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self portait / explicating and regulating / work caption
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# 18.20

Work caption

The work caption changes depending on context (solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, monographs, magazines, newspapers, etc). I would like it to take into consideration the following questions that underline some crucial themes in defining my poetics.
 
Archive number
The archive number is unequivocal, and I think it needs to be in the caption because it is the reference through which the work can be traced throughout the archive. Entering the archive file, it is possible to analyse more in depth all the things that are impossible to include in the short space of the caption. I believe it is important to maintain the complexity somewhere and to offer the possibility to consult to those who want to delve deeper.
 
Authorship and Other Entities
To talk about the fact that the work is not the result of solitary activity but the effect of a relationship between the artist and other people, I would like my name to stand alongside those who in some way have contributed to the outcome of a given work. A definition of the role they had accompanies their name.
When it is not possible to name them in the caption (see personal exhibitions or monographs, in which it is impossible to repeat my name for each work over and over, thus making the exclusive presence of the other name ambiguous), I would like it to be acknowledged in the colophon.
 
Technique and materials
I would like the substance that the work is made of, as well as the technique used, to be specified in the most detailed way possible to highlight its importance.
 
The importance of dimensions
It is important for me to know the exact size of a work because it could represent a correlation to some of my other works or to those by other artists in the history of art. Conceptual questions inherent to the relationship that we artists have with space could verified through this correlation.
Furthermore, in my world the question of size is central because it is defined by the body’s relationship with space.
 
The importance of dating
The question of dating encompasses two crucial times: that of the genesis of the work and that of its subsequent story, of when the definitive and completed work begins to have a life of its own.
Regarding the first question, three dates are given: the conception, the creation and the production are three distinct moments. (Bearing in mind that in some cases there are works constantly coming into being that change ad infinitum.)
Regarding the second question, the modification of some dates is possible.
 
The following legend that accompanies the captions in the catalogues and in the works was drawn up:

The dating of works includes the reference (i.) when the year refers to a conception that took place at a different time to its subsequent realisation, or to the retrospective recognition by the artist of the status of a work for something previously created.
The dating of works includes the reference (p.) when the year refers to the time the work was created or to the new creation of a work that needs to be reactivated at each exhibition.
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work-caption-0
Caption Example from the catalogue of the Exhibition at GAM, Turin, 2024