Muri scialbati a carbone - Walls washed with charcoal An installation by GIUSEPPE CACCAVALE 14 October - 19 November 2004 Following the success of his first UK show in 2003, Faggionato Fine Arts is please to announce their second exhibition of work by Giuseppe Caccavale. Muri scialbati a carbone - Walls washed with charcoal is Caccavale’s first major installation project in the UK; eight large scale drawings applied directly to the gallery walls. As with all his work the focus is on process. Using old fresco techniques, each image is painstakingly stippled onto carefully marked up paper, producing an elementary stencil from which the drawing grows. Once the powdered pigment has been forced through the stippled holes it hangs from the walls in dense clumps before they are joined, in preparation for the heavy application of charcoal to the surrounding wall. At the end of this labour intensive process the images float out from the worked surface, smooth, simple and inverted. The inversion of each image betrays Caccavale’s interest in concepts of ‘seeing’. Drawing on Gombrich’s theory of illusion and the psychology of perception, Muri scialbati a carbone demonstrates that knowledge and expectations influence the process of seeing and understanding. As craned necks attempt to ‘correct’ the image, the audience is exposed to their training in the art of interpretation. What we learn from the experience is that rather than assume a conventional reading of the image, we should delve deeper: the subject of the work may lie beyond the literal. The simplicity and scale of the images lends weight to this idea. Transformation of our three-dimensional world into two-dimensional vision obviously cannot be duplication but rather a visual description of what the artist sees. By simplifying and enlarging the data Caccavale is able to exacerbate this sense of non-objectivity. Born in Italy in 1960, he trained at l’Instituto Statale d’Arte and at l’Accademia di Belle Arti de Naples. He now principally resides in Marseille. Recent exhibitions include Drawings, Faggionato Fine Arts, London, 27 February– 28 March 2003; Giuseppe Caccavale (Drawings on glass), Francesco Girondini, Verona, 8 February – 22 March 2003; Tavolo da disegno, Centro nazionale per le arti contemporanee, Rome, 28 November 2002 – 8 February 2003. ------------------------------------------------------- Gallery hours: Monday-Friday 10-6pm Saturdays 12-4pm For further information and images please contact Bunny Turner at Faggionato Fine Arts, email: info@faggionato.com Please click on the PDF link below for printable version: