Daniela Bozzetto

Elegy of the Minimal

WBB gallery
Zürich

5th November – 17th December 2022

Daniela Bozzetto

ELEGY OF THE MINIMAL

WBB Galley, Zurich

In a decade where Artificial Intelligence can simulate human reasoning and perform creative tasks, the definition of ‘artistic process’ and the cultural value of artifacts are necessarily reformulated.
Both man-made and natural wonders co-exist with the products of advanced operational entities.
Daniela Bozzetto is questioning not just the notion of ‘authenticity’, but also the role of ‘inspiration’ and ‘intuition’ as intrinsic aspects of creation.

The series of bas-reliefs titled «Transfert» derives from a group of automatic drawings.
In automatic drawing, the hand is allowed to move randomly across the paper, freed of rational control.
Scribbling absentmindedly is for the artist a practice of meditation, operating from a place of emptiness, possibly the only non-algorithmic prerogative.
These human-generated, entirely involuntary creations convey what we can call ‘intuitive indeterminacy’.

To the devaluation of the ‘aura of art’, Bozzetto opposes an idealistic antidote, experiencing an aimless state of connectedness to the self and, thus, finding what remains impossible for ‘computational creativity’.
Bozzetto’s intricated and delicate structures oscillate between figurative and abstract, often evoking phytomorphic elements, revealing an inner correspondence with natural forms.

In the work titled «Unconcealed Preciosity», thin silver lines are drawn over photographic prints.
The reflecting metallic drawings create a second image in juxtaposition with the glossy surface of the photo paper.
Both layers are visible simultaneously only when the light comes from a certain direction so that the whole image appears with its capillary lines, dots and dainty traces.

The subject of the photo underneath is real, but it is not clear if it occurs naturally.
These artworks belong to a series titled ‘Lucus’ (a term used in ancient Roman culture to indicate a sacred bush), and they portray entangled ramifications and chrysalis.
Their dehydrated form and some silkworm webs can be perceived at the same time as attractive and repulsive.
Yet, in the photos, the unsettling aspects appear transcended as if sublimated into an ambiguous beauty.
They seem to evoke a suspended time beyond the ‘sensible world’ that cannot be easily labelled.

Daniela Bozzetto embraces the exiguous, the minute, the irrelevant and subtle.
The taste for refined details can be associated with decoration or embroidery, which has been regarded as second-class craftwork activities for a long period of time.
In Western culture, visual beauty and ornament have not been taken into account as serious matters in the context of modern and contemporary art.
Bozzetto’s work sheds new light on these forms of art and seems to subtly declare the power of lyrical beauty.

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