Gino De Dominicis


 

Agnes Kohlmeyer
"Gino De Dominicis, this Italian artist probes the secret and indecipherable in "some more or less recent work""
Contemporanea, été 1990

At barely seventeen, Gino De Dominicis had already exhibited in a local gallery in Ancona, his native city. In 1964 he arrived in Rome. During his first years there, he changed hotels continually and was virtually impossible to track down. His major preoccupations were death, immortality and the verification of the existence of beings and things: "A glass, a man, a hen are not really a glass, a man, a hen, but merely the verification of their possible existence. To truly exist things must be eternal, immortal." So reads De Dominicis' Lettera sull'Immortalità del Corpo (Writings on the Body's Immortality), written at the end of the 1960s.
During the 1960s and 1970s, De Dominicis organized various performances. At Galleria L'Attico (Rome, 1969), he exhibited Oggetti Invisibili (Invisible Objects), suggesting an invisible cube, cylinder, and pyramid by tracing their outlines on the floor. He attached his own obituary to the invitation. The invitation to another exhibition, at Galleria Lucrezia De Domizio (Pescara, 1975), was illustrated by a kitsch postcard with a view of an Italian beach. It read "for animals only" "Indeed," says De Dominicis, "there were chicken, geese, and goats. They gazed at the works for a quarter of an hour and then left slowly. For a while,a goat seriously considered buying a picture." During another exhibition, a person vanished. Once, the same exhibition was shown in the same rooms exactly one year later. On another occasion, short videos recorded the artist's attempts to fly and to produce small squares, instead of circles, while skipping stones across water.
At the end of the 1960s, the mythological gods Urvasi and Ghilgamesh initially appeared in a photographic work by De Dominicis. Urvasi is the Indian goddess of beauty who became immortal through this grace. Ghilgamesh, two-thirds God and one-third human, is the legendary ruler of the Mesopotamian city of Uruk who, according to the famous myth of about 1200 B.C., sought physical immortality. Both are symbols the artist uses again and again in different forms.
At Galleria L'Attico (1970), De Dominicis represented the signs of the zodiac by exhibiting, for example, a live bull, a real lion, a young virgin, and two dead fish. The work sought to translate language into image in amanner opposite from conceptualism. In the same spirit, he presented the theme mozzarella in carozza (a popular Italian sandwich) by placing a carriage inside the gallery with a mozzarella on the backseat.
De Dominicis' statues become either invisible, as evidenced in the male figure exhibited at Galleria Pieroni (Rome, 1977), which was reduced to a pair of shoes placed on a pedestal and a hat suspended in midair, or fixated in an instantaneous and eternal immobility, as in the composition presented at the 1972 Venice Biennale. In the latter, a young mongoloid boy sat staring at an invisible cube and "a rubber ball in the instant it bounced (dropping from a two-meter height)." The figure of the artist himself also appeared in numerous works, a De Dominicis transformed into protagonist, fused in the invisible, dressed in black, the man with the hat, the man who searches.
Despite the considerable notoriety assured by these provocative works, De Dominicis has kept his distance from important art exhibitions and the media. He did not (and still doesn't) feel that his work photographs well, the only ostensible result being the mutation of its authorship from the painter to the photographer. He has never authorized an exhibition catalog, nor has he been interested in participating in a major collective show (except the 1987 Italian exhibition at the Royal Academy in London) or, even less,. in having a personal retrospective.
This is why his first American exhibition, at the Rayburn Foundation in New York (November, 1989), was such a spectacular and successful event. The artist seemed to have decided the time had come to confront the general public and present his work internationally. He accepted the foundation's less visible, rather "normal" exhibition space over those offered by many better-known Soho galleries. Though the resulting exhibition was relatively small (about a dozen works), it offered an articulate insight into the artist's overall production, representing all the themes he has repeatedly elaborated. Curiosity grew about this self-denying and evasive artist; stories and hypotheses ran rampant. The Journal of Art published an article on the mystery surrounding him which mused, "Who knows if he'll really come? What will he look like? What does he do? What does he think of the art world? Could that be him sitting at the next table?"
De Dominicis strives for mystery, for uncertainty about his personality, for questions and doubts. He loves to contradict steadfast interpretations of his work and consequently negates the value of criticism. He says, "People must see, not know; they must recognize the artwork as such and accept its effect."
Adelina von Fürstenberg has been the latest to convince the artist to exhibit. In the Magasin's more than 1700-square meter space in Grenoble, she hoped to mount a complete retrospective of De Dominicis' work. The art world anxiously awaited the possibility of seeing approximately one hundred of the artist's works, a quarter of his estimated production. Instead, taking the same title as the show in New York, Quelques oeuvres plus ou moins récentes (Some More or Less Recent Works), the exhibition offered thirty pieces- precisely "some works," beautifully displayed. While the selection was clearly representative of De Dominicis' oeuvre, at least seventy other works remained hidden in the Magasin's storerooms.
What is the origin of this repeated reticence? Had the moment not come to make public a body of work whose center is secret, unspeakable -work whose apparent, absolute evidence quickly reveals itself as nothing more than a misleading trace, a trap. Who will be next to offer De Dominicis a larger exhibition, better means, or stronger arguments? Who will convince him to shed his reservations?
Those who know the work of De Dominicis saw many works in Grenoble they had already seen before, whether individually or in different combinations. The arrangement of the work denied any chronological sequence and almost all explanation (titles, dates, etc.). Every possibility of false interpretation was avoided. The opening work was a female figure whose mysterious smile was reminiscent of the Mona Lisa. The next, which had been the first in New York, dealt with the recurrent Urvasi-Ghilgamesh theme. (Though the painting is untitled, the protagonists are instantly recognizable.) Under proper light, this large painting (240 x 240 cm) radiates a truly immense beauty. On a completely black surface, Urvasi and Ghilgamesh's white silhouettes contemplate a magically shining diamond, a secret prism suspended between them at eye level, a star, a crystal signifying eternity. Urvasi's beauty is the source of her immortality. Ghilgamesh still searches in vain for his eternal life.
In a previous work (not shown in Grenoble) the same mythological personalities appear. They are looking at each other or perhaps together contemplating something else. This time a fantastic and unknown landscape lies between them. In the foreground, a large mirrorlike pool reflects the lush vegetation and the hills that dissolve in the background. In the center, one can recognize a pyramid (the symbol of death for a Mesopotamian ruler). The sun is high, and an unidentified object (which Germano Celant interprets as a flying saucer en route to the future) hovers in midair.
Further along in the exhibition is one of his strange, arduously worked chalk and pencil portraits. A strange creature peers out of a relatively small, vertical, black frame. Its gender is difficult to decipher. Its mouth appears toothless; its eyes are sweet and tired. Its face, which rests on folded hands, wants to explode from the frame that contains it. Its slit eyes seem to be closed, but they could be looking outward, silent and alert. The thin mouth hints a smile. The entire figure is dominated by a long, pointed nose which curves down from the eyebrows to the chin. A sharp arrow points to the center of the picture. The thin, particularly expressive hands are beautiful (even if this adjective may seem out of place). The fingers are long and tapered, the wrists narrow, and the pose elegant. The dense traces of gesso that cover the painting's surface reveal secret signs: the points of a crown, the tip of an obelisk, crosses, and other symbols from the repertory of our fantasy.
One of the most beautiful, tender, and surprising works is the artist's selfportrait with a female figure. His photographic portrait is silhouetted against an intense blue background: as usual, he is dressed in black and wears a hat. His right arm encircles a female figure while his left searches to explain something to her. The woman has a yellow face and yellow hair, and observes her maestro with large, round blue eyes and a half-incredulous, half-amazed expression. Her facial features are thinly traced, and her large, accentuated eyes are those that frequently recur in De Dominicis' work, evoking the experience of Sumerian art.
Also at Grenoble was one of De Dominicis' numerous recompositions of the now-historic 1972 Biennale presentation. The chair was suspended in the corner of the room while the "invisible" cube and a red rubber ball were arranged on the ground. In the Magasin's central room the "prodigal" lance was repeated, erect and precarious, three gilded and resplendent lances carefully aligned, balanced on their points alone. The first rested on the index finger of a human skeleton with roller skates on its feet. The skeleton held a leash attached to a dog's skeleton. Both were symbols of death, evenif the roller skates prevented a. clear attribution. The second lance rested on a black rock, the third, directly on the floor. The explanation for these miraculous "free-standing" lances lay in the magnet hidden in the ceiling. The effect, however, was startling, and the questioning ensued. One had the impression of having already seen the lance's outline in De Dominicis' painting. Was it not the same form as the obelisk-a divine emblem, a symbol of the ancient Egyptian sun god who resided at the top of this form?
Also displayed were De Dominicis' large-nosed figures, one-eyed creatures-one violet and yellow, one black-with three stars on their heads, a menacing sword in their hands, and, above all, long oversized noses. They are noses that extend beyond the paintings' surfaces, big enough to be called trunks. Alongside them was a monstrous creature with a long, felt nose enclosed and exhibited inside a glass showcase. What do these noses mean? Are they a sign of clairvoyance, of a particular wisdom, of something important that demands respect, that evokes fear. In some cultures, large noses are a sign of great beauty. Even De Dominicis' madonnas are graced with impressive noses!
The three figures represented in the large charcoal and pencil work on wood (1984) all have imposing noses. The central figure, also central in the painting's composition, is evidently masculine. An enormous erect penis extends out of his open coat. His facial features are clearly masculine: the broad, energetic chin; the long curved nose; the big ears tightly fitted to the almost bald skull; the mighty neck. Only the short, little arms and the thin hands appear curiously foreign to the figure's massive physiognomy. A small hand holds a tiny octagonal star balanced on delicate fingertips, while the index finger of the other hand points to a small crouched figure. The second, clearly female figure has long hair and wears a small crown. She is dressed in a long gown with a zigzag seam and hugs the man from behind, perhaps tenderly, perhaps looking for shelter. Her hands resemble paws. The woman has a beautiful face with severe but delicate features. Her pointed nose is remarkably long and straight, tracing a bold arch from the precise curve of her eyebrows to her softly sculpted mouth. Her slitlike eyes seem closed, save the one tiny, vivid pupil that attests a wideawake attention. These two contrasting figures contemplate the female figure at their feet, a small, nude idol crouched on round knees. Her light hair is braided, and her face, characterized by a decidedly pointed nose, assumes a curious expression and smile. Between her barely accented hands, she holds a small cross-perhaps the object of the couple's interest, the key to the mysterious smile, the protective embrace, the star, the obvious erection.
The figures are framed by a window that opens onto an architectural landscape, a city against which the vertical form of an obelisk or tower emerges. It is crowded with temples and terraced pyramids-perhaps industrial buildings or a many-turreted castle. Precipitous flights of stairs, shifted by a telluric wave, rest on disconnected floors of different buildings. Lances, swords, crosses, stars, and often unrecognizable figures are hidden in the painting's folds, surface cuts, and background. They crowd the canvas without apparent order and are, once again, an invitation to the insecure and irresistible exercise of interpretation.
The biggest surprise of the Grenoble exhibition was De Dominicis' latest work, already selected for the Venice Biennale: a huge human skeleton, twenty-two meters long, nine meters wide and almost four meters thick. It lay on the ground, filling the aisle of the exhibition hail as in a fable, transforming the immense hall into a mysterious tomb. The visitor could admire the skeleton from two points of view, emphasizing either the enormous skull or the foreshortened feet. The sculpture is anatomically precise with one exception: from its head an enormously long nose, sharp and straight, mysterious and ironic, points directly toward the sky.

(Translated from the German by Marlis Scarry.)