“De-positions”

Between one cycle and the other, I take a break of “serious enjoyment”. After “Tortures” (Abu Ghraib), where even the painting itself was a jail stuck with decomposed corpses, unscrupulous guardians, bandaged heads, screaming dogs, armed shadows, mouths wide open as in a nightmare; after these “Tortures” I produced some “Dress ups”. I chose sixty drawings (from other people) of my collection and I went back to being a “freebooter”, I manipulated them on out of scale canvases, I tried to kill the “original” not to hide or camouflage but to dress up: a true fiction, a lie to cor-respond. But irony doesn’t rescue me anymore, I cannot hide anymore, once again the time comes for tragedy with the cycle “De-positions”.

They could also be deportations because I position or move a body to a place “other”. To lay down in different “positions” as if it were a removal. And so here we are with purple bony hands, hanged corpses, big red stripes to simulate crosses, flying animals scared by the scene (a laic comedy which becomes a tragedy) if not from the desired theatricality, maybe too said, too narrated. And again skinned alive hearts, laid down corpses almost like sculptures, goggling and closed eyes, open mouths, contortions along diagonal axis, precarious balances, (de) positions collected by huge hands.

Perhaps prayers….perhaps screams and requests for a refund, perhaps superstitious departures, omissions, simulacrums. There are some X signs and some PLUS signs drawn: maybe they are waiting for the gallows and for another (de) position because the “body” is always “taken down”.

Austerity and desperation drawn without any emotional involvement as you would do for an advertising poster because “pain awareness” and its display, if not the images themselves, have been commissioned by the world and its media.

A desired anguish drawn and “planned”.

We have all been taken down from the massacre of trends, from the idea of art as art, from the “art” of the critique, from the uncontrolled standardization, from memory, maybe from history.

The painter is the “Mourned One”.

"Tortures"

All invasions are barbaric…the unspeakable tortures not only shake consciences…they also affect our skin. A crime into a crime, inhuman…it is the plague which illegally vexes us.

Brutal and cruel tortures. A youth with a bandage is screaming….dogs and beasts which fidget next to a corpse…a naked hooded man, even he is disguised. The tortures carry on. I’m drawing (I’m trying to) the massacre. Everything is the earth-colored, purple the central figure, black the tortured one. A big pair of scissors on his head. Maybe too “literary” too descriptive... Will I manage to have my style – my job recognized? I must reduce brutality as a process but without renouncing to being…. Pozzati…even though barbarity is not in my “cylinder”.

I cannot grab on to irony nor elegance anymore…it’s catastrophic, disturbing, tragic and figures come out from a ferrous blackness.

Two big paintings which will not open a long cycle because this barbarity seen on the media must never be seen again even they will only be concealed.

Another blindfolded figure (the torturer), a mannequin without arms with a hood in the place of a beard; in the middle a sort of black puppet on a pedestal with electric wires hanging from his hands/signals. Again a white pair of scissors/arrows/dagger.

I try another, a smaller one: every inch of it pyrographed.

I can smell the skin burning with the pyrograph….it’s nauseating…diabolic tattoo. The guy screaming is always there, another one is kneeling down, a monkey, another beast, a head resembling a skull, a long-teeth-puppet….everything is juxtaposed, the mark etched on the skin confuses shapes…the only clear image is open scissors ready to hit. TOR-TURE/torture/the painting is a torture. By painting I am aware of my pain.

How can you “silently” depict the drama of tortures.

A choked scream on the last hair of the paintbrush.

I cannot add fantasy to these ghosts…facts are there, and they are so cruel that nothing can be added.

You only need to look…draw…anguish embraces the mark…everything is reduced to a tragedy…a tragedy which the painter cannot dismiss. These images do not call up for silence rather they call up for nuisance which itself provokes nuisance and unease.

Maybe it is only an attempt to protect yourself….painting is redeeming, it seeks revenge from whoever hurts and from whoever wants to hurt you…but painting does not tolerate this.

Concetto Pozzati è nato il 1 Dicembre 1935 a Vò di Padova e risiede a Bologna.
Nel 1955 lavora nell'atelier di Sepo a Parigi.
Studia architettura e pubbblicità. Dal 1956 al 1967 insegna grafica pubblicitaria.
Dal 1967 al 1973 insegna all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, della quale è stato anche direttore, successivamente a Venezia, Firenze e a Bologna.
E’ accademico di San Luca, ed è stato Assessore alla Cultura del Comune di Bologna dal 1993 al 1996. Nel 1998 è stato direttore artistico della “Casa del Mantegna” di Mantova. Nel 2005 riceve il Sigillo d'Ateneo dell'Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna.
Dal 1955 ha partecipato alle principali manifestazioni nazionali ed internazionali:alle Quadriennali di Roma del 1959, 1965, 1973, 1974 e 1986; alle Biennali di Venezia del 1964, 1972, 1982, 2007; 2009, 2013; alla Biennale di S.Paolo del Brasile nel 1963; alla Biennale di Tokio nel 1963,alla Biennale di Parigi nel 1969; a Dokumenta di Kassel nel 1964; alle rassegne italiane di Mosca, Belgrado, Bucarest, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Ginevra, Città del Messico, Marsiglia, Vienna, Barcellona, Bremen, Johannesburg, Chicago, Parigi, Londra, Atene, Zurigo, Bradford, Kyoto, Tolosa, Francoforte, Berlino, Sarajevo. Tiene personali a Bologna, Milano, Torino, Verona, Genova, Napoli, Firenze, Venezia, Trieste, Dusseldorf, Belgrado, Zagabria, Graz, Lubiana, New York, Friburgo, Johannesburg, Bremen, Parigi, Basilea, Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Tokio, Francoforte, Ulm, Bonn, Copenhagen, S. Paolo del Brasile, Valencia, Barcellona, Montecarlo, Madrid, Mosca. Antologica al Palazzo della Pilotta di Parma nel 1968. Nel 1974 antologica a Palazzo Grassi a Venezia. Nel 1976 antologica al Palazzo delle Esposizioni di Roma e al Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea di Ferrara. Nel 1986 antologica al Museo Forti di Verona. Nel 1987 personale al Museo di S.Paolo del Brasile. Antologiche nei Musei di Bologna e Modena nel 1991. Antologica nel 1993 all’International Centre of Graphic Arts di Lubiana. Personale nel 1993 al Cankarjev Dom di Lubiana e al Ventè Museum di Tokio. Nel 1996 antologica alla Rocca Malatestiana di Fano e a Palazzo Lazzarini a Pesaro. Nel 1997 antologica a Palazzo Massari a Ferrara e alla Pinacoteca dei Concordi a Rovigo. Nel 1999 antologiche alla Galleria Civica d’arte Moderna di Termoli ed al Centro S. Apollonia a Venezia. Nel 2002 “La pittura mi educa ancora”, personale presso Artcurial Centre D’Art Contemporain, Montecarlo; “Concetto Pozzati”, antologica al CSASC Università di Parma, Palazzo della Pilotta. Museo Frisacco, Udine 2005; "Concetto Pozzati, Torture", Castello di Arceto, Scandiano (RE), in collaborazione con Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia 2005; “Biblioteca di segni: Travestimenti", Galleria D'arte Moderna, Faenza, 2006; "De-posizioni", Museo Magazzino del Sale, Cervia, 2006; "Bozzetti per De-posizioni", Museo Morandi, 2007; "100+1" Galleria Maretti, Montecarlo 2008. Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte", 2007; "Ciao Roberta, Chiesa di S. Stae, Venezia, 2008; "A casa mia", Sala dei Battuti, Conegliano, 2008; "Ciao Roberta", Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna, 2008. "Palma Bucarelli- Il museo come avanguardia", Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Roma 2009.“Tempo sospeso” Museo Arte di Ravenna, 2010; “Cornice cieca”, Museo CAMEC, La Spezia 2012; “Mario & Concetto Pozzati, Villa Contarini Venier, Vo' (PD), 2012; “Cornice ceca”, Museo San Domenico, Imola, 2012; “Pozzati”, Collegiata di San Francesco, Staffolo (AN), 2013; "L'Orlando furioso", Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia, 2014. “Oggetti su piano. Scuola di pittura bolognese”, Fondazione Del Monte, Bologna, 2015; "Messaggi di pace, Palazzo Todesco, Vittorio Veneto 2015, "Concetto Pozzati, Museo MAMbo, 2015.