Alfio Giuffrida

Alfio Giuffrida ( born January 28, 1953 in Park of Etna, Catania ) is an Italian sculptor, object, installation artist, set designer, painter and draftsman. He is an important representative of postmodernism.

Life and work

From 1969 to 1973 he attended the National School of Art in Catania.

In 1973 he went to Rome, where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts, among others to 1977 at Toti Scialoja painting, stage and costume design studies.

The cultural and varied artistic ambience of capital gives him a decisive impetus. Under the influence of minimal art, he is particularly interested in the surface structure of the painting, and he uses the time of study to extensive experiments with the various matters of painting and their effects on movement and transparency. He dabs for example pastels on paper and prints them on the stay on a soaked gauze pad with glue, the color particles adhere and now unfold on the semi- transparent base truly shine. In 1975, he returns to the non- figurative objectivity.

Until 1985 he lived in Rome as a set designer and painter.

1986 settled Giuffrida on to Cologne. 1990-2004 he lives in Bonn and from 2005 back in Cologne resident.

From 1995-2005 he worked with dance theater choreographer Jochen Ulrich. Giuffrida designed numerous interacting, usually movable stage sets for him with the choreography and movement of the dancers and the stage space.

2003 will see the establishment of the fictitious company AG Mind works, Giuffrida serves as a conceptual basis for the production of free sculptures as well as for the production of objects, paintings and installations. The company was registered as a trademark. In the letter A. G. both the name of the artist find as well as a play on the word corporation. What he suggests is thus the entanglement of everyday perception and artistic practice, from art and production. Through a simulated with sophistication industrial series production the mass product is individualized one hand, the unique, on the other hand, it is in a paradoxical game in the product range of the AG Sense works classified, so put back in the commercial context of mass product. Giuffrida questioned where individuality can be found in our society yet. This approach is reminiscent of Giuffrida work group of people pictures the late 80s and early 90s. How to temple friezes be concave and convex distorted faces lined up and proclaim in their even grotesque deformation of the horror of past cultures from doom - as if the horrors offset faces in motion.

In the 1990s, the picture puzzles arise. With Tempera on oil or materials such as lace and gauze - like substances Giuffrida obscures the view of the unique too, creates distance to the mysterious structures that are hidden behind the veil. Later, he transported the idea of ​​picture puzzles in the third dimension: in form of a series of reliefs from furniture fragments and moving sculptures, provided with numerous joints, the so-called elements. Finally, walk-in, industrial manufacturing simulated, expansive sculptures and installations created with content and formal analogies which open in the room as well as corset -like are presented in interaction with the human body or on.

Spectacular works

The most spectacular object of the company AGSinnwerke is the over-sized, about five feet high stroller, the Märkisches Museum Witten in 2006 issues.

The product seemingly serially manufactured consists of handcrafted replica items. But its size and the fact that its components do not match those of the other strollers - the artist has produced several of them - are interchangeable, also make him unique.

Manifestos

Energy is after the movement and the light, the third basic element in Giuffrida's art:

The whole world is a sculpture park

First publication, Alfter, 28 September 1997

"Energy is part of the living world as well as to art. Pylons are visual symbols of energy transfer. Redirect the flow of energy equal to the brush in Tintoretto's hand. Energy transfer in the art is the mental process that shapes matter. I'm going to make them the subject of my artistic work everyday symbols of power transmission. A process during which I give new forms all electricity pylons in the world and they want to replace. Forms, with the places where they are located, correspond. The serial repetition is appropriate where it serves to accentuate the single idea that function is maintained. Everyday world and all bundled in the artistic process of creation experience of the world merge. A new dimension opens up. "

Quotes

" When we talk about the art scene is all too easy to forget that it really is the theater, the art sets the scene. However, it is not wrong to speak of the art scene, because in view of the increasingly noticeable the influence of mass media on all aspects of social existence of the Western world, also produced the art world, and the events, which he unfolded, sometimes has been stage-ready form on. Maybe it's interesting to know from this point that Alfio Giuffrida has studied both the painting and the stage design and occasionally exercised. In addition, you can also in his free painting, you can see more closely, recognize his double commitment. "

"At the moment of painting, I know exactly where I stand, but not where my path will lead me. "

"It can not be the task of the stage to reconstruct a specific place of action ... The stage must come from the core of the plot and develop forms that correspond to the universal language of the action. It should be one body with the music, the singing, the director. I'm looking for forms which focus the emotional substance of the work, which are able to intensify the beauty and the abyss, the strong feelings and injuries. My aim is to create characters that penetrate deep into the perception. In a world where more crowded with characters whose validity has already surpassed the reality seems to me this is the only way to communicate content. My stage installations often arise as movable objects that put other characters, depending on the position. The viewer, set in its spatial perspective, they also give the opportunity to develop site descriptive associations. "

" The concepts of space Giuffrida escape the stage entirely to the decorative. One can no longer speak of images ... there are signs in space, usually movable, and by a menacing hardness and sharpness that reference signals as to the vulnerability of the body in dance. Your rhythmic structure has a musical feel, caused by the element of the ranking. Shape and material transform the theme and found a room sound, which creates anxiety and calm and by the proportion of the dance assigns a new beauty. "

"Space, body and movement add up to dance - but where the previous stage are content in general with the framing of the stage action by background brochures and scenes, at best by the construction of environments, it comes Giuffrida the integration of production, or choreography and movement - and that is precisely insofar as it relates to the dance theater to the inclusion of sculptures and design elements in the choreography - in other words. sculptural installations are part of the dance, change with the dance "

Stage sets

Notebook: Premiere, March 2, 1995, Oper der Stadt Köln. Betrothal in St. Domingo: June 17, 1995, Locksmith Cologne Theatre. Goya Danzas negras: December 20, 1995, Oper der Stadt Köln. Get up early: February 22, 1996, Vienna International Dance Festival. Citizen Kane: 4 April 1997 Oper der Stadt Köln. Performance: January 31, 1998, Government castle Dusseldorf. Diaghilev Revelation: January 10, 1999, State Theatre Innsbruck. Lorca y Dalí Perros de Luna: February 19, 1999, Stadsschouwburg Heerlen ( NL). Mon Orphée 1 April 2000 Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen. Phaedra: 30 November 2000 German Opera on the Rhine, Dusseldorf. Romeo and Juliet: January 20, 2001, State Theatre Innsbruck. Casanova: November 10 2001 State Theatre Innsbruck. Diaghilev The Favorites: 8 November 2003, Aalto Theater in Essen. Caravaggio: November 22 2003 State Theatre Innsbruck. Sissi Imperial Highness: October 22, 2005, State Theatre Innsbruck.