Alfio Giuffrida
Alfio Giuffrida (born January 28, 1953 in Zafferana Etnea , Catania ) is an Italian sculptor , object and installation artist , set designer , painter and draftsman .
life and work
Alfio Giuffrida attended the State School of Art in Catania from 1969 to 1973. From 1973 to 1977 studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome a. a. painting, stage design and costume studies at Toti Scialoja . Under the influence of Minimal Art , he was particularly interested in the surface structure of the painting. He used the time of his studies to experiment with the different materials of painting and their effects on movement and transparency. In 1975 he returned to non-figurative objectivity.
Until 1985 he lived in Rome as a set designer and painter. In 1986 he moved to Cologne . From 1990 to 2004 he lived in Bonn and from 2005 back in Cologne.
From 1995 to 2005 he worked with the choreographer Jochen Ulrich . Giuffrida designed numerous stage sets for him.
In 2003 the fictitious company "AG Sinnwerke" was founded, which Giuffrida used as a conceptual basis for the production of free sculptures as well as for the production of objects, paintings and installations . The company was registered as a trademark. The letters “AG” contain both the artist's name and an allusion to the term stock corporation .
What he is suggesting is the interlacing of everyday perception and artistic practice, of art and production. Through an industrial series production simulated with finesse, the mass product is individualized, on the one hand, and on the other hand it is added in a paradoxical game to the product range of the "AG Sinnwerke", ie placed back in the commercial context of the mass product. This approach is reminiscent of Giuffrida's group of works on images of people in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As on temple friezes, concave and convex distorted faces are lined up and, in their grotesque deformation, tell of the horror of past cultures before the end.
The picture puzzles were created in the 1990s . With tempera on oil or materials such as lace and gauze-like fabrics, Giuffrida veils the view of the all too clear, creates distance from the mysterious structures that are hidden behind the veil. He later transported the idea of picture puzzles into the third dimension: in the form of a series of reliefs made of furniture fragments and movable sculptures, provided with numerous joints, the so-called elements . Ultimately, walk-in, industrial production simulating, space-consuming sculptures and installations with content-formal analogies that are presented free-standing in space as well as corset-like on or in interaction with the human body.
Works
- stroller
The most spectacular object of the company "AGSinnwerke" is the oversized, approximately five meter high pram that the Märkisches Museum Witten exhibited in 2006. The apparently serially manufactured product consists of handcrafted individual parts. But its size and the fact that its components are not in common with those of the other strollers that it has made make it unique.
- Manifestos
After movement and light, the subject of energy is the third basic element in Giuffrida's art: “The whole world is a sculpture park.” First publication, Alfter, September 28, 1997
- Stage sets
- Notebook : Premiere, March 2, 1995, Cologne Opera Opera of the City of Cologne .
- The engagement in St. Domingo : June 17, 1995, Schlosserei Schauspiel Köln.
- Goya-Danzas negras : December 20, 1995, Cologne Opera House.
- Get up Early : February 22, 1996, Vienna International Dance Festival. Citizen Kane : April 4, 1997, Cologne Opera House.
- Performance : January 31, 1998, Government Palace Düsseldorf.
- Diaghilew - The Revelation : January 10, 1999, Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck .
- Lorca y Dalí-Perros de Luna : February 19, 1999, Stadsschouwburg Heerlen (NL).
- Mon Orphée : April 1, 2000, Ludwig Forum for International Art , Aachen.
- Phaedra : November 30, 2000, Deutsche Oper am Rhein , Düsseldorf.
- Romeo and Juliet : January 20, 2001, Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.
- Casanova : November 10, 2001, Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.
- Diaghilew – The Favorites : November 8, 2003, Aalto-Theater Essen.
- Caravaggio : November 22, 2003, Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.
- Sissi - Imperial Highness : October 22, 2005, Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.
literature
- Christiane Dinges (Ed.): Artists in Cologne 1990. Wienand-Verlag, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-87909-216-8 .
- Mechthild Haas, Alexander Tolnay (arr.): Inventory catalog, graphic collection of the city of Esslingen, vol. 2: inventory from January 1979 to December 1989. Esslingen 1991.
- Jürgen Raap : Alfio Giuffrida, works 1986–1995. Edition Moeker Merkur, Cologne 1995.
- Bruna Colarossi (ed.): Quadriennale d'Arte di Roma. Inventario dell'archivio. Palombi, Rome 2000, ISBN 88-7621-127-6 .
- Ulrich Schneider, Gert Fischer (ed.): Giuffrida . Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen 2001, ISBN 3-00-007525-9 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum , February 24 to April 15, 2001).
- Martin Stather (Ed.): Giuffrida CDs. AG Sinnwerke, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-00-014058-1 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, AG Sinnwerke Bonn, July 18 to August 15, 2004).
- Nele Lipp , Uwe Rüth (Ed.): Body - Body - Space. The space in contemporary dance and in contemporary sculpture. Marl 2006, ISBN 3-924790-73-6 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Sculpture Museum Glaskasten , October 30, 2005 to March 12, 2006).
Web links
- Giuffrida's CV at www.kulturportal.de
- Website of the company "AG Sinnwerke"
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Giuffrida, Alfio |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | AGSinnwerke |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 28, 1953 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zafferana Etnea , Catania |