By Giorgio Di Marzo
Giulia Ricci, young and talentuous artist whose works span from collage to installations, tells us about herself, her art and where it comes from.
Dear Giulia, the first question is: “what is art?”
When I see something that makes me emotional or triggers curiosity in me, I hardly ever ask myself whether it is art or not; I take pleasure from it and that is it. On the contrary, sometimes I feel the opposite (that is: “This is not art!”), in front of works that are displayed as art but are not.
What kind of artist are you? Tell us a little bit about your art.
I have a diploma in painting, a degree in history of art and I am currently specialising in sculpture. I am a young artist, I am still studying, but have at least 10 years of experience behind me in which I see more and more coherence as time goes by.
I have realised works with different techniques from collage to installation, from sculpture to design, from performing actions to conceptual works; the type of work that I carry on doing is mainly concerned with my way of seeing reality and expressing it through different techniques.
I am interested in the materiality of things, in their history, in the history of people and places and the connection that can exist between these aspects and that can, in turn, be of an emotional, anthropological, personal or collective nature. I am also interested in the nature of these links and the patterns that these links create, which for me is like tailoring (and with this I come back to the idea of materiality, the object).
Your works are often linked with the soil, the land: how important have been for your education as an artist, the land, rural landscapes and in general the values of the rural traditions?
Many of my works, as you might have seen from the paper carpets, those made of soap or flour, are placed on the ground; they are horizontal, built around the force of gravity.
I think that the link between this aspect of my work and my cultural and geographical background is really important. I have this fixed idea that the visual sensitivity of a person is shaped in close relation with the visual stimuli that the surrounding environment offers to her/him; in my case, the environment has been the flat nature of the Padan plains, the geometrical shape and patterns of the ploughed fields.
From a theoretical point of view, however, I think that the rural culture has participated in making the idea of “land” and of a relation to it, very ingrained in my head; even if I do not totally live this relation as I am constantly moving around, it is still part of me.
The importance of the rural background has not, however, constituted an impediment in making choices in apparently completely opposite directions, but for example I can say that I put a lot of work and time in carrying out historical and anthropological research on the context where I come from.
Every artist goes through a number of different stages that often reflect important changes in his/her life: what stages have you been through?
I think that my professional experience, started off 10 years ago, is still too short to be able to identify “stages”; in any case, looking back at my production, I can say that there is definitely a development of the series of my works according to a specific identity and an idea of continuity.
The evolution of my work it is not the outcome of pre-established choices, but I am sure that it does not occur by chance; I think that it occurs because I have the desire to go to a very peculiar direction and to put myself in discussion – and often in crisis – on things that I have not explored yet.
What kind of emotions does creating give you?
It gives me the satisfaction of resolving a problem, or often the frustration of not being able to do so; it also gives me a sense of freedom and of feeling of being physically and mentally active.
You have mentioned that you like creating sensual works, which involve the senses, tact in particular. Give us some examples.
Senses, tact in particular, are very important for me.
Between 2001 and 2004 I have realised a number of series of collages composed of hundreds of tiny triangles made of adhesive plastic, a sort of mosaic pieces of my creation, through which I was connecting ideas of linearity and superficial tact.
Last winter I have made a number of ephemeral works – that were to dissolve in short time – with cocoa powder and flour; they were simply stencils, realised in particular domestic contexts, which replicated some geometrical patterns that recur in my collage and design productions.
The result is that of obtaining extremely delicate surfaces, something between embroidery and patisserie decorations, which would stimulate the sight, the tact, the taste and the smell of the spectator; I want to create a sort of feedback between the senses.
Another recent work is a sculpture of wax and dark chocolate, realised with a similar technique to that used to lay a particular type of Renaissance floor.
What is pleasure for you?
A particular balance between the senses and mind.
What is your relationship with food: duty of pleasure?
Pleasure!
How do you originate your works?
In many diverse ways. For example, I daydream while wandering about, and this makes me usually more receptive and if I encounter an interesting stimulation this then makes me think of a work that I would like to produce.
It is for this reason that I like walking, travelling, moving, seeing a lot of things, and possibly materials and objects that would give me stimulations for things I want to do. But I also love exchanging opinions with my friends, reading, going to the cinema, and all this is part of the birth process of a work. However, I rarely give birth to a work after having seen an art exhibition.
The “gestation” period of most my works is usually fairly long. I rarely o almost never create something following an immediate instinct or impulse; but this does not mean that I do something only after I have understood it rationally.
I often go back, after some time, on themes I already worked on suddenly understanding their nature a bit more in the light of other experiences, like another works or other periods of my life.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am trying to make a sort of mobile object – something to hang on to the ceiling that would be susceptible to oscillation – made by intertwined straws in a structure apparently chaotic but structured. It is a work that is linked with my interest, of pure fascination and not of analysis and comprehension, for the theory of chaos and fractals.
You have said that you have an interest for things and people at the margins: what does it mean and how does it influence your work?
I do not think that there is a direct influence that this interest plays on my work because I do not make works based on social issues and my work is not politicised.
Maybe I am interested in people and objects at the margins because I, myself, feel a bit on the margins; I have in mind that scene of “Caro Diario” in which Nanni Moretti, at the traffic lights, declare himself as belonging to the “minority” and the car driver passing by nodding just to shoot off as soon as the green light comes up.
Why do you feel on the margins?
Because I do not accept stereotypes and the commonplaces of “normality”. I find them repressive and limitative in relation to the broad nature of the experience of life: I continuously experience doubt and this often brings me out of the so-called normality.
Is it easier to create when everything is going well in your sentimental sphere or you thing that love agonies can help creativity?
As far as I am concerned, I do not think there is any relationship between these two elements; what I can say, instead, is that a crisis on the carrier side might have a wrong influence on our sentimental sphere.
You have talked about obsessions: what are yours?
Analysing and trying to find an explanation to everything, especially to human behaviour. I can say that this is enough to create more obsessions and problems.
Are there any artists from whom you obtain inspiration for your works? What are the most overt influences for you?
There are some artists that have influenced me a lot, to whom I got very close because I thought that they could offer me the possibility of better understanding the aspects of my work that I mostly wanted to develop; and this process is still happening.
I mention some of them, in chronological order, starting from the “pre-history” of my artistic career – my adolescence – until now: Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Fausto Melotti, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Alighiero Boetti, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Eva Hesse.
However, there are also other personalities that have had a big impact on my work and my poetics, spanning from literature to architecture and cinema, and I still keep on being influenced from things that are not strictly visual: Italo Calvino, Georges Perec, Primo Levi, Aldo Rossi, Carlo Scarpa, François Truffaut.
Other important influences come from reading theoretical essays, not only in the history of art, and from spending time with friends that most of the time do something very different from what I do, like music, cinema, literature and anthropology.
What do you think of some exaggeration of contemporary art?
I think that things have to be contextualised: this helps understanding, accepting or avoiding them if we do not like them.
What do you want to communicate with your works?
I would like to communicate on a number of different levels, because the dynamics between the spectator and a work of art can be of different nature, depending on the contexts where the work of art is displayed, and depending on both the time and the concentration that the spectator is willing to give to it.
I think that the more superficial level, and thus more accessible, of my work, is visual and purely material; the aesthetics is important for the involvement of the spectator in what I intend to suggest with my work.
Any statement for the future generations?
Always be weary of commonplaces – in particular on cultures, art artists, apart from all the rest! Always.
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