Gaping orifices stuffed full with skulls, orifices sprouting trees, fingers pointing towards orifices, orifices inside of which open still more orifices -- in short, an entire art of the orifice. Such is the production of Francesco Clemente, Neo-Expressionist painter and leading...
[more]Gaping orifices stuffed full with skulls, orifices sprouting trees, fingers pointing towards orifices, orifices inside of which open still more orifices -- in short, an entire art of the orifice. Such is the production of Francesco Clemente, Neo-Expressionist painter and leading figure of the Italian Transavanguardia. In a vast array of styles, from abstract and figurative to Indian-influenced, Clemente develops his visceral, at times disturbing, opus. It would seem the work of an entire crowd of painters, were it not for the consistent theme of the orifice that runs throughout the divergent variations on manner and mode.
But it would be an error to say that Clemente's art is simply about the orifice. The orifice for him is not a symbol; it is not intended to signify or represent an idea. Although it serves those functions at times, more profoundly it plays the role of a source, an inspiration, or even an engine of the creative process. Clemente's work doesn't merely depict the orifice, but more importantly derives from it. If for Burroughs, the mouth confuses itself with the anus, we might say that for Clemente, the anus, the mouth, and the vagina confuse themselves with the painter's hand. Thus, when Clemente paints an orifice, it is as much an homage to his inspiration as it is a symbol of the openness of bodies.
In fact, the openness of bodies can never simply be symbolized; it must also be enacted within the work of art as the inspiration for the artistic process. The orifice, as the portal through which one body enters and influences another, makes possible a visceral form of communication, a form of communication that can translate itself into art. The fact that Clemente's painting bears witness to a vast diversity of influences, and the fact that he moves incessantly between different styles of expression, is testament to the working of this kind of communication. Each of his diverse styles is the product of his being penetrated by a certain influence: the influence of Abstract Expressionism, for example, or that of Indian art.
Like the work of Francis Bacon, Clemente's art is an art of sensation, or more precisely, of violent, excessive sensations, which inflict distortions on perceived forms. It is these distortions that both artists capture in paint. Whereas Bacon fixates on faces and wounds as privileged sites for intense eruptions of feeling, Clemente hones in on the orifice (which is, after all, a kind of wound) for the very same reason. It is the locus of sensation for him.
Clemente's work evolves from the sensations of shock, disruption or penetration, the interruption of one flow by another -- in short, a difference that embodies itself in his art as a perpetual differentiation of style.
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