Nothing Is Universal, Not Even Air
Marco Fusinato

Noth­ing Is Uni­ver­sal, Not Even Air is the first exhi­bi­tion of silkscreen paint­ings of select­ed images from DESASTRES.

DESAS­TRES is an on-going per­for­mance of Experimental/​Noise/​Metal gui­tar through mass ampli­fi­ca­tion that syn­chro­nizes image. First per­formed in the Aus­tralia Pavil­ion at the 59^th Venice Bien­nale, 2022 for 200 con­sec­u­tive days – each day of the Biennale’s dura­tion. The large-scale, per­for­mance as instal­la­tion fea­tured Mar­co Fusina­to impro­vis­ing slabs of noise, sat­u­rat­ed feed­back, and dis­cor­dant inten­si­ties with an elec­tric gui­tar, that trig­gered a del­uge of dis­parate and dis­con­nect­ed images onto a free­stand­ing floor-to-ceil­ing LED wall. The mass index of col­lid­ing images is a mess.

This col­li­sion of image is the cat­a­lyst for the series of silkscreen paint­ings. These works exist in par­al­lel to the performances.

The images select­ed for the silkscreen paint­ings were cho­sen by instinct, from an exten­sive archive that is sourced via an open search across mul­ti­ple online plat­forms, or Fusinato’s own pho­tographs tak­en with his phone-camera.

The title for the exhi­bi­tion is a quote by the artist giv­en in an inter­view in 2022*. By exten­sion, the titles for each paint­ing in the exhi­bi­tion are the jpg tags of the orig­i­nal image files with the word ​‘vari­a­tion’ added. All the works are white on black, this revers­ing of positive/​negative ref­er­ences ear­li­er works by the artist. The silkscreen process is alchem­i­cal, phys­i­cal, open to mis­takes, irreg­u­lar­i­ties, and vari­a­tions. This exper­i­men­tal approach is anal­o­gous to the DESAS­TRES per­for­mance where sound is impro­vised, and the images ran­domised, gen­er­at­ing an unknown out­come. With­in the exhi­bi­tion, mono­chro­mat­ic black on black paint­ings make a con­nec­tion back to the per­for­mance where­by a cut to silence cuts the screen to black.

This new series trans­lates jpgs from the imme­di­ate and ephemer­al con­text of the per­for­mance, through the labour of silkscreen print­ing, into the lin­eage of paint­ing and broad­er his­to­ry of mate­ri­als and process­es of mark mak­ing. The out­come tran­si­tions from a fleet­ing image to an object of pro­longed meditation.

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*“Avoid nation­al­is­tic mil­i­tarism and men in groups espe­cial­ly in uni­forms. Noth­ing is uni­ver­sal not even air. If nobody moves, nobody gets hurt. Hav­ing said that, they said, we will over­throw the pride of your cars, we will destroy the hap­pi­ness of your Sun­days, because you have been con­demned. Every­thing is mis­un­der­stood. Work and oth­er forced relationships.”

ArtRe­view UK, Venice Ques­tion­naire 15 April 2022