I believe that irony is the key to understanding Ivana Falconi’s works. There is absolutely no doubt that it requires a goodly dose of irony to decorate diabolical skulls like one of Rio de Janeiro’s carnival floats. The first thing that came to mind when I saw them was a vision of those medieval vendors of relics and pardons, men who criss-crossed the whole of Europe armed with an undefeated spirit of initiative and a healthy sense of humour, selling the skulls of Baby Jesus, feathers from the archangel Gabriel’s wings (usually plucked from some farmyard chicken), hairs from the donkey present at Bethlehem as well as anything else their fertile imagination could dream up, to the gullible faithful. Perhaps Ivana bears no resemblance to the less than flattering description of these curious characters portrayed so vividly in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but without doubt she in some way shares a part of their spirit and resourcefulness.
As Ignazio Silone says there are only two proper and possible ways of distancing oneself from pathos: irony and making fun of the reality that surrounds us. The ease with which one manages to face life is not something you can learn: you either have it within you or you don’t. When this ease, this acuity of knowing how to grasp even the most dramatic aspects of human life with just such a gentle spirit, is poured into “creating art”, then the result is, without the shadow of a doubt, extremely interesting. The bent Ivana Falconi confers on her works is not, luckily for those of us who busy ourselves with matters of art, any exception. Examples of art forms that use an ironic and ludic bent to express themselves can be found in literature, music and the figurative arts as far back as antiquity. In a single group we can ideally unite Eronda’s Alexandrian sonnets beside Parini’s Giorno, Rossini’s Humourous Duet forTtwo Cats, the paintings by Hogarth and Longhi or, more recently, the works by Jeff Koons, and Maurizio Cattelan’s provocations. All these works and these authors, and I have forgotten to name so many in this improvised list, are united by the same spirit, by the same acuity, the same lightness in observing reality. Ivana Falconi has every right to belong to this group. She is a talented and unpredictable artist who has been able, in a certain sense, to follow Oscar Wilde’s indications when he said one should make one’s life a work of art.
In order to understand this curious and unusual artistic personality you have to penetrate her world, a world made up of colours, an almost maniacal need to hoard, an unceasing attention to everything around her and a surprisingly creative bulimia. Ivana’s eyes are the eyes of Alice, transforming reality into her own personal, fantastical Wonderland, passing through a magic mirror.
After what has been said it is not surprising that over the past few years our artist has faced a long and complex work dedicated to the symbolic value of skulls, whilst simultaneously developing other interests. Beginning with a philological study of the concept of Vanitas Ivana has recaptured the skull’s element, declining it in all possible ways. In the early stages of this work the skull was the object of a gigantic work/installation created for the exhibition entitled Vanity, which openedin the autumn of 2006 in the UBS building in Lugano. In this work where, furthermore, a reflection in markedly pop style on the concept of multiples in contemporary art was presented, the skull, like a kind of Barbie doll, disguised itself and became a symbol of the manias and obsessions of our contemporary world. The installation took on an intimately apotropaic value with regard to death and man’s caducity.
This research on skulls that Ivana continues to develop, in parallel with other creative ideas, has recently evolved from precisely this apotropaic aspect and not only exorcises death but evil, too.
Our artist’s diabolical relics supply us with a reason to smile, and sometimes laugh, over our miseries and avert us, albeit perhaps for just one moment, from our most hidden and unconfessed fears.
Thus…….IVANA FOREVER
