Benedetto Bufalino
Born in 1982
Lives and works in Paris
« "Public space" is [Benedetto Bufalino's] terrain of artistic adventures. This, in a way, is where everything is played out, and where the work takes on life and meaning. The forms derive from ideas that are noted down or drawn in sketchbooks. Bufalino also uses photography as a method of exploration. But more "classically", it is in the studio that the work is executed.
Daily life is the source of Benedetto Bufalino's ideas – the daily life that is our own. The ordinary, in sum. It would seem to be a choice, or perhaps a mark of empathy. What does he use? A barbecue, a car, an effigy of Ronald McDonald, a skateboard, a water pistol, the image of a tube of glue, pieces of cardboard, string… It's a sort of inventory, à la Prévert, of ordinary objects drawn from a world without qualities. The use of these "poor materials" oscillates between poetry, unfamiliarity and contemplation; also derision, play and amusement. The games are as semantic as they are visual. Distortions in sense and the use of materials are the rule. Humour and self-mockery come through constantly. Lightness is everywhere at work, even in the midst of complexity. And this lightness contributes to giving the work a certain strangeness, the appearance of a "utopia of proximity". » [...]
From Frédéric Bellay, The modest art of Benedetto Bufalino. "KEEP IT SIMPLE", 2013
Translated by John Doherty, 2014
© Adagp, Paris