Detto (non) fatto, 2010

Fifteen plexiglas cases are juxtaposed at short intervals in three parallel rows to form a large painting. Each case holds one or more fragments of a manuscript by the artist,1 together with torn details of reproductions of skies or seas.2 From one case to the next, the fragments of text follow the logical continuity of the original, according to the direction of reading from left to right, while the naturalistic details are distributed in such a way as to evoke, as a whole, a seascape, with the horizon line at eye level (the details at the top are taken from photographs of the sky, while those further down are from seascape paintings).
An unfinished painting, still in the making, in which the echo of other paintings resonates; an incomplete view or a shattered vision, questioning the very dimension of representation, its unfathomable spatiality. Similarly, the author's writing, scattered in the cases, investigates the “legitimacy of the material realization” of a work or an exhibition. “Said” (“detto”), but not “done” (“fatto”), as suggested by the title,3 which reverses the locution “detto fatto” in the negative, annulling the immediacy and concreteness implied by the linguistic expression. To a fait accompli, the author prefers a non-doing: to the manifested work he favors waiting for its eventual manifestation, on the horizon line between sky and sea, infinitely distant.

1 The text transcribes the one written for two works also entitled Detto (non) fatto, created a few months earlier (cf. GPO-0991 and GPO-0995). The text is published in issue 70 of the magazine “temporale”, which was published on the occasion of the first presentation of the work at Studio Dabbeni in Lugano in November 2010.
2 The placement of the landscape fragments observes the position of each row of cases: in the upper row, the fragments are placed in the upper part of the case; in the middle row, in the central area, and in the lower row, they are located in the lower part of the case.
3 Translator's note: the literal translation of the title is “Said (Not) Done”. The Italian expression “Detto fatto” has a similar meaning to “No sooner said than done”.