User:Pifiore1984/sandbox

Elmerindo Fiore (Casalvieri, Frosinone, 1947) is an Italian artist and poet.

After an initial formative phase marked by an attempt to unite instinctive pictorial expression and spatial rigor, through which he reaches a minimalist position, Fiore’s work shifts (1969 - 1970) towards a methodology of Conceptual–Performative nature: he turns to the use of his own image as an “extraneous body in action” in order to stress the loss of centrality and, consequently, of the identity of the artist in that part of the millennium.

Fiore first revists the concept of the Center in works entitled “Autoritratto in trono (Self-Portrait Enthroned) (1970), and later (as part of the group “F. V. G.”, founded in 1971 with P. Varroni and T. Gramaglia), by proclaiming himself ARTIST and envisioning a convivial and ironic “centrality of the daily”, experienced as an “aesthetic event”, which gives rise to works that depict such events “in natural dimensions” (1971 – 1975). The most radical phase of this initial period is represented by the “Autoritratti in forma di Regina d’Inghilterra” (Self-Portraits as the Queen of England), the derailing and mordacious affirmation of the “Regality of the Artist”, which has been historically and irreversably lost; based on the same concept of “Impossible Identity” are his self-portraits as Raphael, Guglielmo Marconi, Mike Bongiorno, etc., along with his first self-portraits composed as photographic negatives. On April 28, 1977 the performance “Strip-tease” is born; in an interview, the artist says: “I created Strip-tease with Duchamp in mind. I was nearing thirty years of age and on the day of my birthday I arranged the performance “l'Artista messo a nudo nel giorno del suo trentesimo anno di età” (The Artist Nude on the Day of his Thirtieth Year of Age). Through this act of female nature, I wished to lay my soul bare, along with my body. In fact, to lay oneself bare is the act through which one becomes invisible”. In this period Fiore develops his first “Concealments” of mythical images of Western art, and calls these works “Rivelazioni” (Revelations), playing on the double valence of the word Reveal, which means both to put on and to take off the veil. The concept of “loss” and of “self-derailing” lead the artist in three linguistic directions which are themselves intertwined: 1) the practice of personal “Laterality”, as self-concealing and “prova generale per tornare ad essere invisibile”, (“the general attempt to be invisible once again”) as he writes; 2) the experimentation of “Automythology” (visual realizations related to poetic writing) through which he projects himself in archetypal figures, from time to time “becoming” Oedipus, Narcissus, Daedalus, Minotaur, etc., who create their self-portraits and write poetry about themselves (1978 - 1982); 3) the attempt to re-enter the realm of history and to reappropriate the language of painting as “possibilities of general reflection”: he paints large self-portraits in which his physical image is correlated to emblematic moments of Western art (1978).    During this era he also creates “Specchi d’oro” (Golden Mirrors), “Specchi d’acqua” (Water Mirrors), “Specchi di piombo” (Lead Mirrors), “Specchi di cera” (Wax Mirrors), “Specchi di cenere” (Ash Mirrors) and “Specchi di cipria” (Powder Mirrors).

The condition of “Laterality”, the atemporal shifts of automythology and the practice of painting as reflection lead Fiore to ponder, even from a theoretical standpoint, the problems of Western art from the time of Humanism to the present day, with a unitary process that has continually proven to be problematic. A product of this Conceptual system is a painting which he creates between 1982 and 1984, entitled “Paulo proiettò dal teatro geometrie” (Paulo Projected Geometries From the Theater) or “Autoritratto in battaglia” (Self-Portrait in Battle), in which Paolo Uccello’s “The Battle of San Romano” and Picasso’s “Guernica” are related. The work, bearing the same dimensions as Paolo Uccello’s canvas (182 x 323cm), is conceived as the representation of two expressive styles, half a millenium apart, that become the tautology of one another.

From 1984 to 1987 Fiore deals primarily with literature as a militant poet.

He returns actively to painting in 1987 with a series of works entitled “Fluorecents”, charactertized by strong visual components.

In 1988 the artist’s most recent period begins, based on the concealing of “mythical” art images seen as Simulacra upon which the artist congifures acts of “preventive archeology” and paralysis. In 1989, the artist contributes to the creation of Artmedia, as one of the authors of its manifesto.

In 1991, together with this group, he expands his theoretical reflection on Western art and on a possible new role of the artist of the end of that millenium.

In 1990, the total surrender of the expressive SELF in favor of a plural and cleptomaniac SELF, lead the artist to the spectralization of images, and in 1992 to their “Transfiguration” and “Autotransfiguration”; that is, to the attempt to turn not only art, but also oneself, into a fantasmatic body.

From the mid ‘90s and through the 2000s, Fiore further develops the poetics of “Impersonality”, which he uses to establish his “disappearances” by acting out Work-acts through “borrowed bodies” in an exchange of identity, which reciprocally negate each other, and through the use of impalpable materials such as smoke, fire, latex balloons, gas, air and water; important titles from his latest period include: Autoritratto con segnali di fumo (1994), Una giornata in fumo (1994), Analogo anemico (1996), Autoritratto in forma di cavaliere inesistente (1999), Senza titolo con segnali di fumo (1999), Anima a gas (1999), Strip-Tease 1977 – 2000 (2000), L'anima rossa (2000), Paesaggio con artista in plein air (2002), Messi a fuoco (2004), Limbo (2004), Tableau vivant (2007), Plein air (2008), Io è la regina giovane (2009), Luna e l'altro (2009), Promenade (2010), A E I U O, le vocali non se le porta l'acqua (2011).