2010
12x6x3 m
LA FABBRICA DEGLI OSSIMORI
Dusciana Bravura has continually challenged the condition of the oxymoron. In Alchemy her ancient “doing” is poured into a contemporary condition. The project starts from the selection of a thousand works of art from the late nineteenth century to today, printed on glass, cut and reassembled on the large pipes of a factory. The result is a gigantic installation, a path of images that envelop the visitor. A century of art, offered through a sensitivity coming from a mosaic dimension. Dusciana speaks of “a factory of contemporary art”, justified by an extremely broad choice, which naturally includes works by leading historical protagonists but also by quite a few supporting players. She understands well that these are not simply transpositions of well-known works although their recognizability is preserved. In alchemical language it could be called transmutation. It is not for nothing that Dusciana herself refers to it, pointing out how a replica of “Fountain”, the legendary “Pissoir” by Duchamp, is placed at the end of the path to welcome the drop of gold, the symbol of the transmutation resulting from the thousand works mentioned here. As if to say the quintessence of contemporary art gathered from the work which perhaps more than any other has become the symbol of 20th century art. A so to speak an ecumenical vision, that of Dusciana, which precisely in this suggests the desire to bring the multifaceted universe of contemporary art back to the unifying vision of the mosaicist. Dusciana’s operation is decidedly conceptual, but made of a conceptuality that does not renounce the charm of materials, technique and a planning that has its means and its end in literal quotation. The role of the mosaic, within such a complex and multifaceted event as contemporary art, makes Dusciana’s operation almost a challenge, as arduous as it is compelling. If the relationship between mosaic and contemporary art has appeared, as has been said, among the most problematic, in this almost stunning environmental operation is also celebrated an evocative and unpredictable figure of our time: the oxymoron.
