A U T O S T O R I C I Z Z A Z I O N E
The work
“AUTOSTORICIZZAZIONE” is a work created in 2013 by the curator and artist from Brescia Lillo Marciano for Progetto Utopia, an artistic/critical format led by Piero Cavellini and by Marciano himself, which aims to translate the ideas of self-historicalization and communication into public events started by the artist Guglielmo Achille Cavellini in 1971.
The work is made up of 19 self-supporting galvanized steel panels (50 x 60 x 40 cm) on which the individual letters of the word “autostoricizzazione”. (self-historicization) are printed in PVC.
The installation was exhibited for the first time in 2014 on the occasion of the official celebrations of the centenary of GAC at the spazio contemporanea gallery in Brescia and used in the Sirmione public art interventions “Public Art Sirmione of 2014″, “Monuments” of 2017/18 and La mostra con il panorama più bello del mondo of 2021.
In 2022 the work was acquired by the municipal administration of Sirmione and now finds its final location in the space in front of the municipal offices, in Via Alfieri
In the language of Progetto Utopia this work is defined as a “remake”: a term that describes the artistic practice, typical of this format, of drawing on the artistic / vocabulary of Guglielmo Achille Cavellini and obtaining works that project his concepts and poetics. The works are thus created used in public art interventions to stimulate a reflection on the concept of the so-called “non-work”: artistic objects that lose their proper “aesthetic” function and relational functions and functions typical of relational art.
The artwork, exposed at “Spazio Contemporanea” gallery of Brescia in 2014 during the Celebrazioni ufficiali del centenario di GAC
The artwork, exposed at the spiaggia delle muse in 2014 during Public Art Sirmione exhibition
The work exhibited at the Glocal Emotion exhibition at Cava Burgazzi in 2023
The meaning
The meaning Autostoricizzazione is the name of an artistic movement and of a specific artistic practice introduced by the artist Guglielmo Achille Cavellini in 1971 in response to the exclusionary attitude of the establishment of the time of him who continued to ignore his figure as an artist.
With the disruptive force of self-irony and an intense artistic-advertising campaign, GAC (as Cavellini loved to sign himself) decided to celebrate himself by undermining every hierarchy and inaugurating an international artistic communication operation aimed at exalting the figure of the artist through the self-promotion. Self-historicalization meant for Cavellini “to enter the Olympus of art without asking anyone’s permission”, I bypassed practices hitherto known in the history of art and replaced the system.
Following this programmatic manifesto Cavellini posed himself as a historical figure to be celebrated through a dense communication campaign. He created a series of posters for imaginary exhibitions that the most important museums in the world dedicated to him on the centenary of his birth, created self-congratulatory stamps dedicated to him by famous writers, carried out massive mail art and performance operations. Through these tools, partly borrowed from historical Dadaism but rin novated in their subversive force, GAC sent his already beautiful and ready story around the world, inaugurating an artistic movement unique in the world, founded on the principle that he himself loved repeating:
“By self-historicalizing myself I become the critic and the historian of myself”
and
“I don’t want to be famous when I’m dead, I want to be famous when I’m alive”.
Lillo Marciano and Progetto Utopia in Sirmione
Street art is the continuous and characterizing thread that binds all the exhibitions that Lillo Marciano, together with Progetto Utopia have curated in Sirmione.
From 2007 to 2012 the format, in collaboration with the Municipality and with Pietra & Co, curated the annual Public Art Sirmione exhibition which saw the participation of numerous artists. The interventions involved various public areas and exhibition sites in the municipality, in particular the areas of the historic center and the beaches. In 2013 and 2014, other public art interventions were added to this exhibition in as many areas with public access or owned by the municipality (among these, the Art no limits laboratory, and the 50/100 installations La base magica by Piero Manzoni and the empty frame of GAC in Parco Callas). The 2017-2018 season saw the creation of the “Monuments” installations, again through collective contributions by artists in the public areas of the municipality. This leads to the curation, in the summer of 2021, of “La mostra con il panorama più bello del mondo“. All the artistic operations to intervene call to cooperate, together, so that the result is the fruit of an action, the connection between “artistic device” and people. Works such as “Kiss please”, “Frame”, “50/100 The magic base by Piero Manzoni and the empty frame by GAC”, are artistic objects that bring more or less explicit, suggestions for use, allusions, invitations to action, of an art that descends from the pedestal and invites us to climb, in a circuit in which art itself finally returns, like a game that we all play together.
The poetics of Lillo Marciano, in addition to the strictly “relational” component, speaks the language of the Cavellinian tradition, from which “Autostoricizzazione” draws its roots. This term was introduced by Guglielmo Achille Cavellini, an artist and collector from Brescia, to give the name to the artistic practices he himself invented as a reaction to the indifference and exclusion that the art system of the time reserved for him.
Insights
Guglielmo Achille Cavellini, “i Cimeli”
Lo strano caso di Guglielmo Achille Cavellini
Guglielmo Achille Cavellini: il Centenario immaginato
Guglielmo Achille Cavellini nel ricordo di Giacomo Danesi
http://www.spaziocontemporanea.eu/
https://www.consorziomarmisti.org/it/press-room/pubblicazioni.html
