En Plein Air
Solo exhibition, 2023
Spazio C21, Reggio Emilia (Italy)
Curated by Antonio Grulli
Solo exhibition, 2023
Spazio C21, Reggio Emilia (Italy)
Curated by Antonio Grulli
1841 and 1949. Sometimes, desire alone is not enough and material and technological circumstances are required to bring ideas to fruition. These circumstances often spark a reaction, releasing latent energies and frictions that finally become manifest. In 1841, the American portraitist John Rand invented the first collapsible paint tubes, replacing the cumbersome containers previously used to store oil paint. Pierre-Auguste Renoir famously remarked: “Without colours in tubes, there would have been no Cézanne, no Monet, no Pissarro, nothing of […] Impressionism.” These tin tubes liberated painters from their studios, allowing them to paint outdoors for hours on end in comfort and ease. En plein air painting was born—a revolution that would reinforce what it meant to be an artist in this world.
It is often assumed that a divide emerged between art and people from the time of the historical avant-garde, but this is not the case. True art—new art—is a radical act because it reveals to people that the spirit of the time has completely changed. It upsets our beliefs and has nothing soothing or accommodating about it. True art is uncomfortable: it unsettles, it seizes, it destroys. The advent of en plein air painting provoked furious opposition from the masses, who vehemently rejected this new style. Even more fearsome than their paintings were the artists: freed from their studios and travelling the world—independent, abnormal, and extra. Vincent Van Gogh was destroyed by this new ideal. We may not want to believe this version of the story, but there is no denying that it was ‘suicide by society’. Renoir narrowly escaped a similar fate. In 1949, Edward Seymour invented spray paint for the first time, providing artists with an even faster, more versatile tool that opened the door to new stylistic and formal possibilities. This seemingly simple innovation—introducing colour into a pre-existing instrument—triggered a seismic shift that continues to this day.
Enter the CANEMORTO exhibition. The project is a vast, poetic tribute to en plein air painting and ancestors like Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, who first packed their rucksacks with colour, donned their hats, and went out to make trouble. It is a tribute delivered in classic CANEMORTO style, a punk prank that becomes both an act of affinity and a way to embrace that which seems distant and alien. The centrepiece of the exhibition is a video documenting their participation in an impromptu en plein air painting contest held some months earlier. A contest that CANEMORTO not only took part in— but won (and yes, it’s all true, I swear), despite doing everything in their power to lose. From this moment, a sequence of wild events unfolds, teetering between cockiness and humility, piss-taking and generosity, absurdity and intellectual honesty; all hallmarks of their art, especially in the many videos created as both artwork and means of communication with their audience.
The exhibition also features a series of paintings in which CANEMORTO tackle en plein air and landscape painting. Their work has always been deeply embedded in the historical art tradition, especially that of the early twentieth-century avant-garde. In these paintings, I felt echoes of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s sharp, jagged line work, the alpine landscapes of his Swiss exile reflecting the dark times that mankind is sometimes called to live in. I saw the ominous skies of Diego Rivera’s murals at Mexico City’s Ministry of Public Education, under which revolution was attempted. And I found hints of Paul Gauguin’s forms, hidden in a landscape too steeped in melancholy to be recognised as any earthly paradise.
Antonio Grulli
TRAILER
Video directed and edited by Marco Proserpio
Written and performed by CANEMORTO
Filmed by Marco Proserpio and Matteo Berardone
Audio mixing and original music by Matteo Pansana
INFALLIBLE MANUAL OF EN PLEIN AIR PAINTING
Written and illustrated by CANEMORTO
Published by NERO Editions in collaboration with Spazio C21
Photographs by Fabrizio Cicconi
It is often assumed that a divide emerged between art and people from the time of the historical avant-garde, but this is not the case. True art—new art—is a radical act because it reveals to people that the spirit of the time has completely changed. It upsets our beliefs and has nothing soothing or accommodating about it. True art is uncomfortable: it unsettles, it seizes, it destroys. The advent of en plein air painting provoked furious opposition from the masses, who vehemently rejected this new style. Even more fearsome than their paintings were the artists: freed from their studios and travelling the world—independent, abnormal, and extra. Vincent Van Gogh was destroyed by this new ideal. We may not want to believe this version of the story, but there is no denying that it was ‘suicide by society’. Renoir narrowly escaped a similar fate. In 1949, Edward Seymour invented spray paint for the first time, providing artists with an even faster, more versatile tool that opened the door to new stylistic and formal possibilities. This seemingly simple innovation—introducing colour into a pre-existing instrument—triggered a seismic shift that continues to this day.
Enter the CANEMORTO exhibition. The project is a vast, poetic tribute to en plein air painting and ancestors like Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, who first packed their rucksacks with colour, donned their hats, and went out to make trouble. It is a tribute delivered in classic CANEMORTO style, a punk prank that becomes both an act of affinity and a way to embrace that which seems distant and alien. The centrepiece of the exhibition is a video documenting their participation in an impromptu en plein air painting contest held some months earlier. A contest that CANEMORTO not only took part in— but won (and yes, it’s all true, I swear), despite doing everything in their power to lose. From this moment, a sequence of wild events unfolds, teetering between cockiness and humility, piss-taking and generosity, absurdity and intellectual honesty; all hallmarks of their art, especially in the many videos created as both artwork and means of communication with their audience.
The exhibition also features a series of paintings in which CANEMORTO tackle en plein air and landscape painting. Their work has always been deeply embedded in the historical art tradition, especially that of the early twentieth-century avant-garde. In these paintings, I felt echoes of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s sharp, jagged line work, the alpine landscapes of his Swiss exile reflecting the dark times that mankind is sometimes called to live in. I saw the ominous skies of Diego Rivera’s murals at Mexico City’s Ministry of Public Education, under which revolution was attempted. And I found hints of Paul Gauguin’s forms, hidden in a landscape too steeped in melancholy to be recognised as any earthly paradise.
Antonio Grulli
TRAILER
Video directed and edited by Marco Proserpio
Written and performed by CANEMORTO
Filmed by Marco Proserpio and Matteo Berardone
Audio mixing and original music by Matteo Pansana
INFALLIBLE MANUAL OF EN PLEIN AIR PAINTING
Written and illustrated by CANEMORTO
Published by NERO Editions in collaboration with Spazio C21
Photographs by Fabrizio Cicconi
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