The Crossing Over collection constructs a contemporary urban imagery. The city is presented as a centre of transgression, a clash of cultures, a place of cross-contamination between anthropological and architectural symbols. Within each artwork, the artist interrogates linguistics, perception and materiality.
Crossing Over builds its urban aesthetic through monochrome colours, graphic gestures and geometric forms. Via a process of reclamation, recycled fibreglass, glass, stone and metal are combined into new assemblies, metamorphosing into deeply poetic organic and monolithic compositions. These intersections result in tables supported on stilt-like legs, reminiscent of both Oriental and Venetian architecture, as well as sculpted, geometric seats.
Vincenzo De Cotiis follows classical artistic tradition by expressing depth on the surface of his artworks, through his gestural mark making. The industrial and brutalist associations which often accompany urban design are here negated by the artist’s dedication to the hand-crafted processes with which he shapes his objects.
Crossing Over resembles the work of an ethnologist, documenting a formal timeline of mankind through cultural traces. Reinterpreting this history, De Cotiis’ artworks become visionary symbols, summarising both contemporaneity and eternity.
An elaborate process of subtraction defines Éternel, recalling informal art, where matter takes precedence over intellectual gesture.
The formal aspect of the collection is influenced by a memory of Japan. Luminosity and ethereal transparencies alter perceptions, while the material sutures attempt the impossible: the healing of time. Removed from life under the influence of a preservation impulse, the objects become immortal.
“The work is an archetypal element created by human hands. A wall, which both divides and defines the space, weaves through the length of the gallery. It provokes the visitors to ask themselves: “How do I interact with this work?” Walls are raised to protect, divide, but also to define ourselves. Through them you can generate the narration of a society, history, or interaction of people with nature and with others. And today, more than ever, it is a relevant subject. Consider the piece as a Menhir of our times, contemporary representation of an archaic architectural gesture: the conceptualisation of space through the creation of megalithic volumes whose size exceeds our human proportions. It is a modular and repetitive organism, static and pulsating, vibrating and living. A lyrical homage to humankind”
The installation at Ca’ d’Oro, on the occasion of the 2019 Venice Biennale, immediately established a connection with the important artistic heritage of the 15th century palazzo, echoing the historicity of the building and evoking the ethereal past of the Serenissima with its splendour. At the same time, Ode leaves the visitor in a gravitational dilemma: somewhere between a monumental clash and intimate welcome.
The work is articulated through two identities, on one side a phenomenon of reflection refers to an intimistic fruition and reverberation. On the other side a regenerated and recycled texture communicates a vital and interactive materiality.
At the end of the exhibition the work will be divided into diferent pieces, appropriating new forms and uses. They will interact in spaces of a diferent nature, fulfilling new tasks and creating unexpected relationships.
En plein air refers to the moment at the end of the nineteenth century when artists left their studios to paint in the open air. The elaborate juxtapositions of finishes and forms within the collection’s works can be seen as a type of “furniture painting” or “furniture sculpture.”
Each table, lamp, or bookshelf in the series reflects the influence of Impressionism and natural landscapes through finely wrought compositions. Opulent materials including Murano glass, semi-precious stones, and cast brass subtly underscore references to the Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau.
“Looking for unpredictable influences, I thought about invoking the senses and illusionism and overlap.
I sought a “baroquisme” freed in spatiality and geometry, with no rules. Undermining the certainty of ‘style’ I sped up perceptual sensations through thicknesses, colours, light and reflections of materials within the freeness of the form.
I envisaged paravents as classical ruins, cabinets as baroque stuccos, and Venetian glass that denied any obvious decorativism. Unexpected variations underlined the logic of the forms, something separate to schemes and accuracy, but extremely involved in the historicity of the period.
Vincenzo De Cotiis explores the passing of time and the textures of raw materials in his Archeo Black collection.
The narrative force of the works emerges from sculptural elements, patinated surfaces, and allusions to centuries-old West African sculpture.
The rough and imposing forms belie their finely detailed “skins.” These surfaces ofer sensual tactility and visual richness.
References to the archaeological involve subtle colours mixed with chiaroscuro grays. Painted glass and ceramics embedded in reclaimed materials are of-set against resin and ebony stones that suggest sedimentation and excavation.
Free interpretation of historical memory can generate fantastic forms. Two major themes influence Pop Nouveau: Pop art, as a rebellion against convention, and Art Nouveau, a movement that countered increasing mechanization with a renewed interest in nature. Here, the romantic spirit of the latter blends with the innovative realism of the former. Pop art’s strong silhouettes and refined finishes inflect dreamy reflecting pools and pufed upholstering, while table bases rooted like trees and gently curving surfaces advance on Art Nouveau elements.
“Déchainements” is a collection of unique pieces inspired by Vincenzo’s journey to Beirut: dining and cofee tables, rug, screen, mirror, consoles and glass chandeliers bear the signs of exploded geometries, in reference to Vincenzo’s perception of Beirut.
“I have thought very often after my return from Beirut how this trip has impressed me. I see the lines of the architecture blurred in the traces of a lost urbanism. Life is happening at night, the “reconstruction” is more evident in the dark. The awakening is overwhelming, between uneasiness and amazement, an organic flow of a culture that wants to revive.
The construction or rather continued reconstruction of the city isn’t expressed by any clear set of rules. It’s an architectural landscape that’s layered in diferent aesthetics and time periods that are vague and worn by time. All of this fascinated me. There’s an ease in knowing that in this city there are no rules to break and especially that you are not victim of it. I have had a sense of dizziness and my aesthetical logic has not found any references, but just like a physical attraction, I couldn’t resist falling in love with Beirut.
I have thought of a decomposition of elements… The architecture, especially, is an explosion of conflicting forms translated in objects devoted to a contemporary way of living.
Disconnected tables, “exploded” illuminations, photographic imprint rugs, brass fusions, ceramics and glass, all interpretations of reassembled and deconstructed architectures.
References are intentionally confused and clear opposites insist on coming together, summarised in the contrasts of a city that is constructing its own vision of contemporary culture.”
Vincenzo De Cotiis
VINCENZO DE COTIIS gallery@decotiis.it www.decotiis.it