Video: Potpourri of Classical Painting and Pop Art by Marco Battaglini
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Italian artist Marco Battaglini creates funny compilation paintings, combining masterpieces of classical painting from the Renaissance and Baroque periods with iconic images of modern art and pop culture. Mixing styles and techniques from different eras, the artist invites the viewer to reflect on the place of art in a modern society of total consumption.
Battaglini is interested in those aspects of a civilized society that exist beyond cultural and linguistic barriers. He argues that in a world where the democratization of culture, the revolution in cognitive methods and instant access to almost any type of information are actively taking hold, a person has nothing to do but learn to think outside of time and geographic boundaries.
Battaglini was born in Italy, the cradle of the Renaissance, and, early enough interested in painting and architecture, was educated at the Art Academy of Verona. But in 1994, fate threw him to Costa Rica - a hot country in Central America, with its juicy flowers, a riot of wild flora and fauna, mountains and the ocean. Perhaps this partially explains the artist's desire to combine classical images with elements of kitsch in his works, rather aggressive areas of modern art, such as pop art, graffiti, tattoos, and fashionable items and brands. The comic effect of his work is entirely built on contrast. For example, the canvases in the scenes where the artists appear in the original have been replaced with paintings by Warhol and Lichtenstein. The body of "Sleeping Venus" by Giorgione, interpreted by Battaglini, is covered with drawings and inscriptions, next to the tattooed goddess is Louis Vuitton's bag, and in the background is the Statue of Liberty.
It is possible to argue about the artistic value of Battaglini's works for a long time and to no avail, but the fact that the artist is passionately passionate about the history of art and culture and uses this knowledge with a fair amount of wit in his work is quite obvious. In the best traditions of postmodernism, his paintings are filled with historical and cultural allusions, referring to new historical and cultural allusions. In addition, if desired, one can easily discern a rather pronounced social subtext in them: criticism of consumerism and the vulgarity of the market system, where concepts such as nobility, beauty and love are transformed into a consumer product, and spiritual values are replaced by material ones.
In general, rethinking the classics, stylization and intertext are the favorite techniques of most contemporary artists. Marco Battaglini adds details to the masterpieces or completely changes the context of what is happening, and the Hungarian artist Hajdu Bense arranged an experiment of a different kind. He simply "removed" all people from the paintings, leaving empty landscapes.
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