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Florence Di Benedetto - Rossetti Arte Contemporanea

Florence Di Benedetto: beauty is in all things

Text by Adelaide Santambrogio on the works of Florence Di Benedetto

“Di Benedetto’s artistic journey starts from a photographic work rendered in painting, where the protagonist is the urban space together with the few and selected colors of the metropolis, the iconic buildings and monuments of as many iconic cities and the idea of dynamism of means of transportation, which emerge strongly from the canvas.

Florence Di Benedetto - Rossetti Arte Contemporanea

There is beauty in everything

But it is with the series There is beauty in everything that the artist takes a step forward, moving beyond the urban swarming to land within a more everyday experience, in a more intimate dimension, where everyday objects themselves become the symbols, the domestic icons, within everyone’s reach. The artist in this way winks even more clearly at pop culture, Andy Warhol and the commodification of the work of art. Far away now is that trait typical of the New York cityscapes of the early canvases, capable of evoking Balla and Boccioni’s conception of futurist space.

American culture reappears here in the form of ketchup or mustard bottles, Campbell’s cans, bags of potato chips or boxes of cereal, acrylic or three-dimensional paintings under vitrines, transporting the viewer directly inside a supermarket, a sort of 7-Eleven, where one can not only satisfy the craving of the moment, but also buy and take home a package of culture, or rather a sealed and ready-to-use can of culture.

Fix what you can

Because each object carries a phrase, a message, that though simple-and most of the time ironic-does not leave one indifferent. It could be said that these objects become a vehicle, a spokesperson for broader expressions: they are the bridge between a society based on consumption and one in which the consumption of thoughts is what counts, where what is pressing to nourish is not only the body but also the soul.

The magic of this series of works also lies in the fact that they are not messages rolled up inside glass bottles, but rather, though camouflaged by their own commercial graphics, these are made explicit in plain sight on the outside of their containers, on eye-catching labels that stand out among the shelves. In this way, Di Benedetto lets the objects speak for him, entrusting them with short texts, warnings or pearls of wisdom that seem to be far removed from the industrial style of a mass-produced product, thus inviting the viewer/consumer to reflect and ask questions, even to the point of questioning his own role and ideas.

Fix what you can, let the rest go or Challenge the voice inside your head that whispers I can’t do that or even The time is always right, are just a few examples. It is then up to each of us to grasp all aspects of the work. The interplay between meaning and signifier is, in fact, extremely subtle.

The party is over

Through this key to understanding, it is also possible to understand the latest work created by the artist, who moves completely away from painting and the seemingly more interior dimension, to arrive at exhibiting in clear letters another message, as sad as it is cheerful: the party is over. The inscription, set in a joyful context such as that of the southern Italian decorations, typical of Salento, that fill the streets during patronal or religious festivals, stands out within a frame made up of lots of light bulbs of different colors that seem to shout the exact opposite. The viewer, disoriented and put in front of a sentence with a lapidary tone, almost a manifesto, finds himself having to come to terms between what he sees and what he reads, welcoming and making his own the communication that the artist wanted to give to the world. It is, this, a most powerful work and as relevant as ever.”

Text by Adelaide Santambrogio

Discover the artworks by Florence Di Benedetto: http://www.rossettiartecontemporanea.it/en/artist/di-benedetto-florence/