Antivegetativa (antivegetative, the name in Italian of anti-fouling paint) is composed of paint, a chair, a buoy and nineteen paintings from old cellars, flea markets, antique shops and junkyards of Rome. The canvases show seascapes, rocky landscapes, photo portraits touched up by hand and images of “youngsters” from an age now forgotten by history. The chair on the other hand is the conceptual site where time stops, while the buoy is the emblem of the spatial limit not to be passed. The paintings, academic in style, the chair and the buoy have all been half-immersed in the thick “Tiffany blue” paint – so-called because it came into being the same year as the famous brand – with which the artist has permeated the Ex Elettrofonica space. Anti-fouling paint of the thick variety is normally applied as a coating for the hulls of old ships and is particular in that it seals out plant and animal organisms to the point of eliminating every possible form of life. The result is an acidic and unreal space, immersed in the abysses of the a material that erases everything, including space, time and life. From the process of immersion of the objects in the paint stems a reflection on a stretch of common history, that of things, and this gives rise to another, much deeper one, on what remains beyond the end of material. Through the process of cancellation of natural processes, Antivegetativa is an experiment in halting nature’s physicality, as well as the passing of time.
Info and images © Davide D’Elia