ALESSANDRO FILIPPINI

 

 

Alessandro Filippini is both a poet and a plastic artist. Inspired by minimalism and Italian aesthetic movements such as Arte Povera and new realism, his works show a careful use of materials. Filippini’s work hinges on several axes: the word and writing, memory and time, the individual and his identity.

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After graduating from the Accademia di San Luca, Rome, in 1964 and from La Cambre, Brussels, in 1968, the artist appropriates public space and his surroundings to broadcast his messages. In the sixties and seventies, he graffitied “Plus beau que le ciel” (More beautiful then the sky) on white panels hiding construction sites in Brussels. He writes the word “Solitude” (Loneliness) on a kite, facing the eternity of the North Sea. Since then, words, time and people are an integral part of his approach.

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Throughout his work, Filippini transposes with poetry the essence of imperceptible reality. His work revolves around the theme of life in its most universal sense. It is about basic feelings that cross our lives day after day. He relates to our inner nature and our human condition of spectator, actor, living, and of mortal too. What connects us all on Earth, but which is yet beyond our grasp: the passing of time, love, loneliness, parenthood, the dualities of life and death, today and tomorrow, light and darkness, all and nothing. His experience in advertising imposes him to pay attention to the formal work for the sake of communication with the "viewer". The visual strength of the simplified system of advertising can be found in the sleek appearance of works such as his Words-Sculptures discussed below.