A Generational Dialogue

Many thinkers, artists, historians, and writers argued that most artists build on, react to, or refine the work of those who came before them. E. H. Gombrich famously stated that “Every generation is at some point in revolt against the standards of its predecessors,” and this idea permeates the two-person show at Consonni Radziszewski in Milan, featuring paintings and gouaches on paper by Polish art sphinx Aleksandra Waliszewska and ceramics by Italian visionary Enzo Cucchi.

“My education was mostly a struggle with teachers, because I did not agree with the way art was taught,” Waliszewska wrote me when we worked on the essay about her practice, now featured in the Issue 03 of The Unibrow, continuing ”I wanted to follow a path closer to that of the old masters, study from life, and take a more classical approach to learning art.” Similarly, as one of the central figures of the Italian Transavanguardia, Cucchi and his like-minded colleagues promoted a return to figurative painting and drawing after the rise of Conceptual and Minimalist art. So, at slightly different times, and not far from each other, the two artists pushed against the current and almost rebelliously engaged with the “outdated” language of figuration.

And while Waliszewska cites works by old masters, their catalogs and reproductions as a source of “real education,“ her imagery feels stripped of the traditionally celebrated prudery and conformity. She uses some of their technical approaches and solutions to build her scenes, but makes them appear unfiltered and raw, often menacing, with the protagonist coming across as almost otherworldly and semi-demonic. And this fits Cucchi’s oeuvre, which proudly draws on the pagan, religious, and folkloric legacies of his native region, adding a dreamlike, almost prophetic quality to his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations. With such an approach, both artists developed distinct symbolic languages that resist and even refuse rational explanation, while playing the card of the inherently curious, irrational, and endlessly perplexing human nature. —Saša Bogojev