Cristiano Berti: Fetish Club
6–25 April, 2010
P74 Center and Gallery, Prušnikova 74, Ljubljana
Opening View: Tuesday, 6 April 2010 at 8 p.m.
Since 2002, Cristiano Berti has been portraying a special interest in lost and found items in his project work. His curiosity speaks mainly of his intimate, almost manic interest in direct material reality. In particular, projects involving specific ready-made elements such as lost luggage at airports and railway stations provoke a morbid and curious desire to open the luggage, to potentially reconstruct the story and to try to comprehend the hidden background of the lost property. The found object or item – in the context of Western artistic history are those having no artistic intention – can be very small, unimportant, found by chance, etc. The author can always evoke links or associations to one’s own personal memories of an important event in life. Connotations of the mysterious – where did the person come from? What was he carrying? To whom was it intended? Coupled by the sense of simplicity, can add a special magical touch to the found article.
The Cristiano Berti Fetish Club exhibition highlights the phenomena of fetishism with a series of collections – for example, the “Prestige” collection (with lost and sealed baggage from trains).
“Tools of Crime” (burglary tools seized in the very act of the crime and saved by the police, then sold on by the judicial services), “Wood” (a collection of discarded and rediscovered plastic Christmas trees, which, due to their height and volume, create a monumental ambience), “Rogo Api” (laminated plastic sheets with magnified print of the local newspaper headlines announcing the fire in the Api refinery where two employees were killed), etc.
Cristiano Berti is considered one of the most interesting of the younger generation Italian artists. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Turin and his works have been presented at numerous exhibitions, for example: in Rome, Turin, Guarene, Berlin, Östersund, and Belgrade. He works with photographic media, video, and installations. In his projects he often highlights cooperation and participation.