Artists: Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta
Exhibition title: Spit or Swallow
Curated by: Andrea Tinterri
Venue: UNA, Piacenza, Italy
Date: January 26 – March 23, 2019
Photography: Marco Fava / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists, UNA, Piacenza
UNA is delighted to present Spit or Swallow, two-person exhibition by Stefano Serretta and Alessandro Sambini curated by Andrea Tinterri.
The exhibition insists on the idea of representation, reflecting on the mechanism and the changing nature of specific iconographic phenomena pertaining to the present.
Serretta continues the investigation of the icon and images of History, focusing on some phenomena generated by contemporary fundamentalisms, identifying iconographic models translated directly from Western entertainment. His work reflects on monuments and archaeological sites symbolising a breakdown in the balance between iconoclasm and iconophilia, a cancellation, a gesture that becomes an image, replacing the deleted idol.
A direct comparison can be made with Alessandro Sambini’s project Spelling Book which, using an algorithm that can be downloaded for free on the Internet, restores a series of images (pyramid, Mars, Jesus, skeleton) that do not have any reference to the real. The algorithm, through its database, elaborates an image that is plausible yet completely independent from reality. In this way, Sambini not only delves into the relationship between image and artificial intelligence, but also questions the algorithm itself, its personal database and the relative choices and omissions.
In both projects, new linguistic structures, new channels, and new scriptures are used to communicate and filter the world. The images are up for consumption – consumable images, iconographic models fed to an audience that observes them, chews them, digests them.
-Andrea Tinterri
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Stefano Serretta, Ergot, 2019, polyurethane rubber, polyurethane foam , acrylic, intervention on Syrian stamp (Baalshamin Temple – Palmyra, 1969), cm 52 x 61 x 41
Stefano Serretta, Ergot, 2019, polyurethane rubber, polyurethane foam , acrylic, intervention on Syrian stamp (Baalshamin Temple – Palmyra, 1969), cm 52 x 61 x 41
Stefano Serretta, Ergot, 2019, polyurethane rubber, polyurethane foam , acrylic, intervention on Syrian stamp (Baalshamin Temple – Palmyra, 1969), cm 52 x 61 x 41
Stefano Serretta, Ergot, 2019, polyurethane rubber, polyurethane foam , acrylic, intervention on Syrian stamp (Baalshamin Temple – Palmyra, 1969), cm 52 x 61 x 41
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Alessandro Sambini & Stefano Serretta, Spit or Swallow, 2019, exhibition view, UNA, Piacenza
Alessandro Sambini, Spelling Book, Learning from Caltech-256, Idea of Jesus, 2018, c-print, cm 80×80
Alessandro Sambini, Spelling Book, Learning from Caltech-256, Idea of Jesus, 2018, c-print, cm 80×80
Alessandro Sambini, Spelling Book, Learning from Caltech-256, Idea of Jesus, 2018, c-print, cm 80×80
Alessandro Sambini, Spelling Book, Learning from Caltech-256, Idea of Jesus, 2018, c-print, cm 80×80