Une Taxonomie des Sens et des Formes

Italian artist Salvatore Arancio (b. 1974, lives and works in London) explores the potential of images. Using various mediums such as photo-etching, collage, sculpture and film animation, he draws his inspiration from nature and science to better sublimate them and to create disturbing and evocative landscapes at the same time.

At the Centre d’art contemporain La Halle des bouchers, Salvatore Arancio presents a set of ceramic sculptures inspired by the lava trees phenomenon – a geological wonder found on the islands of Hawaii, where trees have been frozen by lava in the 18th century. Recalling both colorful rocks and strange mushrooms, these sculptures materialize the artist’s interest for biomorphism, as well as an attraction for mycology science, an interest one can find in the display of large panels reproducing illustrations coming from scientific books on the fungi.

While decontextualizing such forms, Salvatore Arancio emphasizes the strangeness and the evocative power of these natural elements that may recall phallic symbols and esoteric signs. Onto the vitrine of the art center, he presents a large-scale vinyl print of a colorful composition showing the Gallo-Roman dodecahedron from the collections of the museums of Vienne. We find this fascination of the artist for geometric shapes in the video We are a way to know itself (2009), which is an editing of scientific popularization TV programs conceived by the American researcher and astronomer Carl Sagan. Interspersing both retro-futuristic and visionary footage, this film stands for the research conducted by Salvatore Arancio, who doesn’t hesitate to convene science and make apparent their mystical side.