Forma e informazione

In an era when questions are frequently raised about the rationale of certain visual representations and their real value, Stefano Pirovano responds by clarifying the nature of the link between the material component of the work and the elements invisible to the eye. The artwork has in fact expanded so far beyond its boundaries that it can no longer be confined solely to the physical dimension. It must have an accompanying narrative and information that introduces the public to the mystery of its image. According to the author, this is the approach taken by the most significant artists of the last few years.

In this perspective, Forma e informazione presents an overview of the present-day panorama on the premise that abstraction is to be understood as the primordial driving force of the artwork. In order to elucidate the dialectic between object and information that animates contemporary abstraction, the author addresses a series of artists and particularly emblematic works.

These include Carol Bove and Goshka Macuga, who develop relations between objects and knowledge, Cory Arcangel, Peter Coffin and Tomas Saraceno, with their forays into the technological culture, and Wade Guyton, Josh Smith and Beatriz Milhazes, whose images on canvas are generated by digital processes. The book alternates theoretical investigations, precise descriptions of works and statements by the artists involved. There are also numerous incursions into other fields, from design and architecture to physics, the neurosciences, philosophy and literature. Reference is made to scientists like Vilayanur Ramachandran and Brian Greene as well as writers like Orhan Pamuk, Sergei Nosov, Cormac McCarthy, Bret Easton Ellis and Patrick McGrath, whose works are rife with mentions of contemporary art and offer effective interpretive stimuli. One final point: in its constant interweaving of creativity, theory and context, the book is not designed to arrive at any set destination but rather to present, also to the general reader, the riches of a territory with many still unexplored places.