The Mobile Fixity of Fish

Tiny multicolored fish, crafted with extreme care and artisanal precision, are firmly affixed to the wooden support, creating—through chromatic interplay alone—the impression of circular movements or vector-like trajectories, as if attempting to escape an all-too-stable placement.
Each is a handmade object, modeled individually in clay in a kind of performative ritual. They are distributed within a space almost draconian in its boundaries, with no way out, visually forced into an unnatural stillness—though they are creatures that live in the sea, where they normally dart about, always at the mercy of shifting currents. The conceptual reference to Duchamp’s act of decontextualization is clear, as is the equally evident Dada-inspired irony. In this spirit the artist, with a sarcastic eye, plays with multiple interpretations, at times choosing pointed titles. Among them: Fish Salad and Fritto Misto. How can one not think of the warming of the seas…?

Through his works, Michael expresses concern over the environmental transformations under way and invites reflection on the current problems facing the ecosystem. The little fish dance—shimmering and colorful. They are symbols of life and death, at times stated explicitly through the inclusion of bones.

The compositions always maintain a homogeneous, rigorous structure in which visual modularity resists chaos. The cadence with which the elements are arranged across the surface recalls the continuous movement of a gently ruffled sea—slight fringes at the land–water threshold.

Forms and colors interact; profiles and tonalities alternate; voids and solids confront one another in vortices of never-excessive, centripetal and centrifugal forces. These are virtual, fictive aquariums, suspended in a visual and mental “zone” outside of time. They are 3D “fossils,” eager to come back to life yet—despite everything—remaining inanimate objects, devoid of vital energy and, paradoxically, charged with chromatic energy, luster, and preciousness. It is an animation frozen and made painting. And yet everything stirs—until, at a certain point, the artist decides: stop (Attrazione Fatale).

Color carries great weight for Michael, and he makes ample use of it. One cannot help but recall Kandinsky’s analysis of the vibrations of color and their hidden powers. Consider, for example, E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle: blues and azures that evoke the spiritual realm, calm, and a sense of mystery. In Mare e Monti a vividly internalized red ground stands out against shades of green—a hue that the great protagonist of Abstract art considered “the calmest color that exists: it moves in no direction and carries no note of joy, sadness, or passion; it desires nothing, aspires to nothing.” And then Croce e Delizia, in which rose, muted gold, and a range of violets come together; it is no accident that the great Russian painter affirmed: “violet is the color of the soul’s deepest aspiration and consequently the color of sacrifice.”

In an era in which the world of the visual arts is overrun by ever more unbridled and cryptic conceptualisms, the apparent simplicity of the expressive means chosen by Michael offers an effective key to reading the world around us, paying homage to the primordial virtuous essence of Art and to its enduring capacity to convey profound messages with force and clarity.

Genny Di Bert
Art historian and art critic