The work of Stefano Bonacci, an essential and courageous path (2008)

Stefano Bonacci (Perugia, 1971) is an artist deeply respectful of his own inner time, who has always guided his work along a constant and courageous trajectory. His art comes from an intimate and poetic place from which harmonic forms emerge, forms that express his personal “visions” of beauty. Bonacci's works, in the artist's own words, attempt to offer the viewer «the possibility of a direct, immediate visual experience, a unique experience that imposes itself at the speed of light». In his works, the freedom of the gesture and rigorously ordering reason tend toward the utmost balance, even when they overturn principles, rules and canons. These are works that connect, in a spontaneous and synthetic way, the past with the present and the future; manifesting an absolute control both of the intimate demands of the emotions and of technique. Of materials as of the various plastic languages, of the hand as of thought.
In the Prologue of his celebrated book Comprender el arte moderno the Spanish art critic Victoria Combalía described the figure of the artist in the following terms:

«Without these beings who live on another planet, our world would be (…) unlivable. Simply, because it is they – the authentic ones, not those who play at reproducing small superficial inventions in their form or their content – who still today represent a zone of freedom and critical thought against the perpetual cloning of false ideals and false standards. And since they are beings more sensitive than the rest of mortals, they not only help us to look at the world from another perspective, but anticipate proposals that will be understood in the future».

I recalled these words as soon as I began to read the answers Bonacci had given to my questions (the full interview on the artist's website: stefanobonacci.blogspot.it) and I realized, immediately, that this artist – besides having great talent – is also endowed with an uncommon precision and sensitivity. Indeed, his words, like his works, offer a different, better perspective on that same world in which we find ourselves living. Not one of his words is spoken out of place. And when I ask him – directly and without circumlocution – what, for him, an “artistic fact” consists of, his answer is clear and direct: «Well, since you are in Madrid, go into the Prado museum and see El triunfo de Baco by Velázquez. That, for me, is an artistic fact». A concise, dense and essential answer. Like his works.

Stefano Bonacci was born in the same region – Umbria – where, in very different eras, Pietro Vannucci (Il Perugino) and Alberto Burri were born. The latter, in particular, represents for Bonacci «a most important point of reference that defines for me a measure of ethical and artistic value from which I do not want to depart». After graduating in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Perugia, Bonacci undertook various formative and professional experiences both in Italy and abroad (above all in Great Britain). From 1999 to 2004 he was professor of Painting Technique at the same Academy of Perugia where, starting in 2005, he teaches Multimedia Installations. Among the experiences most significant for him is certainly his meeting with Allan Kaprow, the pioneer of the happening, which took place in Como in 1997. Bonacci recalls with pleasure a fundamental lesson learned from Kaprow: «the playful dimension and the revolutionary idea of being able to play with life, with one's own body, with one's own behavior, with one's own actions and with any material, even with rubbish».
The combination of noble materials and “different” materials represents a central aspect of Bonacci's poetics and artistic practice. One need only think of the artist's use of neon, of photography or of the ready made; but consider also the use of shellac or of plaster in some pictorial cycles produced between 2003 and 2006, such as the Batteri, the Nebulose, the Forme del tempo or the Ori. In some of these works the shellac gives the painted surface an effect of particular sheen that tends to bring out the cracks and imperfections of the pigment, obtaining a peculiar aesthetic result. These are paintings in which matter has a fundamental importance and in which the spontaneity of the gesture finds itself perfectly controlled by compositional rigor, reaching a timeless purity, on certain occasions enriched by the use of gold leaf or by recourse to the ancient support of the panel.

If there is one thing that appears immediately clear when looking at Bonacci's works – whether his paintings, his sculptures or his site specific installations – it is that in them is perfectly condensed, through an excellent command of technique joined to a highly personal vision of the world and of art, the artistic legacy of the informal tradition of the second half of the last century. One need only think of the explicit reference Bonacci makes to the already mentioned Alberto Burri and to his material poetics. However – besides Burri, Kaprow, Beuys and, naturally, Duchamp – one must also recall other names fundamental to Bonacci's formative path, such as Sauro Cardinali, a Perugian artist currently professor of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Perugia, and Remo Salvadori, a Tuscan artist whose idea of «continuous infinite present» continues to be for Bonacci an essential stimulus.
The artistic bond that ties Bonacci to his land and to the specificity of the territory in which “his roots run deep” – a territory with a very rich history, a complex culture and an enchanting nature – is an ancestral and fecund bond, which continually enriches his imagery and his personal “visions” of beauty. Regarding the characteristics proper to that territory, Bonacci once again uses dense and lucid words that exalt, in a rigorously aesthetic perspective, the peculiarities of his genius loci: «The territory, with its history and its culture, is perhaps today the only element capable of producing differences in an environment ever more marked by the reciprocal mimesis of forms».
In 2008 [19 June-14 September] Bonacci took part in the XV Edition of the Rome Quadrennial Exhibition with the work ένα και πέντε [Uno e Cinque, 2008, neon, iron, cathedral glass, electric cables, 442x446x46 cm]. In that context one could admire the works of some of the most significant artists of the Italian art scene of the last twenty years. In the exhibition catalogue, Paola Bonani describes Bonacci as an artist who

«gives form to a universe of images in which the rigor of geometry and the mutability of nature, regular forms and irregular ones, artificial materials and natural ones are set against one another, in the continuous attempt to unveil the criteria that order the variety of the cosmos» (www.quadriennalediroma.org).

Returning to the initial quotation from Victoria Combalía, one could affirm that Bonacci's work today anticipates artistic proposals «out of the ordinary», since he is a solid and authentic artist. An artist who is not afraid to venture along the solitary paths of creation without letting himself be seduced by fashions, by conformism or by the temptation of easy shortcuts. An artist who always firmly shuns stereotypes, classifications and labels. Who cannot stand «art that believes itself politically committed, art that defines itself as social, art that puts on a show, art that shouts to make itself heard, the art of fashion stylists and architects and, finally, the art of prostituting and masturbating oneself, which today is very much in fashion». An artist whose work, essential and sincere, connects the totality of the archetypes and myths of human history with the mysteries of nature, arousing eternal emotions and circumstantial reasonings that lead the viewer to feel himself in the paradoxical situation of living, at the same time, inside and outside his own time. And, precisely for this reason, inside all possible times. (from http://stefanobonacci.blogspot.it/)

Stefano Bonacci CV

D.o.b.: 17/05/1971

AWARDS

2014: Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

EDUCATION

1986-1991: Institute of Arts, Perugia

1991-1995: Academy of Fine Arts, Perugia

1994: Winchester School of Art, UK

1997: Corso Superiore d’Arte Visiva, Fondazione Ratti, visiting professor Allan Kaprow

WORK ESPERIENCES

1998: Assistant professor to Prof. Chris Sacker at the Halifax School of Integrated Arts, UK. Collaborates as assistant with the Henry Moore Studio, Halifax, UK

1997-98: Collaborates with the Museo Pecci, Prato, Italy

2000-05: Founder and co-ordinator of the Association of Contemporary Art IRIDE, Perugia

2000-2016: Professor of Artistic Education at the Secondary School

1999-2004: Professor of Painting Techinics at the Accademy of Fine Arts, Perugia

2004-2011: Professor of Multimedia Installations at the Accademy of Fine Arts, Perugia

Further information and other works reproduced on the artist's website: stefanobonacci.blogspot.it

Nicola Mariani, (Perugia, 1972). Sociologist, blogger and critic of contemporary art, he holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Perugia. He continued his training in Spain, obtaining the qualifications of Especialista en Arte Contemporáneo at the Instituto Superior de Arte (Iart); of Experto en Práxis de la Sociología del Consumo and Experto en Análisis de datos en la Investigación Social at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid (UCM). He is responsible for the blog and digital content of the Spanish auction house Durán Arte y Subastas and of the online gallery Durán Online Gallery. He collaborates with magazines and blogs in the art field, such as Revista Madriz; The Art Market Agency; Museo Vivanco Cultura de Vino; Input etc. In 2009 he founded the blog Nicola Mariani|Arte y Sociedad (www.nicolamariani.es), devoted to criticism and to the exchange of ideas among critics, public, artists, gallerists and other actors of the Spanish art system, with particular attention to emerging art and to the Madrid exhibition scene. An expert in youth cultures and cultural trends, from 2001 to 2011 he worked (first as a researcher and then as a consultant) for the GfK Eurisko institute in Milan, studying in depth lifestyles and consumer culture. He took part in the working group United Europe for Perugia 2019, as art advisor for the presentation of Perugia's candidacy as European Capital of Culture 2019. In Spain he took part in seminars and meetings on themes tied to the relationship between art criticism and digital technologies. He has collaborated with magazines and online portals such as Masdearte.com; Streaming Egos (blog of the Goethe Institut); Notas y Reflexiones; LABlog (blog of LABoral, Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial de Gijón); Ensayos Absolut by PAC; Absolut Network; Donde acaba Madrid (photoblog of the newspaper El Mundo); Arco Bloggers 2013 (blog of the contemporary art fair ARCOmadrid); in-LAN.com; Enfocarte.com; Sumbergentes.org; Artribune; Social Trends; Cinqueminuti; VirtualGallery.com etc.