Today the work by Claudio Zorzi, with a reflection that stemmed from the period of forced isolation because of the world sanitary emergency, enters “Young Italian Artists”, ongoing space and archive dedicated to key players in the contemporary art world, who are under 35, conceived by Antonello Tolve, and curated with Elena Giulia Rossi.
The year 2020 began in an unusual and tragic way as all humanity can see. We are currently living through a period of forced imprisonment in our flats and living spaces, whether small, medium or large. People who are lucky enough to have a roof over their heads and who are in good health are trying to make their quarantine productive in one way or another. In my own small way, as a quarantined human being and artist, I just do what I have always done. I live my daily life making art, currently using the medium of painting. Painting, in my opinion, is simply the act of indulging a normal biological and spiritual necessity. An account of everything that happens both within us and on the outside, the inner and outer, physical and emotional transformations that occur minute by minute. The world is experiencing a continuous transformation. Since the dawn of time, it recreates and destroys itself. It is born and dies all the time. This historical period, in particular, is nothing more than a confirmation of this scheme, of this “universal intelligence” working according to timeless principles of birth, death and rebirth. The artist follows this transformation, like everything else that exists, a process inherent in the deepest nature of every human being that is at the basis of life itself. I think that making art is like breathing and that every breath can be a blessing, a simple sign of individual freedom in spite of the difficulties and tragic periods that humanity is sometimes forced to confront. My experience as a human being and artist in this small circumscribed corner of time-space consists of living a happy daily life despite this dramatic period with its awareness of being alive, thanking Chance, God, Fortune, the Universe or uncontrolled Chaos for having granted me the privilege/fortune of being in good health and continuing to breathe. Painting, making art or any activity conducted at the height of one’s mental faculties is the privilege of the living. In times when nothing can be taken for granted anymore, from the simplest activities to the most complex and profound ones, humanity rediscovers itself as fragile, precarious, hanging finely by a thread, and it is in this condition of extreme bewilderment, in the “fog” or the “darkness”, that human beings return to seek the pleasure of the small everyday things they have lost. I am interested in the human animal, their precariousness, their psychophysical and spiritual condition, their constant transformation.
Claudio Zorzi, March 2020
