port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
alfredo aceto My Italian is a Little Rusty
exhibition 12 february – 20 march 2021 finissage 20 march 2021
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My italian is a Little Rusty: on the work of Alfredo Aceto
The following fabulation was written to accompany the work of Alfredo Aceto ―the storylines it interlaces, the creatures and characters it evokes―and its organic, mythopoetic, and narrative unraveling.
Back in the days, in a world still inhabited by chimaeras and dragons, a chthonic creature made of fire and water was said to be rampaging across the countryside of Normandy. Their 1name was Gargouille and they resided on their own, in the vast swamplands extending across the Seine river’s left bank. Despite their withdrawn life and usual discretion, being omnivorous in their feeding habits they occasionally roamed the valley in search of food and happened to devour cattle and people on their way. At times, the meals resulted indigestible and Gargouille suffered from terrible heartburns. Their aerodigestive function was then disturbed by a peculiar form of rumination syndrome, a chronic regurgitation that had them breathing fire from their mouth. This physiological disorder resulted in farms and warehouses being burnt down, and entire fields and crops being reduced to ashes. The other inhabitants of the valley deemed those behaviors dangerous and obscene, to say the least, and Gargouille soon became unpopular among the villagers, who decided to hunt them down and kill them. A bishop and a man condemned to death, together, succeeded in the mission, resorting to the sign of the cross as their lethal weapon. The lifeless body of the dragon was then carried in front of the church of Rouen and burnt to cinders before the fanatic eyes of a silent crowd―proper ending of a story forged by fire, or cruel anticipation of the fate of Joan of Arc, who will burn on the same soil a few centuries later. Yet, the legend has it that the neck and head of Gargouille would not catch fire, being tempered by the immanence of their own incendiary breath. Hence, the majestic head of the chthonic creature was rather mounted on the wall of the church instead, as a reminder of the horrors and torments one could experience in hell, but also―and more importantly―to scare off evil spirits and protect the site and its people. Paramount to this end was the position of the dragon’s tongue, which needed to protrude from the mouth for Gargouille to look mean and ugly, and therefore more terrifying to the demons they were meant to keep away. The defensive stratagem seemed to work out, and the rumor quickly spread all across Northern Europe. Soon, the region’s churches and cathedrals summoned plenty of Gargoyles―Gargouille’s progeny, or their ubiquitous reincarnations―who took the form of hybrid apotropaic figures making the tongue to drive the evil away. Yet, to stand guard against the darkness wasn’t the only purpose of those fantastic creatures emerging from stone and marble, at the encounter between mythology, sculpture, and architecture. They served a second purpose indeed. Their very name originating from Latin gurgulio for “throat”―an onomatopoeic expression evoking the gurgling sound of water flowing through the throat and emphasized in the melodic exercise of gargling―reveals the second function attributed to the creatures, as well as the tight relationship they held with water. If the earthly life of Gargouille was lived under the banner of fire, their afterlife returned them to water, through their sculptural reincarnations. And the name also indicates the way in which this relation with water was to be performed: “Gargoyle” contains indeed the root gar, which in Sanskrit refers to the verb “to swallow”. Thus, if externally the anatomy of the monstruous custodians was sculpted so to cast a protective spell on its surroundings, internally it was structured for them to function as gutters: architectural elements conceived in order to swallow and convey rainwater from the roof and away from the side of the building the Gargoyles were sitting on. Therefore, by gobbling water through their throats and ejecting it from their open mouths, Gargoyles prevented the erosion of the masonry walls, protecting
1 The gender of the creature never being mentioned in the reports, and the creature themselves operating as a multiple and ever-transforming entity, the author has chosen to employ the pronoun “they” / “them” to address Gargouille throughout the text. port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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the building from atmospheric agents as much as from evil spirits. In short, those apotropaic architectural devices were meant to perform a double protective function.
What if a Gargoyle, deprived of its tongue, suffered from some form of dysphagia―or difficulty in swallowing―and was therefore hindered in both its primary functions? What if, instead of grimacing and swallowing water, the Gargoyle would vomit pop corns on the floor2? Dysphagia produces a short-circuit. It troubles the hermeneutic process one could embark on following the path laid by Gargouille and their progeny, and transposes the interpretative act on another plane. There, what is at stake is a speech and language pathology and the attempt to cure it3. Onomatopoeic expressions and the exercise of protruding the tongue are once again core operations, this time in the attempt of taking a mother tongue that is a little rusty―its words encrusted, its letters clotted together―and enabling it to flow again and resound like water through a well-functioning aerodigestive apparatus4. It is all about fixing a mechanical failure in the hydraulic system, which will not only enable the deglutition and digestive function to perform properly, but also allow a correct articulation of speech, a good modulation of the voice, and, ultimately, a clear expression of one’s thoughts. This because the organs and muscles producing speech are the same performing mastication and deglutition, the tongue and mouth and throat working as common tools―or common denominators―in both processes. Or, put differently, speech uses the same neuromuscular structures as deglutition, the actions of breaking down food, repasting it together with saliva, and swallowing occurring in the very same space where thoughts are articulated into words and are allowed to sound. 5This conflation of functions and events is inscribed within a fascinating semantic connection: the verb “to swallow”―as a few others linked to the semantic sphere of mastication, deglutition and digestion, such as “to suck up” or “to stomach”―recalls a mental take, as much as a bodily process. To swallow is to tolerate, to accept something. It requires consensus, sometimes obedience: an ethical posture to be assumed. When the bolus can’t get through, though, this ethical posture is compromised and begins to morph. When Italo Calvino’s Baron in the Trees, categorically refusing to ingest his sadist sister’s escargots for lunch, jumps from the open window on the branch of a nearby holm oak and decides to never get off the ground again, in one gesture he rejects not only a meal, but an entire set of rules and norms tediously shaping the decadent aristocratic lifestyle of his kin. The Baron’s state of unease and his dissatisfaction with life―a form of dysphoria, manifested as dysphagia―rather leads him to withdraw from society and sit high atop a tree, radically changing his position within and towards the world, his posture, his status, his privilege. This extreme manifestation of dysphoria/dysphagia, resulting in the impossibility to swallow at all, produces a sudden moment of un-learning and requires a subsequent endeavor of re-learning, in order to embrace a different way of living. Re-learning, just like in speech therapy, requires postural training and psychosomatic mutation. Yet, sometimes one is impeded from changing position and gets stuck, the mind trapped in so-called “ruminative thoughts”. In its darkest psychological connotations, the verb “to ruminate” refers indeed to a form of obsessive self-reflection elicited by mental distress forcing one to a prolonged dwelling on sadness (dysphoria, again). But “to ruminate”―and synonyms, such as “to chew over”―also means to think over again, to ponder. Not only ruminants are herbivorous mammals whose digestion requires the fermented ingesta, or cud, to be regurgitated and chewed over again, but they also are individuals sad and blue, ruminating on sorrow. Last but not the least, ruminants are great thinkers and equilibrated judges. Following the same train of thoughts, one could argue that snakes, thinking over things even longer than ruminants before making a decision, might be particularly wise. A grass snake digesting Bertrand Lavier, for instance, or a common boa metabolizing Carla Accardi, might take their time in pondering very carefully the best solution to build and furnish their home, or what piece of art could better fit their
2 Alfredo Aceto, Gutter-Gargoyle IV, 2021, 38 x 41.5 x 60 cm, polystyrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, paint, popcorn; & Alfredo Aceto, Gutter-Gargoyle V, 2021, 38 x 41.5 x 60 cm, polystyrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, paint, popcorn. 3 Alfredo Aceto, Magma, 2021, 40 x 65 cm, inkjet print, rhubarb extract, ink, frame. 4 Alfredo Aceto, Bocca con Matita, 2020, 17 x 5 x 3.5, cast bronze, oil paint. 5 Alfredo Aceto, Portion of Plinth, 2020, 106 x 21 x 4 cm, polystyrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, oil paint, bells. port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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collection6. And while doing so, their stomachs and guts turn into the wrapping architectural structure itself: the apartment, the gallery, the auction house. An analogy one might find familiar: as Beatriz Colomina points out, metaphors of this kind and comparisons between homes and bodies punctate the history of architecture (Colomina 2019). The home, just like a living organism, breaths through its aeration system, is wrapped into the impermeable skin of the covering, and is pervaded by both a nervous and a circulatory system, respectively the electrical system and plumbing. In 1930, Frederick Kiesler wrote a book on this very analogy, where he compared stairs to feet, the ventilation system to a nose, and even the whole structure as a digestive apparatus the inhabitants of the place being bites of food―just like Bertrand and Carla in the snakes’ bellies. According to this logic, the unraveled carpet crossing the gallery space could be a tongue, licking and tasting the sole of your shoes as you walk in and make your visit7. All that said, we hope you did not step in dog doo before entering the gallery space and wish you good luck anyways.
Camila Paolino
Camilla Paolino was born in 1991 near Milano, Italy. She lives and works in Geneva, where she has co-founded and run the independent art space TOPIC (2015/2017), the artist-run space One gee in fog (2017/ongoing) and the practice-based research project B-side feminism: a transcription marathon (One gee in fog, Geneva/2018; Bern Kunstmuseum/2018; Sonnenstube, Lugano/2019). After having worked for four years as assistant and researcher at the CCC Research-based Master Program (HEAD-Genève), where she graduated in 2016, she currently operates as independent curator and writer, as well as a member of Plattform (Alumni), and as assistant and researcher Overheads at the University of Geneva, where in 2019 she has obtained a MA in art history with a research on the intersections between neo-feminism and art in 1970s Italy.
6 The author alludes to two works by Alfredo Aceto that are not displayed within the present exhibition, notably Grass snake digesting Bertrand Lavier (transitional sculpture) (2019), and Common boa digesting Carla Accardi (transitional sculpture) (2019). 7 Roll of carpet installed by Alfredo Aceto at Lange + Pult, in Auvernier, on the occasion of the exhibition My Italian is a Little Rusty (11.02. – 20.03.2021). port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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exhibition view
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
exhibition view
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
exhibition view
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
exhibition view
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
exhibition view
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
exhibition view
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected] galerie lange + pult
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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Magma I, 2021 Inkjet print, ink, salicylic acid, rhubarb, artist frame 61, 5 x 38,5 cm unique
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
Fabian Marti, 2020 Ink jet print, frame, 57 x 68 cm Unique
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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Magma II, 2021 Ink jet print, artist frame 61,5 x 38,5 cm Unique
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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Gutter-Gargoyle IV, 2021 Polystyrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, paint 68 x 40 cm port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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Gutter-Gargoyle IV, 2021 Polystyrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, paint 68 x 40 cm port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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Magma III, 2021, Inkjet print, ink, salicylic acid, rhubarb, artist frame 61,5 x 38,5 cm Unique port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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Portion of Plinth, 2020 Polystrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, oil paint, bells, 21 x 106 x 4 cm
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Bocca con Matita, 2020 Cast bronze, oil paint 5 x 17 x 3,5 cm
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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Alfredo Aceto
Born 1991 in Turin, Italy Lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland
2016 MSA, The Mountain School of Art, Los Angeles, USA 2012 - 2014 ECAL, École cantonale d’art de Lausanne, Switzerland
solo and duo shows
2021 "My Italian is Little Rusty", galerie lange + pult, Auvernier, Switzerland “Laurence & Friends“, Geneva, Switzerland “Ambaraba Cicci Cocco“, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland (forthcoming) 2020 “Kevin“, Kunst Raum Riehen, Riehen, Switzerland "Berliner Luft – Alfredo Aceto“, Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Berlin, Germany 2019 "Alfredo Aceto", galerie lange + pult, Zurich, Switzerland "Sequoia 07", Istituto Svizzero, Milan, Italy 2018 "Azure", Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Berlin, Germany 2017 "Unreachable Turtles", Lateral Art Space, Cluj-Napoca, Romania "Endemisms", Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenaghen, Denmark 2016 "Something between Posthistoria and Prehistoria", Associazione Barriera, Turin, Italy "Modesty or Surprise", Museo Pietro Canonica a Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy "Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world, pierced by a ray of sunlight, and suddenly it’s evening", Galerie Bugada & Cargnel, Paris, France 2015 "Refaire le Portrait, Acte #1", Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland "Refaire le Portrait, Acte #2", Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland 2014 "Haram", Frutta Gallery, Rome, Italy "Prophétie et Croque-Monsieurs", Happy Baby Gallery, Crissier, Switzerland
group shows
2021 “Blade-Banner“, Spazio Maiocchi, Milan, Italy (forthcoming) “La Totale“, Moulin de Sainte Marie, Les Moulins, France (forthcoming) 2020 "The Crowning Show“, galerie lange + pult, Zurich, Switzerland "Uplift", Galerie Xippas Switzerland, Geneva, Switzerland 2019 “Alfredo Aceto, Marta Margnetti“, galerie lange + pult, Zurich, Switzerland "Immersione Libera, a project by Marina Nissim", Palazzina dei Misteriosi, Milan, Italy "The Big Rip, Bounce Chill or Crunch?", Last Tango, Zurich, Switzerland Art Basel Lounge, Basel, Switzerland "Was erzählt die Romandie?", Häusler Contemporary, Zurich, Switzerland "Still Life: An Ongoing Story", Galerie Sébastien Bertrand, Geneva, Switzerland "La métamorphose de l’art imprimé", VFO, Verein für Originalgraphik, Zurich, Switzerland 2018 "Re-Routing Nature", Sixty-Eight Art Institute, Copenaghen, Denmark Talent Prize 2018, La Pelanda, Il Mattatoio, Rome, Italy "Performing Identities", Code Art Fair, Bella Center, Copenaghen, Denmark "Greffes", Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Berlin, Germany Swiss Art Awards, Basel, Switzerland "Greffes", Lateral Art Space, Cluj-Napoca, Romania "Greffes", Beatrice Burati Anderson Art Space, Venice, Italy "Le Colt est Jeune & Haine, DOC!", Paris, France 2017 The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania "X", Galerie l’ELAC, Renens, Switzerland "Shivers Only", La Paix, Paris, France "La Norme Idéale", Levy-Delval, Bruxelles, Belgium port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
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"Terrasse", Silicon Malley, Prilly, Switzerland
"Greffes", Art Club #18, Académie de France à Rome, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy "Happiness is a Fiat 500", White Cuib, Cluj-Napoca, Romania "As if we never said goodbye", DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Berlin, Germany Prix MAIF pour la Sculpture, MAIF Social Club, Paris, France "Premio Moroso", Museo Etnografico, Udine, Italy "Mementos", Tour et Taxis, Bruxelles, Belgium "Solidi Platoonici", La Rada, Locarno, Switzerland "General Audition", Galerie l’ELAC, Renens, Switzerland 2016 "The Milky Way", Galleria Gio Marconi, Milan "In Mostra – corpo, gesto, postura", Artissima, Turin "Mémoires d’été", Art Club #7, Académie de France à Rome, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy Kiefer-Hablitze Preis, Messe, Basel, Switzerland "I Would’ve Done Everything For You / Gimme More!", curated by Cedric Fauq, Flat 7, 22 Westland Place, N1 7JR, London, UK "All the Lights We Cannot See", Random Institute, Pyongyang, North Korea "Texture and Liquidity", The Workbench International, Milan, Italy 2015 "Wincklemans", PAZIOLI, Chavannes-près-Renens, Switzerland "Death of the Shambls", Silicon Malley, Prilly, Switzerland "16e nuit des musées", invited by Simon Paccaud, Musée Jenisch, Vevey, Switzerland "Lavorare lavorare lavorare, preferisco il rumore del mare", Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland Kiefer-Hablitzel Preis, Messe, Basel, Switzerland "L’heure qu’il est", Centre d’Art Contemporain (CACY), Yverdon Les Bains, Switzerland "Club of Matinée Idolz", Co2, Turin, Italy "Junge Schweizer Kunst XI", Kiefer Hablitzel Preis, Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland 2014 "The Go-Between", Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy "Jump", Art-O-Rama, Marseille "World Wide", WALLRISS, Fribourg, Switzerland 2013 "One Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Peep-Hole, Peep-Hole", Milan, Italy "Sol LeWit Loves Pancakes", ZIP, Basel, Switzerland "Ari Mortis", Museo del 900, Milan, Italy
residencies + awards + public commissions
2021 Instituto Svizzero, Milano, Italy (forthcoming) 2019 Bourse culturelle, Fondation Leenaards 2018 Swiss Art Awards, Basel, Switzerland Talent Prize, InsideArt, Rome, Italy 2017 Premio Moroso, Udine, Italy MAIF, Prix Pour la Sculpture, Paris, France 2016 MSA^, Mountain School of Art, Los Angeles, USA Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France 2015 Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland Residency Unlimited (RU), New York, USA 2013 Full Scale, by Piero Golia, Museo del 900, Milan, Italy Fontaine, School of, Lucie Fontaine, Artport, Tel Aviv, Israel 2010 La Malterie, Ville de Lille, Lille, France
bibliography
Immersione Libera, ed Galleria Continua Art Club, ed Pier Paolo Pancotto, Villa Medici, 2018 Something Between Posthistoria and Prehistoria, ed Barriera, Texts by Tristan Lavoyer and Stéphanie Serra. Supported by Albert Friedrich His-Stiftung Foundation, Basel (CH), 2016 Alfredo Aceto | Andrea Bellini. First Monograph HAPAX. JRP Ringier, 2015 Unter 30 XI Junge Schweizer Kunst Kiefer Hablitzel Preis. Kunsthaus Glarus, 2015 L’heure qu’il est, Centre d’Art Contemporain Yverdon Les Bains (CACY), 2015
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
alfredo aceto My Italian is a Little Rusty
12.02 – 20.03.2021
Magma I, 2021 Inkjet print, ink, salicyclic acid, rhubarb, artist frame CHF 2,000 61,5 x 38,5 cm unique
Fabian Marti, 2020 Ink-jet print, frame 57 x 68 cm CHF 2,800 unique
Magma II, 2021 Inkjet print, artist frame 61,5 x 38,5 cm CHF 2,000 unique
Gutter-Gargoyle IV, 2021 Polystyrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, paint CHF 8,000 68 x 40 cm
Gutter-Gargoyle V, 2021 Polystyrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, paint 57 x 68 cm CHF 8,000
port-de-la-côte 1 t. +41 32 724 6160 www.langepult.com ch-2012 auvernier m.+41 79 444 0319 [email protected]
galerie lange + pult
Magma III, 2021 Inkjet print, ink, salicyclic acid, rhubarb, artist frame CHF 2,000 61,5 x 38,5 cm unique
Portion of Plinth, 2020 Polystrene, fiberglass, acrylic resin, oil paint, bells 21 x 106 x 4 cm CHF 6,500
Bocca con Matita, 2020 CHF 2,700 Cast bronze, oil paint 5 x 17 x 3.5 cm
Juste un Clou Jaune, 2019 polystyrene, fIberglass, acrylic resin, paint CHF 10,000 ⌀ 100 cm
Bocca con Matita, 2020 cast bronze, oil paint 5 x 17 x 3.5 cm
Magma IV, 2021 Inkjet print, artist frame CHF 2,000 61,5 x 38,5 cm unique