There is a wholly special quality in the work of Michele Ciribifera, a singular character that reveals itself, certainly at a first level of cognition, with great immediacy and peremptoriness.
It offers itself to the observer in all its plastic evidence, enveloping him from the very first approach in the coils of its plastic evolutions and of its, at times daring, ephemeral constructions, without concealing hidden intentions or impenetrable intellectual motivations. Then it leaves him, only to return and captivate him again and reveal to him the mystery of this primary affinity: the human soul, its primordial, pre-cultural critical spirit, tends towards the certain rather than the uncertain, towards the natural rather than the artificial; and Ciribifera's works draw their aesthetic value and communicative force precisely from the order that informs them, from the harmonic scansion of the structures, which in the perceptual dynamic become associated with elements of nature, familiar and therefore empathetic.
"The creative medium", Max Bill wrote in 1936, "is given by colour, space, light and movement, and from the composition of these elements new realities originate. Abstract ideas that at first existed only in the concept are made visible if realised in concrete form".
It is all there: the material, wood, iron, aluminium, and its spatial organisation. Courageous choices, for a young artist, when the present moment and the market, in times of a crisis of ideas and semantic upheavals, demand of artists quite different means and quite different themes. But is asynchrony, if it means fidelity to one's own expressive impulses, not perhaps an exemplary virtue? How would the contemporary line have developed if in 1874 the Impressionists, instead of staging an exhibition in the small studio of the photographer Nadar, had yielded to the blandishments of the rich official Salons and of the pompiers Bouguereau and Meissonier? And what would research in Italy have been in the postwar years, if that group of determined young artists, later gathered under the Forma 1 manifesto, instead of studying Kandinsky and rediscovering Futurism, had followed the regressive socialist realism of Guttuso, backed by short-sighted political and party favour? Uncomfortable choices for virtuous prospects.
Structure is the chosen ground of Ciribifera's research. Structure, which from the beginning of the twentieth century, from the theoretical upheavals of Einstein and Freud, becomes the terrain of the sculptural challenge to the fourth dimension, to space-time. He stands before this new climate in a primordial condition, with the same freedom with which the Cubists, the Futurists, the Constructivists confronted it. "The first assault on realms that contain aesthetic and formal possibilities hitherto unknown", Max Bill would write today, in his critical presentation for Michele Ciribifera's forthcoming exhibition. One that would close with these illuminating words: "Rhythm transforms structure into form".

(Massimo Mattioli, April 2005)

Michele Ciribifera transforms trees, so naturally familiar to us, into objects that impose themselves on our consciousness. He seeks in an object those invisible forces through which life finds a form. His work translates concepts tied to the dimension of ritual space, of depth and of the relationship between form and the passing of time.
In this way, his work is a rare combination of perceptual and conceptual art. His trees become the instrument for his ideas: ideas of order in life, strength, resistance and dignity. […]
Just as nature possesses organic multiplicity, Ciribifera's work moves on several levels at once. In his autopsy of a tree, he dissects it and then reorients its natural verticality into the horizontal, the diagonal or the inverted.
The result is that the observer's perception slips outside predictable space into a new imagined space. The […] altered organic forms take on a structural form capable of projecting a sense of the supernatural. From this springs a dialectic between nature and the viewer, the latter defined by Rollo May as "pseudo-innocent".
There is also an illusion of spatial recession in his large-format works that invests the pictorial elements with sculptural force. When this happens, the pictorial abstraction of Ciribifera's sculptures leads the viewer towards uncontrolled lines of force. Here, these objective presences alternate with the primitive spaces at the heart of the sculptural nature-space floating among the trees, and the tree as it is found and the tree as it is reinvented enrich the work with metaphysical reverberations.
In the interplay of reality and illusion, the sculptures of Michele Ciribifera define the arcane interaction between energy and matter, or, as Paul Klee declared: "Not form but formation".

(Beverly Pepper, Todi, 30 August 1997)

MICHELE CIRIBIFERA

Bio & Work: Born in Perugia in 1969, where he lives and works. His sculptures present structural tensions of elements drawn directly from the natural context. His works create imaginary spaces, leading the observer inside forms that appear organic, and towards new spatial dimensions. In his research he shifts his gaze in an almost scientific way, analysing, dissecting and multiplying through the use of numerous materials ranging from wood to iron, in a game of perennial contrast between nature and artifice. In this game between reality and illusion, the arcane interaction between energy and matter is defined, expressing the faithful personal search for a contact between nature and art.

Studies: Istituto d'Arte di Anghiari, Arezzo; Accademia di Belle Arti, sculpture section, "Pietro Vannucci", Perugia

Collaborations: assistant to the sculptor Beverly Pepper, with whom he travelled through Europe and America.

Exhibitions

Solo Shows

2013 Jeux des Vagues, curated by Roberta Semeraro, Palazzo Morelli Fine Art, Todi (PG)

2012 ondAnomala, curated by Gabriele Simongini, Roma Capitale, Zetema – progetto cultura, Roma sala Santa Rita, Roma IT

2012 Bologna Art First – A bordo del cuore d’Oro, curated by Julia Draganovic, P.zza de’ Calderini, Bologna IT – ELICOIDE –

2011 ROMA.The road to contemporaary art MACRO

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2010 ROMA. The road to contemporary art

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2009 Verso Frequenze Anomale, Abbazia di Spineto (SI)

2009 Sospensione Centrale, Mea il nostro mondo è adesso, Chiesa di San Francesco Trevi (PG)

2008 Frequenze Anomale, curated by Caterina Bizzarri, Castiglione del Lago (PG)

2006 Rhythmical, curated by Mario Berdic and Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Slovenia, Galerija MediaNox, Maribor

Group Shows

2017 Sculture in acqua, in piazza, III Biennale di Scultura, curated by Giuseppe Pin, Villa Contarini, Piazzola sul Brenta (PD) IT

2016 Rilevamenti 1, CAMUSAC Cassino Museo Arte Contemporanea, curated by Bruno Corà, Tommaso Evangelista, Daniela Bigi, Federico Sardella, Aldo Iori, Marco Tonelli, Cassino IT

2014 Highly Recommended: Emerging sculptors, Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids MI, USA

2014 ArtPrize 2014, Grand Rapids MI, USA

2014 Ricognizione, CIAC Centro Italiano Arte Contemporanea Foligno, (PG) IT

2013 Tell Mum Everything is ok, Palazzo della Penna, Perugia IT

2013 SKA | Art in Progress, Museo Nazionale d’Arte Medievale e Moderna, Arezzo IT

2013 Transitive, Fu Xin Gallery Miami FL USA

2013 Un artista per una Rosa, Sala Santa Rita, Roma IT

2013 Come in Cielo Così in Terra, curated by A. Baffoni and F. Duranti, Carapace di Arnaldo Pomodoro Bevagna (PG) IT

2013 3 Punti d’Arte, Palazzo Carletti, Montepulciano (SI) IT

2012 Self portraits, curated by Giorgio Flamini Spoleto (PG) IT

2012 + 50 Sculture in città tra memoria (1962) e presente (2012), curated by Gianluca Marziani, Spoleto (PG) IT

2012 Fuori Orario – Percorsi d’arte contemporanea per riscoprire la città, curated by Gaia Toschi, Foligno (PG) IT

2012 Trame e Frame, curated by G.Marziani, Palazzo Morelli Fine Art, Todi (PG) IT

2012 Bologna Arte Fiera 2012, Fu Xin Gallery, Bologna IT

2012 LAAS Los Angeles Art Fair 2012, Fu Xin Gallery Los Angeles CA – USA

2012 Art Miami, Fu Xin Gallery, Miami FL – USA

2011 LAAS Los Angeles Art Fair 2011, Fu Xin Gallery Los Angeles

2011 BOLOGNA ART FIRST Arte Fiera 2011, Fu Xin Gallery, Bologna

2011 Identità Liquide, curated by Gabriele Simongini, Premio GBSalvi, Sassoferrato (AN) IT

2011 La Biennale di Venezia, Padiglione Italia – Umbria regional section. Palazzo Collicola Spoleto (PG)

2011 Arte e Movimento: Visioni Urbane, curated by Ludovico Pratesi, Audi Terminal Roma

2011 San Diego Art Fair, Fu-Xin Gallery, Shanghai

2011 Centro de Arte Moderna Gerardo Rueda, Matosinhos, Oporto Portugal

2011 ART MIAMI, Fu-Xin Gallery, Shanghai

2010 ShContemporary 2010, Fu Xin Gallery, Shanghai

2010 Stemperando, curated by Giovanna Barbero, Biblioteca Nazionale Univ. di Torino IT

2010 The Road to Contemporary Art, Fu Xin Gallery MACRO, Roma IT

2009 La Leggerezza della Scultura, curated by Studio A’87, Parco dell’arte Cerrina (AL)

2009 Light, curated by Michael Shaw, Burghley Sculpture Garden, Burghley House, Stamford UK

2009 Mea, il nostro mondo è adesso, curated by Maurizio Coccia, Matilde Martinetti, Mara Predicatori, Trevi (PG) IT

2008 XXV Biennale di Gubbio, curated by Giorgio Bonomi, Cristina Marinelli, Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio (PG) IT

2008 Figure, curated by Michael Shaw, Burghley Sculpture Garden, Burghley House, Stamford UK

2007 Terra di Maestri, curated by Antonio Carlo Ponti, Giorgio Bonomi, Fedora Boco, Paolo Nardon, Villa Fidelia, Spello (PG) IT