Sale Interne
Flavio Favelli
S.A.L.E.S. Gallery
October 12 - November 27 2010
www.galleriasales.it

by Clara Giannini

Flavio Favelli is an Italian artist born in 1967 in Florence. Today he lives and works in Savigno, in the province of Bologna. He exhibits in many spaces in Italy and abroad, and his current show is in Rome in S.A.L.E.S. Gallery.

Sale Interne is an exhibition expressly designed for the spaces of the gallery in which Favelli follows a path that is difficult to catch immediately. The idea that guided the artist in creating these new works is a concept related to memory. In fact, every object of the exhibition has its own history that recalls the history of many other similar objects. This because Favelli took those items that everyone met at least once in his life, and in this way his art can draw from people’s memories and arouse familiarity and nostalgia.

The exhibition can be related in part to the word “ambiguity”, too, as can be seen from the first room of the gallery. Here, the artist built a room inside the space of the S.A.L.E.S. edifice, creating an environment in which the visitor can enter and find himself completely immersed in. The dark color of the wood and the old walls of boiserie that surround the spectator transmit a sense of sacredness of churches or give the sensation of being in a pub. This because Favelli wants to recall in the visitor’s mind a place already met sometime or somewhere but that it is difficult to identify. The wall in front of the entrance, where a neon light and a photograph of a part of the Piazza Navona fountain (the only source of light and color) occupy the centre of the space, complete this installation. In the middle of the floor of this work, the artist reproduced architectural plan drawings of Italian historical churches that assume the aspect of floral decorations. They are represented in two contrasting colors (white and brown) and form concentric circles whose centre is a game of overlapping plans and colors.

Just outside this huge installation, there is another work created through neon lights that form the contours of four playing cards (the aces of the deck). The neon has been installed on a dark mirror surface that reflects the two colors of the light which creates the work of art. This installation has the familiar flavor of something already seen and lived, which is a typical characteristic of Favelli and of this exhibition.

However, the artist’s message and intention is probably more transmitted by the last room of the S.A.L.E.S. gallery. In fact, this is a small space that gives the impression of being in an old living room (the grandmother’s or the uncle’s one) full of paintings on the walls and carpets on the floor. Prints of the churches plans, foulards of the Martini industry that advertises some of the products, stamps of the old Italian money that create a painting through the gradation of tints or recreate the Italian flag through their colors are hung on the walls. All these pieces of life build a world easy to recognize that arouses intimate feelings, a state of peace and nostalgia.

These emotions are due not only to the environment Favelli designs, but also to the components utilized. What does not appear at first glance, in fact, is the use of recycled materials. Flavio Favelli loves recycling articles from a person’s individual experience: at the beginning, he used objects taken from his old house, then from a second-hand dealer. These objects, in fact, have their own identity and memory, and for this reason they transmit to the visitor a sensation of déjà-vu and provoke profound emotional participation. The identity of these items has been deeply transformed by the artist, but their memory comes out from them and invades the entire structure of the gallery rendering it a comfortable and intimate space.

Sale Interne seems the summary of a life, the artist’s life, but it also seems to contain the essence of the lives of many other people. Places and objects met and lived fill the space of the S.A.L.E.S. gallery with sentiments and emotions that are part of a personal history and, at the same time, part of a collective one. Private and common here become one, and the show expresses the mixture of individual and global that represent an entire community, and that this entire community can share and understand.