Alessio delli Castelli

The first time I met Alessio delli Castelli, he was singing a novel by Virginia Woolf and accompanying himself on the piano. The instrument and the area around it were littered with small sculptures, prints, notes, etc. At first I thought that his approach was eminently plastic, irrespective of the variety of means of expression used. I then came upon a reading room with novels, essays, catalogues, vinyl records, DVDs and encyclopedia volumes (varied media covering different fields of interest) in which the spectator was invited to read three works by the artist himself: A Game in Phrase Making, a non-story based on the repetition of a mistake, Scribbled Notes, a manuscript in which words alternate with images, and, in conclusion, a third, exclusively visual volume, a sort of diary, a collection of personal notes to be taken as unsuccessful attempts, as sketches with no purpose beyond the pages of He Was A Failure. Perhaps an attempt at self-analysis!

Be that as it may, his work is underpinned by profound and sophisticated consideration of language and the potential intersections among the arts. The coexistence and dialogue of sculpture, music and literature, each from its own vantage point, results in cross-fertilization. Indeed, Alessio delli Castelli is at once a sculptor, writer, musician, singer and researcher; with him, each of these disciplines is not explored in isolation, but serves rather as a method and language to explain the others. Music sings Literature just as Image incarnates Word.

His recent Aufrichtige Anleitung is a performance for piano and metronome – a reflection on monumentality as measure, rather than as a type of plastic representation. It is the internal proportions that count, as Brancusi said. Alessio delli Castelli’s metronome, located in the center of the room, becomes gigantic in its projection, and its amplified ticking is heard with a piece by J. S. Bach played at nine different tempi. The piece is repeated, doubling in tempo in half the normal time, as the final repetition ends. A work on how to teach music and keep time. In other words, perhaps, the artistic exaggeration of a didactic approach.

Milovan Farronato