Author: Stefano Zago

Fanzines at the BNF

Free press and fanzines: the alternative press in France, from the 1960s to the present day

A real mass phenomenon, with its own codes, distribution networks and events on the fringes of mainstream culture, the alternative press remains little known in France.

Appearing by the hundreds in the wake of May ’68 and the British and American counterculture, independent newspapers and sheets offer a young public the subjects that the “serious” press dismisses – pop and rock music, ecology, nuclear power, regionalist movements, sexuality, street entertainment, feminism, pacifism -, treated in an iconoclastic and radical tone. Charlie Hebdo, Actuel and Le Parapluie are the most successful and enduring flagships of an underground wave that was sweeping through a generation of baby-boomers who were building their own culture as an alternative to the dominant ideology.*

*text @ BNF : https://www.bnf.fr/fr/agenda/free-press-et-fanzines-la-presse-alternative-en-france-des-annees-1960-nos-jours

POVEGLIA – The Project

POVEGLIA – the “great project”
2022
Pens on paper (Carnet)

It’s not over, quite the contrary. After the wonderful Festival delle Arti Giudecca, Sacca Fisola that will forever remain in my heart as a magnificent memory, the work continues. Until an important turning point, the discussion on the completed draft of the urban park project on the island of Poveglia. Long and difficult discussion among the tireless people of Poveglia Per Tutti, but nothing is left to chance. We will go all the way and we will not give up Poveglia.

VENICE – Smiling behind a mask

VENETIAN SKETCHBOOKS
Sketch on sketchbook
Pen
2022
17 x 24 cm

For a new Venetian Renaissance, (European, world, universal…). September 2021. I went to the Cini Foundation in Venice as a delegate of the Poveglia per Tutti association. September 2022. At the Giudecca – Sacca Fisola Arts Festival exhibition, a friend told me: ‘You are the only person I know capable of drawing a person smiling behind a mask’.

The European Son

STEFANO ZAGO – The European Son – 2022

THE EUROPEAN SON
Wood, nails, plastic, cardboard, plaster, painting (gouache)
80 x 107 cm
2022


You killed your European son
You spit on those under twenty-one
But now your blue car’s gone
You better say so long
Hey hey, bye bye bye
(Lou Reed)

It is a wooden panel that you see, a found object that attracted the artist’s interest because of the reflections of natural colours that it gave off. The intervention is given only by the yellow stain, the sky-blue strip on cardboard, the three red dots on the already existing holes, the blue plastic cartridges on the nails, which also already existed, the choice of the frame, in terms of material and size.

The reference to the raw material is obvious. An original material that speaks for itself.

The minimal intervention dominated by pre-existing presences, and therefore by chance, is a fundamental reference for the artist.

The rudimentary, unfinished, imperfect, but unique, inescapable and definitive act. Disregard for conventions and style. The respectful dialogue with the material and the intrinsic and original form of the work.

Philippe de Scola – les formes du visible

« Les Formes du visible ».
Conférence au Jeu de Paume, Paris, tenue par Philippe Descola, anthropologue, animée par Teresa Castro, en présence de Marine Hugonnier
« La figuration n’est pas tout entière livrée à la fantaisie expressive de ceux qui font des images. On ne figure que ce que l’on perçoit ou imagine, et l’on n’imagine et ne perçoit que ce que l’habitude nous a enseigné à discerner. Le chemin visuel que nous traçons spontanément dans les plis du monde dépend de notre appartenance à l’une des quatre régions de l’archipel ontologique : animisme, naturalisme, totémisme ou analogisme. (…) une anthropologie de la figuration.

Philippe de Scola – les formes du visible
Live Sketching
Dessins sur papier
15×15 cm
2022

Pour en savoir plus :
https://jeudepaume.org/evenement/conference-les-formes-du-visible/
https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/les-formes-du-visible-philippe-descola/9782021476989