Sculpture has no form in itself, rather it is its own form
Alberto Zanchetta
Giovanni Termini’s artistic research may be clearly enucleated starting from his personal exhibition held in Bologna in 2008. The paradigmatic title of the show, “Zero”, identifies indeed «a stage where everything can happen and where each element can intervene and give birth to infinite possibilities». All that is possible, probable and plausible converges into this zeroed/weakened dimension; in particular, the ground zero suggested by the artist is tantamount to a void that is the common denominator among space and time. It is precisely from this void that Termini draws the forms which are still waiting to be thought and which need to be externalised, but which will then be reabsorbed into such void, whether temporarily or permanently.
Provided that the existential condition of the artwork cannot leave the (exhibition) space and the time (of the ongoing show) out of consideration, every exhibition is an opportunity to ex-pose, that is to bring out of the void an idea that will seek to materialise. In the same way the philosophers assert that “nothing is unthinkable”, the artist can become aware of what will be their activity and what will have to be their artwork in relation to this epistemological void – a place lacking in matter but rich in information and suggestion.
From a historical point of view, the sublime charm of the ground zero characterised a large part of the aesthetic researches of the last century. In 1923 Malevič stated that «if art has comprehended harmony, rhythm, and beauty, it has comprehended nothing». Forty years later Mack, Piene and Uecker co-signed a programmatic manifesto in which the number zero was equated to a New Idealism: «Zero is the silence. Zero is the principle. Zero is round. Zero is Zero». From the avant-garde up to the postmodern era, many artists had been hoping for a mystic-like synthesis and for a radical objectivity that could minimise every ambiguity, interpretation or expressivity. However, whereas they aimed at a gradual and crucial convergence towards zero – understood as the epicentre of a fatal break with the tradition –, for Giovanni Termini zero is the true fulcrum between the past and the present, a viaticum that does not imply a doctrinal system nor an aesthetic of perfectibility. He starts from the utter void in order to increase its size, since zero is equivalent to a “container for infinite”.
Termini approaches the monolithic void the same way Old Masters did with marble blocks, by discerning into it the forms to be codified and signified. Through this “intellectualised projection” the artist translates the energy into mass, namely into a constituent-interrelated-cumulative totality. It is of course an isomorphic translation, self-determined by the elements which govern it: the artwork is indivisible despite the fact that its parts continue to be divisible. It is as if the artist was more interested in their unit of measurement than in their groupings. As for the materials, they convey the information while their degree of organisation determines the system they belong to (Visual Arts). In a conversation between us, Termini admitted to having «always thought that the void does not exist in an absolute sense. Take, for instance, the experiment John Cage conducted in an anechoic chamber. Cage was expecting to experience the absolute silence, but he had to acknowledge the presence of at least two sounds coming from his own body: his heartbeat and the flow of blood in his veins. The same is true for the space, empty only in appearance, where the artwork is located: perhaps devoid of objects (but this is still not the void), it is filled instead with a minimal – even residual, if you will – history, which my artworks are led to face». By envisioning and spatializing this void/zero, the artist conceived one of the most emblematic interventions in his creative path, Delimitare una zona sospesa (2009), in which some PVC applied on a wall refers to the plasticised fences which delimit work-in-progress areas. The smooth developing of the fence becomes an ouroborus which corresponds to a methodical – rather than vicious – circle; a circular space which suggests a perpetual work in progress, trapped in a form and in a temporality that are bound to exhaust themselves in order to then regenerate. The same idea was evoked and developed in the subsequent Zona limitata (2010), where the PVC is applied directly on the floor, while a steel wedge has been placed in the interior of the circumference. The overall impression is one of a compass pointing at the inclusion (of art) or at the exclusion (of the audience); actually the fence delimits a tricky environment, not dissimilar to a construction site. This impassable limit was the basis of two other installations, Tentativo di ripresa (2014) and Strani buchi tra le palizzate (2015), the latter of which features a column made of concrete blocks and cordoned off through a galvanised iron cage. Over the years the concept has been restated in the two versions of Quattro giorni in vetrina (2011), as well as in Knauf (2011), whereas a similar zero-centric development is at the origin of Girogiromondo (2012), an artwork made up of a bicycle chain twisting on itself which hints at a centripetal force which cannot disperse anymore. Perhaps unconsciously, or otherwise obliquely, the artist seems to have assimilated and reinterpreted the spiral-shaped propositions of Mario Merz without, however, taking on any debts with Arte Povera, whose lesson the artist had in mind, even though he kept it at a distance.
It has been said that Giovanni Termini treats space as a construction site, a place where the artworks are being defined by a tautological work in progress: «the construction site, with its serial operative gestures, its stacked materials – which have a form even before the hand of man intervenes to impose one on them – has always been for me a place of seduction and an endless source of inspiration. The choice of materials often results from the fact that they are nothing more than that the vessel or the superstructure in order to reach the final form, which does not interest me any more than the work undertaken to get to it».
The materials, pre-formed and premeditated, convey their cultural references, whose fascination Termini embraces – without ever submitting to it. By combining innocent tubes, prefabricated panels and concrete pours the artist obtains forms-types – or, better, “fundamental forms” – which are not obliged to be something too different from what they actually are. There is no question, indeed, that each material maintains its own quality and identity: in Termini we find a purism of form that is never contaminated, just because «the technique expresses not only the useful, but the art. Every manufactured object, after all, if well realised by a skilled author has its own beauty, just like a well-shaped body». Termini seemed to adhere to this ideal as he chose to take a sample of his own blood and then encapsulate it in Riverbero (2007), so triggering a fierce – even ontological – play of mirrors.
We should bear in mind that Termini often makes use of materials predisposed to assembly: this peculiarity places his research not among the sculpted forms but instead among the assembled forms, which conversely remain decomposable forms. For instance, the specificity of Divaga ma non troppo (2008) stems from the fact that the crates, hoisted onto tubulars, are held together by pressure bands or by suction caps, almost as if they abjured the tightness of nails and screws. Neither welded nor bolted, the materials are in perfect balance. This makes the beholder perceive a tension/precariousness which challenges the laws of gravity and sometimes negates its own specific weight, as is the case for the pale, almost evanescent containers from the series In Attesa (2007-2008). Belts, suction caps and duct tape declare a certain lability of the artworks, whose elements fit together, hold together and offset each other, although remaining precarious and ephemeral, given that the artist reserves «the possibility to release with a simple gesture – the same that is needed to loosen a belt or to detach a suction cap – a fresh, unknown form».
The same intention can be found in the installation In pedana (2009), consisting in a galvanised iron scaffolding which lifts above the ground the wooden and glass crates lying onto it. It is a kind of geodetic structure which, by relating two environments, is equipped with an on-ramp lacking a descent. An initium ad libitum that, conceptually, goes deep beyond the physical limits of the exhibition space. Naturally, Termini’s scaffolding does not belong to the category of stages (which normally prompt the viewer to look): it is instead a practicable space, but only in theory. The angular elements of the footboard may keep adding up as in an equation, just because the materials can be constantly juxtaposed and then disjoined, according to a structuralist praxis that identifies the invariable within variety. The peculiarity of a decomposable structure is the basis for the wooden and glass crates disseminated in the solo exhibitions in Bologna and Macerata, as well as in the monumental installation Zona Franca (2006). These boxes-containers take up space and contain it at the same time. However, according to Giovanni Termini, the true container of the forms is not space but time.
Rather than sculptures or assemblages, these artworks should be seen as projects. Despite their objectivity belies from the start the idea of the project (which is something in progress), the hypothesis is validated by their “intermittence”: Termini’s installations do not exist in an absolute sense but only in relative ways, in other words when they are exhibited. Once exhausted the “temporality” with which they are asked to engage, they are decomposed and stored. Marc Augé made it clear that «contemporaneity is not the present time. […] In order to be contemporaneous we need both the past and the future», a postulation that we may relate with the three cylinders forming Presente passato e futuro (2007). Even though the marbles look different, they are equal in conformation and volume and establish a gradual chromatic transition from the Bianco Carrara, via the Grigio Tao up to the Nero Marquinia. This interrelationship thus marks the stages of an incessant endeavour against the inexorable flow of time, which the artist seeks to slow down or to stop. Almost all of Termini’s artworks contain indeed both an internal time and a historical time which tend to go hand in hand with the public and private space.
Contrary to the myth of the creation and of the new, Termini employs a more realistic and pragmatic approach by striving to [re]think and to [re]elaborate pre-existing forms. The creative revolution thus becomes a parable of intuitions and discoveries rather than of inventions. Termini struggles to forget the effect in order to focus solely on the process: he offers us a “cognitive object” rather than a “contemplative object”. Namely, he enables us to question not so much the single artworks, as the same idea of sculpture, its project. In short, the artist refuses an irreversible form in favour of an open device that attests to its presence and that, at the same time, presupposes an instant and a wait. As Termini himself admits, the wait – which can be both a “hopeful expectation” and an “investigative adventure” – is a seminal issue dating back to the early years of the twenty-first century, when Celare l’attesa (2001) was realised. It is a mould containing a molten bar which cannot be seen by anybody (here the sculpture is a metonymy: container and content overlap, both formally and conceptually). By eclipsing the final result, the artist forces us to get straight to the heart of the creation, since what we see is the matrix of a thinking which is still forming and fixating in front of our eyes.
Luciano Fabro maintained that Art «is not the subject but instead the argument of something»: this is what Termini intends to do as well. He tries to explain the plastic language, making it an “art subject” that cannot be traced back to styles, categories, canons or formal systems anymore. As proof of this, the sculpture Reperto (2014) results in a lenticular survey of its own discipline, so that the artwork can no longer be an inert object but the outcome of an incarnate thought. For Termini sculpture is an inalienable necessity as well as an incessant fixation, a formalised yet dubitative intuition. The artist is committed to showing us what art is rather than trying to explain that to us: basically he overcomes the anecdotic meaning of art in order to focus on the experience of sculpture, on his being “in situation”. The nominal issue is thus bypassed through assertive works that do not claim to define themselves a priori.
Sculpture, traditionally, has not been always conceived in connection with what surrounded it, which in contemporary art becomes an “inescapable circumstance”. Brian O’Doherty explained that the environment is a factor of the aesthetic equation: «If formerly the art gallery transformed everything that was within itself into art (and sometimes it still does so), the new media have overturned the process: now is they who constantly transform the gallery as they please».
Since the 1960s to date, many artists have kept wondering about the identity of exhibition spaces. However, Termini’s intervention is not aimed at challenging the art system: his is an analytical attitude which reflects on the context of the artwork and, more specifically, on the role of museums and commercial art galleries. The 2016 exhibition “Pregressa” is paradigmatic, insofar as it ruled out the traditional exhibition moment in favour of an ongoing setting-up. The artist, indeed, wanted to enable the viewer to be involved – at least ideally – in the stages immediately preceding an exhibition; this is why the setting-up took on the appearance of a work in progress. Essentially, and effectively, Termini “contextualised” the materials he had always been familiar with, in order to question the exhibition space. By operating in the gap between objects and context, the artist sought to empty the container – the art gallery – of its usual content: the work of art, understood as artefact-fetish. After considering the gallery’s layout, Termini reflected on the peculiarities of the site, whose rooms are higher than they are deep: this is why what usually is overhead has been brought at our eye level, while what we usually see has been concealed. This twofold operation, aimed at highlighting as well as calling into question the exhibition space, puts the viewer at the heart of a methodological reflection, by revealing and at the same time concealing the genesis of (Termini’s own) exhibition.
Divided into two spaces, the setting-up of “Pregressa” was conceived as both unitary and complementary despite its confrontational stance. As he has done before, the artist insisted on giving visibility to a “work in progress” which can be able to fuel the expectations of the audience.
In the first room we experience a situation of suspension: the track lighting has been removed from the ceiling and placed on metal trestles. By destructuring the inherent function of the lighting system, the artist compels the viewer to pay more attention to what actually enables them to see/read the works of art. As opposed to the emphasis put on the track lighting in the first room, the second space’s walls have been lined with panels of the type commonly used to delimit construction sites in order to conceal what happens inside them. By masking the walls, the paneling interferes with the viewer’s gaze, so calling into question the habitual experience of the exhibition space.
It is important to the artist that every artwork allow the surrounding architecture to permeate it. A representative example of this attitude is the 2015 exhibition “Grado di Tensione”, where the marble skirting board was removed and distanced from the walls, so subtracting space from the exhibition space. With this gesture the artist wished to redefine the gallery’s perimeter, creating a hypothetical interstice which raises the issue of limits and boundaries, but which above all leads the architecture back to its original ideal stage, not that of building but that of “being built”.
The same can be said about the installation realised at Fonderia Pescheria in Pesaro, where a longitudinal architecture was inserted into the circular layout of the former Church of Suffragio. It is the framework (as the title of the artwork suggests) of a building, a skeleton in iron and wood that sets out a nucleus punctuated by eight columns. The framework realised by the artist to build the pillars is in a balanced relationship with the architecture, as a result of the fact that «art represents the reductive aspect of architecture and constitutes the latter’s authenticity. But this art is built, on par with all the arts, through its own technique; a technique equivalent to the architectural composition».
Nevertheless, Termini’s structure lacks foundations and no shuttering will ever be filled with cement. What we see effectively is an incomplete and derelict architecture, ruins without a lived history. Cement, iron and wood, just like glass, plasterboard and the galvanised tubes are the elements of an industrial archaeology which can still be reshaped/re-signified, without giving up the ambiguity which characterises the whole artist’s research. See, for example, Necessariamente tesa (2014), realised for the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Lissone, where nylon stripes run along the top of a colonnade circling the museum’s stairwell. The stripes exerting a traction on the architecture could be mistaken for a device aimed at securing the building: they hint at a waiting, at something – maybe a restoration? – that still has to be completed. In fact, this is just a disguise, as the pun implied by Necessariamente tesa is a reflection on the identity of the Museum, a relational space where it is not allowed to ease the “tension” which pervades culture.
The year after this concept was taken to the extreme with Grado di tensione (2015), where the nylon stripes appear menacingly stretched and determine a steady traction between the iron trestles employed to hook the hoists and the windows stacked on the opposite side.
Propped against the gallery’s columns, the structures in iron and wood trigger yet another waiting, which is always bearer of uneasiness: it makes one wonder if the architecture will resist or instead bow to the pressure exerted by the artwork. The waiting is a suspended situation as well: Termini reaffirmed this by recovering the shutters from one of the many dilapidated buildings that can be found in the historic centre of Palermo. Since many buildings cannot be restructured for financial reasons, they are left as they are and shored up with blocks that stabilise the hollow parts of the structure (doors, windows, etc.). Actually, this procedure is also a way to prevent squatters from accessing the buildings. Fascinated by these “blind houses” from his hometown, the artist created a sort of Panopticon, a threshold from which to watch the outside from inside and vice versa, so exposing the urban decline and the tensions smouldering in the city of Palermo.
In most cases Termini speculates on the immaterial, on what is still invisible: he reflects on the waiting that will lead him to a “crossing-verification”, an effective practice. This is not an aesthetic practice, as he points out, but a practice that may become aesthetic and that we must search for where we least expect to find it, namely in the artwork in progress. This is what the exhibition “Pull” was set out to do: the show’s title refers to a gesture that can no longer be experienced first-hand, but whose consequences are still visible. The artist established a relationship between a column of clay pigeons for skeet shooting (Disarmata da se stessa, 2012) and the fragments strewn across the floor. Whereas the walls appear riddled with grazes and abrasions, the floor is beaded with splinters bright orange in colour. In this instance Termini demonstrated that the creative impulse is inversely destructive: instead of being targeted by bullets, the clay pigeons – turning into offensive weapons – riddled the gallery’s walls. By subverting the role of the gallery – usually designed as a space to be occupied – the artwork rises up and try to escape from the prison of its own conventions. Given that every artwork retains its own belligerent character – as a matter of fact, the words bellus and bellum share the same etymology – what we think is harmful is actually innocuous and inert, as the clay pigeons are piled one on the other and the arm of the shooting machine is “unarmed”.
It has been said that Termini “assembles” instead of sculpting. So, let us return to the classical concept of composition developed in painting. And not without reason: artworks like Delimitare una zona sospesa (2009), In assenza di diagonale (2011) and Caduta libera (2011) show an affinity with painting, but not just because their configuration mirrors the verticality of the walls. In addition, it should be noted the chromatic value of yellows, blues and reds, which departs from the monochromatic metallic grey tone employed in the construction industry. Undoubtedly, it would be an understatement to conceive sculpture as a monoid – in other words, as an autonomous and self-referential field – which is why Termini combines the specific features of the discipline with ideas coming from different artistic languages as well as with practices related to the setting-up. For instance, in Necessita una posizione ben precisa (2015), the artist highlights the guide lines drawn before driving wall plugs and screws into the wall, lines which are usually concealed from the viewer’s gaze. By reflecting on the dynamics of setting-ups, the artist focuses on aspects that are normally considered marginal, but that turn out to be crucial in sanctioning the existence of the artwork.
The heterogeneous materials employed by Termini – united by a force of attraction – project (and protrude in) a space which can be built and rebuilt over and over again, endlessly. Not without reason is the art of assemblage closely linked to the activity of the bricoleur, the one who puts the pieces together and in so doing renders them “hybrid”: they still are what they were, but at the same time they appear to us as different. Bilancia (2015) is case in point: a swing has been restored to its former glory through a zinc bath. By decontextualizing the object Termini equates it to any of his other works, yet leaving on the seats a trace of moss and mould: in this way he preserved the gap between the act of appropriating and that of manipulating. On the contrary, the qualities and the intrinsic properties of materials are sometimes compromised, as in Idea di coesione (2013), where the bands were rendered useless after they had been weighed down by cement. In both cases an ambition – typical of artists – persists: that of dominating the material «so that the artwork turns out to be independent from the value of the material it is made of».
Rather than just sharpening up his own practice, Giovanni Termini insists on conveying the authenticity/authorship of sculpture. He does not set forth a concept nor a behaviour, but a condition (of existence) which actualises a “liberated space” where imagination and rationality are exercised and can finally express themselves. As already stated, Termini questions an already “informed” void, which is waiting to be converted into an aesthetic form; and since art has a very wide semantic base, it follows that its visualisation should be no less. In conclusion, we might well say that sculpture has no form in itself, rather it is its own form.
G. Termini, “Un’arte condivisa”, in Disarmata, catalogue from the exhibition held at Fondazione Pescheria in Pesaro, curated by Ludovico Pratesi, Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo 2013, p. 18.
Kazimir S. Malevič, Scritti, curated by Andrei B. Nakov, Feltrinelli, Milano 1977, p. 200.
Text published in the invitation to the exhibition “Zero: der neue Idealismus” at Diogenes Gallery in Berlin in 1963.
A. Zanchetta, G. Termini, “Il Tempo, lo Spazio e il Vuoto (che non c’è)”, Exibart n. 73, June 2011 p. 79.
Ibid.
E. Villa, L’arte dell’uomo primordiale, Abscondita, Milano 2005, p. 48.
M. Augé, Che fine ha fatto il futuro?, Elèuthera, Milano 2009, p. 47.
L. Fabro, Arte torna arte, Einaudi, Torino 1999, p. 242.
B. O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube, Johan&Levi, Monza 2012, p. 128.
A. Rossi, “Introduzione a Boullée”, foreword to È.-L. Boullée, Architettura. Saggio sull’arte, Einaudi, Torino 2005, p. XXX.
A. Loos, Parole nel vuoto, Adelphi, Milano 2005, p. 73.