RobertoPiloni
Roberto Piloni was born in Rome, where he lives and works.
He obtained his secondary school diploma in the arts in Rome and, in 1990, his diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts, also in Rome.
Since the 1990s, he has taken part in various exhibitions and art events, both in public spaces and in private galleries. In the years that followed, he directed his research towards a form of art practice that places increasing emphasis on the relationship between the environmental context and the installed work, using a variety of media, from painting to photography, and from installations to video.
His recent exhibitions include Falsariga (Hyunnart Studio – Rome, 2022), Aggetto continuo (Blocco13 – Rome, 2022), Focus Peaking (Sino-Italian Design Centre – in collaboration with the City of Florence, the Shanghai Promotion Centre for City of Design and the Shanghai International Culture Association, 2021), Dialogo a Yinchuan: Cina-Italia (Yinchuan, China, 2018), Ficcanaso (D’ARC, Rome), Afasia (Interno14, Rome) and Fresh Windows (Galleria Gallerati, Rome, 2017), as well as his participation in the XLVII Premio Vasto 2014, L’icona ibrida. Forme in transito dall’invisibile al visibile, at the Scuderie di Palazzo Aragona, Vasto (CH); the solo exhibitions Vuoto a rendere at the Galleria Ninni Esposito (Bari, 2012); Cercafase, Galleria The Office Contemporary Art (Rome, 2011); Interpunzioni, also at the Galleria Il Bulino Arte Contemporanea (Rome, 2009); Doppio peso (2008) and Unica uscita l’entrata (2007) at L.A.C. Libera Arte Contemporanea in Rome; and the group exhibitions: Limitrofi e distinti, L.A.C. Libera Arte Contemporanea (Rome, 2007); 4th International Print Biennial 2006, Museo Michetti (Francavilla al Mare, 2006); TM-Tribù della Memoria, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome, 2005). In the past, he has also held several solo and group exhibitions in public spaces, including the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome, 2004); interventions inside the Torre d’Orlando in Castiglione della Valle (Perugia, 2005); exhibitions at the Galleria Martano (Turin, 2003); at Studio Tommaseo (Trieste, 2002); at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (Liège, 2002); at the Chiostro del Bramante (Rome, 2000) and at the Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea in Ciampino (1999); and participation in the Preview of the XIV Quadriennale di Roma at the Palazzo Reale (Naples, 2003).
He has taught at the Academies of Fine Arts in Palermo and Macerata, and currently lectures in Art Graphics and Experimental Intaglio Printing Techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
General features:
The course will be structured around short, preparatory theoretical lectures followed by intensive workshop activities, which will involve the production of works using both traditional and modern intaglio printing techniques,
both traditional and modern, various plate-making methods, printing techniques, the production of multiples, monotypes, etc.
Of fundamental importance will be the aspects related to the conception phase and, subsequently, to the design phase, within the framework of an independent process of constructing and identifying the constituent elements of the image, from those pertaining to visual communication and the various contexts under consideration, to those related to the production and practical implementation phase.
The course will focus primarily on providing in-depth knowledge of experimental techniques and various printing methods, as well as all those working methodologies that entail
a more experiential and direct relationship with the creative process. The course will also address and consider all aspects of intaglio printing and printmaking in relation to the
the world of contemporary graphic design and the new possibilities for image reproduction, with a particular focus on the trends in the new languages of contemporary art.
Specific programme: VARIATIONS ON A THEME
The programme of the Experimental Intaglio Printing Techniques course for the 2022/2023 academic year will continue the path initiated in recent years of experimental workshop activities,
based on a further development of individual research aimed at achieving greater autonomy of expression.
The topic covered will be variations on a specific theme. After an initial phase of familiarising themselves with and experimenting with the technical and practical resources made available to them, through a series of fundamental basic exercises aimed at developing their practical autonomy, each student will be asked to produce a series of works from which they will then select a reference prototype. This base image will then be re-examined through a series of subsequent variations, in order to consider it from the perspective of alternative visual possibilities as well. In this way, the stimulus provided by the variations on the theme will serve as a further impetus for the construction of a more refined and conscious image ‘in progress’.
Within the framework of the so-called experimental techniques, each student will be given ample scope for expressive and creative freedom.
As usual, interim assessments (which are compulsory for the purposes of the final exam) will also be held throughout the year at various stages of the project development process.
Basic theoretical and practical reading list:
Rina Riva: Tecniche incisorie sperimentali (Experimental Printmaking Techniques). Ed. Centro Int. Grafica, Venice, 1993
Guido Strazza: Il gesto e il segno, Ed. Scheiwiller, 1979
Roberto Piloni: Segno-struttura. Esercizi di analisi del segno in rapporto all’incisione calcografica. Exercises in the analysis of the mark in relation to intaglio printing.
(lecture notes from the Experimental Intaglio Printing Techniques course, ABA Rome, 2014–2015 academic year)
Raymond Queneau, Esercizi di stile, ed. Einaudi, Turin, (1947) 2001
Munari, B., Design e comunicazione visiva, Ed. Laterza, Rome, 2006
Rudolf Arnheim, Arte e percezione visiva, Ed. Feltrinelli, 1988
Ernst H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order, Ed. Phaidon Press Limited, London, 2010
Paul Klee, Teoria della forma e della figurazione. Vol. 1: Il pensiero immaginale, Ed. Mimesis, Milan, 2009
Paul Klee, Teoria della forma e della figurazione. Vol. 2: Storia naturale infinita, Ed. Mimesis, Milan, 2011
Ann D’arcy Hughes/Hebevernon-Morris: La stampa d’arte. Logos, Modena, 2010
David Bann: La stampa oggi. Tecniche, materiali, processi. Tecniche, materiali, processi. Ed. Logos, Modena, 2010
Federica Di Castro (ed.), La linea astratta dell’incisione italiana. Ed. Electa, Milan, 1989
General features:
During the two-year specialisation course, students will pursue individual pathways aimed at further developing the research initiated during the three-year course and focused more on
achieving autonomy in terms of language and personal expression. Therefore, students will explore in depth those aspects related to graphic design in the broadest sense of the term, which
ranging from two-dimensional graphic techniques on paper (analogue, digital) to the conception of works that more closely consider the space in question as a
a ‘receptive’ and ‘containing’ context (artist’s books, large-scale works, assemblages, installations, etc.).
Specific programme:
This academic year, the course will partly revisit the ideas explored in the previous year on so-called ‘transitional zones’, with a greater focus on the concept of the ‘threshold’, considered in its various possible meanings (metaphorical, symbolic, ritual, historical, artistic, political, physical, urban, etc.).
As an introduction to the topic, we can say that the ‘threshold’, every threshold, is a unique space: a place of separation but, at the same time, a place of communication and connection with another space, another environment.
another space, another environment. First and foremost, a threshold is something that lies ‘between’ two ‘things’. As such, it would correspond to a space of passage, but also of demarcation, of differentiation. The threshold thus appears to be closely related to concepts such as boundary, margin, gateway, entrance, etc.
We could say that the threshold is both a boundary and a passageway. The threshold both delimits and opens, although it should be distinguished from the concepts of edge, boundary or limit. Indeed, the threshold of a place is distinct from its edge or perimeter; above all, it allows access. The spaces it connects are spaces that it itself ‘opens’, without thereby enclosing them in relation to one another. For example, ‘the threshold of a house’ is the point beyond which one enters or exits. The walls of the house are not the thresholds, but rather the boundaries. The threshold is commonly identified with the door, that opening that the house itself requires in order to distinguish itself from other things. In this context, we will explore in greater depth the concept of the door,
one of the elements frequently used in the arts, both from an object-related perspective and due to its symbolic significance as a point of connection/separation.
The threshold differs from the boundary and the border because, through its opening onto a different space, it fulfils a kind of ‘need’ for communication between two places, two areas. Closely linked to the threshold is the concept of passage, of crossing, of a space–time possibility that changes in the continuity of different situations. Within it, and through it, there occurs a movement of entry and exit, between inside and outside, between before the passage and after. The threshold is that portion or moment of space where there is no boundary but rather a continuity of the ‘pre-‘ or ‘post-‘ division space. However, it is also a place of transition and change, of spatial differentiation. It is an area of passage and symbolic transit from what lies on this side (the known) to what lies on the other side (the unknown). It is therefore a space of metamorphosis and of passage from one place to another, which, through the act of coming and going, manifests itself as a conduit, simultaneously distinguishing and uniting different worlds. Therefore, as Franco La Cecla also states, the threshold is ‘(…) a place where two identities in space
take up position, await each other, confront each other, reflect on each other, and defend themselves. It serves to reaffirm differences.”1
Space does not end at the threshold; it inevitably passes through it and continues beyond. A threshold is a threshold only as long as it is crossed, as long as it is passed through. It implies movement and, above all, change: a shift in state. It is its symbolic power that sometimes makes it inviolable and more secure than a door itself.
Along with the threshold, the ethnologist and anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep naturally introduces the themes related to the fundamental rituality that the threshold entails:
(…) In order to understand the rites associated with the threshold, it should be borne in mind that the threshold is merely one element of the doorway and that most of these rites must be considered in the immediate, material sense of rites of entry, waiting and exit, that is to say, rites of passage.2
However, it is also true that, at the same time and paradoxically, it is possible to consider the threshold solely in its static essence, as a space of demarcation, a linear interruption of continuity, a window for observation, a place of waiting, or an ‘open’ boundary line – in any case, a margin that cannot be crossed, and therefore not a physical connection, but one that nevertheless allows us to glimpse and imagine the space that opens up immediately beyond it.
interruption of continuity, a window for observation or waiting, or an ‘open’ boundary line – in any case, a margin that cannot be crossed, and therefore not a physical connection, but one that nevertheless allows us to glimpse and imagine the space that opens up immediately beyond it.
us to glimpse and imagine the space that opens up immediately beyond it.
From a design and practical perspective, students are required to pay particular attention to the topics addressed, while also pursuing and respecting their own individual expressive exploration. Texts and images will be provided to support the topic covered, along with examples and materials that can be used to create graphic design projects (two-dimensional or three-dimensional).
three-dimensional).
The programme will be tailored to the specific needs of the three two-year courses in which the subject of Art Graphics is a core component, with different objectives.
Finally, the course will be supplemented by thematic insights and practical exercises aimed at raising students’ awareness of the aspects and issues related to contemporary art practice,
contemporary artistic practice, preparing them for a greater visual, communicative, constructive and critical awareness of the possibilities for engagement with the world of art and the world of work
(project presentations, relationships with galleries, companies, publishing houses, etc.).
As usual, interim assessments (compulsory for the purposes of the final exam) will be held throughout the year at the various stages of project development.
1 Franco La Cecla, Perdersi. L’uomo senza ambiente, 3rd ed. Laterza, Bari, 2007, p. 110
2 Arnold Van Gennep, I riti di passaggio, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1981, p. 21
Reading list
Augé, Marc, Non-lieux. Introduzione a una antropologia della surmodernità, Elèuthera, Milan, 1993
Bachelard, Gaston, La poetica dello spazio. Dedalo, Bari 2006
Beckett, Samuel, Waiting for Godot (edited by Carlo Fruttero), Einaudi, Turin, 1956
Danto, Arthur C., La trasfigurazione del banale. Una filosofia dell’arte. Ed. Laterza, Bari, 2011
Dorfles, Gillo, L’intervallo perduto, Skira, Milan, 2006
Duchamp, Marcel (ed. Elio Grazioli), RIGA 5, Marcos y Marcos, Milan, 1993
Ghirri, Luigi, Lezioni di fotografia. Quodlibet, Compagnia Extra, Macerata, 2010
Eco, Umberto, Opera aperta. Forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee (ed. Bompiani, 2006)
Francalanci, Ernesto L., Estetica degli oggetti. Il Mulino, Bologna, 2006
La Cecla, Franco; Vitone, Luca, Non è cosa. Vita affettiva degli oggetti, Elèuthera, Milan, 2002
La Cecla, Franco, Mente Locale. Un’antropologia dell’abitare, Elèuthera, Milan, 2001
La Cecla, Franco, Perdersi. L’uomo senza ambiente, 3rd ed., Laterza, Bari, 2007
Pasqualotto, Giangiorgio, Estetica del vuoto. Arte e meditazione nelle culture d’Oriente, Marsilio Editori, Venice, 3rd ed. 1995
Paz, Octavio, Apparenza nuda. L’opera di Marcel Duchamp, 4th ed. Abscondita, Milan, 2000
Riout, Denys, L’arte del ventesimo secolo. Einaudi, Turin, 2000
Tao Te Ching, Il libro della Via e della Virtù, Italian translation from the French, 4th ed. Adelphi, Milan, 2000
Van Gennep, Arnold, Rites of Passage, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1981 (1st edition 1909)
Warburton, Nigel, La questione dell’arte. Einaudi, Turin, 2003