“Art will not save us from ourselves”. Andrea Romano tells his story

First name and surname: Andrea Romano

Place and year of birth: Milan, 1984

Related galleries and social media contacts: Gaudel de Stampa, Paris. Instagram: andrearomantico

I have rewritten this response several times, and it consistently reads like a property listing. The studio is a welcoming space designed to organise research and production, to maintain an archive; it is a place to physically create works, to display them and to host visitors. It is an environment that must be kept tidy and clean, and that requires ample natural light.

It had a profound influence on me during the period from my time at university to the early stages of my career. I grew up on the northern outskirts of Milan, in a landscape of great complexity, perpetually poised between care and neglect. For years I watched climbing plants take over everything and saw countless flowers tied to the sides of the roads, left there by the relatives or friends of those who had died in accidents. I certainly recognised a sense of melancholy in my surroundings, and those spontaneous acts helped me develop my own personal concept of representation. The northern park area is very open, with few tall buildings; from certain vantage points you can even see the sunset, so travelling into the city centre is like moving from open, horizontal spaces to areas that are always closed and vertical. Crossing Milan before the Expo was like traversing a vast building site: everything was destruction and redevelopment. The journey from home to the academy or from home to the exhibitions was like witnessing the changing states of matter: the shop windows changed, as did the layout of the green spaces, people’s faces and the way they spoke. I have continued to live in that same neighbourhood for several years, yet I no longer register those details; perhaps because the city has shifted its centre of gravity, perhaps I am less melancholic, or perhaps I no longer need to look outwards to process my melancholy. Today, I arrive at the things that inspire me and at ideas through channels that differ from those I employed at twenty or twenty-five.

His routine depends on the time of year and the type of work he is producing. Some pieces, such as those in bronze or marble, require travel and a different approach to those he creates entirely in the studio. This also leads to different social interactions. Certain days of the week are also devoted to teaching, so there isn’t really a typical day. Typically, the day begins with a walk in the park near my home (or a run, though rarely), breakfast (on the terrace if the sun is out), then I check my emails, run errands and organise my work. From just before lunch onwards, I work in the studio. In the evening, I watch films or go out with friends. When facing imminent deadlines, he also works late into the evening. While drawing, he plays films, TV series or music in the background. The only other regular non-work activities are reading, playing chess online and watching The Simpsons.

I tend to superimpose and combine different media and languages. In my works, drawing and sculpture, photography and drawing, image and text, the abstract and the figurative, the material and the synthetic often coexist. These combinations allude to realities in which different aspects and sensations coexist. This way of working reflects my idea of reality and language, which for me do not have a single, unambiguous definition. I do not think of my works as a synthesis of abstract thoughts or as something pure. Rather, I aim to create relationships between different elements, to find a balance between complexity and spontaneity, leaving the viewer free to focus on a particular aspect or to grasp the work’s unity.

I am not sure if there is a general function. Perhaps it differs for those who create art, those who study and analyse it, those who view it purely for pleasure, or those who buy it. I believe it is useful to distinguish between the world of theoretical, historical and academic research and that of artistic production, which in recent years seems to have shifted from a somewhat vague definition of cultural production to one closer to that of the luxury market. For me, art is a sphere like any other within a broader general reality, and like any other sphere, it responds to the demands of the reality that produces and contains it. Sometimes we think our work deserves special treatment because we are attached to the idea that art upholds the values of humanity and freedom, or is capable of changing the world, resisting threats or saving us from ourselves. If by ‘function’ we mean a possible moral function, I am sceptical – and I say this without cynicism. At times I view this idea with optimism, but then that optimism turns to illusion, then to resignation; resignation turns to selfishness, then to hedonism, and so on. This does not mean that I look down on those who believe in this sort of function – quite the contrary – but I do believe that there are contradictions within it that need to be resolved. I do not mean to suggest that it is the artist’s responsibility to resolve the contradictions I have in mind; they are everywhere in the reality in which we live, and this responsibility falls to everyone – or perhaps to everyone except artists. The answer depends on what kind of art we want, how we wish to produce it, circulate it, and who it is aimed at. For over a hundred years, people have been asking what the function of art is, and today we have so much literature on the subject that it could help us provide an answer – if not a definitive one, then at least one that clears up some misunderstandings – but it is a vast subject; it is like dividing the artist and the person into two distinct aspects of the same entity that lives, acts and makes choices. I can only speak of the function it has for me. For me, art is a way of understanding things, of expressing fears and joys, of processing and gauging my experiences through the objectivity of a language or through a sense of belonging, however real or imagined these may be.

My visual references vary greatly. There are things that catch my eye, such as the way light changes throughout the day, the relationship between real objects and virtual images, the relationship between organic and inorganic matter, or things shrouded in shadow or viewed through filters, such as film, glass and reflective surfaces. Other references pertain to visual culture, spanning specific stylistic elements drawn from art history as well as those found in both academic and amateur art.

My theoretical references contribute to the creation of my works to varying degrees, often only minimally, and are always linked to my lived experiences. Through the works of Ervin Goffman and Jean Baudrillard, I have come to understand the relationship between reality and representation, and through those of John Berger, I have realised that everything we see and do always passes through our culture, our memory and our sensations, bringing language and concepts back to a personal level. I mention just three; the list could be very long indeed. I am interested in the relationship between power and vulnerability, and the influence of interpersonal dynamics on the construction of identity, the imagination and personal desires. These themes relate to the relationship between the artist and the system, which, by extension, could be interpreted as the relationship between an individual and others – how we perceive and evaluate ourselves through the thoughts and gaze of others.

I often choose subjects for their pre-defined connotations, running the risk that they may be open to different interpretations. Heraldic symbols of empires, scenes from The Flintstones, a white tiger with deformities, the bottoms of drawers in my parents’ bedrooms, the details of hands touching the drapery in 16th-century Flemish altarpieces – these are things that seem immediately obvious. Sometimes I treat these references in a prosaic and faithful manner; at other times they are distorted and reworked, but they are always pretexts for talking about something else, as if they were part of my personal vocabulary. What I try to express or convey through the images is not something invented or detached from reality; I want to maintain total fidelity to reality, and for me the subjects already possess the concrete content and meaning I am seeking.

It was a very natural and straightforward journey; it was what I’d always wanted to do. At secondary school, I attended the Art Institute at Villa Reale in Monza and then the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. In the meantime, to support myself, I did various creative jobs. I worked in an interior design studio and as an assistant on major projects, such as the installation of Sol LeWitt’s wall-mounted works and an exhibition by Frank Gehry. This experience enabled me to compare different fields and confirm my career choice. During my final year at university, between 2009 and 2010, whilst writing my dissertation, I ran a space in Lambrate with some fellow students from Brera; at the time, it was a neighbourhood teeming with galleries. The group did not simply wish to be part of the audience; it sought to play an active role in the scene and to create one of its own. There, the artist was able to experiment freely while also engaging with other artists and a professional audience. During that period, ideas and skills began to take on a more conscious form. Around the same time, he began travelling more and taking part in residencies abroad. He had not done an Erasmus year and felt the need to live outside Italy for a while, so he chose Brussels, which at the time was regarded as ‘the new Berlin’. He was very interested in that cultural scene; the city was affordable and he could easily travel around the heart of Europe to visit museums and galleries. In 2011, a friend opened a space in Milan where he held his first solo exhibition. From then on, he began working with galleries, venues and institutions, both in Italy and abroad. He describes the process as a series of falling in love: with a school, with a phrase a lecturer says, with an exhibition one sees, and with the feeling that comes when one is the one exhibiting. Significant moments included reading Tim Rollins’s interview with Felix Gonzalez-Torres and encountering the writings of Louise Bourgeois. Exhibitions such as those by Tino Sehgal, Fischli and Weiss, and Tacita Dean at the Fondazione Trussardi were eye-opening revelations. Attending Manifesta, Documenta and the Venice Biennale with fellow students filled a void; even before we knew how to become artists, we were fans – we knew everything about them, wanted to meet them in person, go to their parties, and in a way we already felt like artists ourselves.

I have not produced any physical work since last spring; I am now organising the production of new works on paper and a series of large-scale sculptures.

The sculpture forms part of a series of works in which various subjects hold up or serve as a backdrop to the letters that make up the title ‘Claque & Shill’. These works are intended as a sort of self-celebratory poster in which the title becomes a subject in its own right. The words ‘Claque’ and ‘Shill’ refer to those figures who infiltrate an audience to influence its tastes and impressions; these are roles that occupy an ambiguous position between an artificial situation and real-life experience. The artist uses these terms to identify the ambivalent feelings of belonging, identity and personal affirmation as desires inherent both to the artistic community and to interpersonal dynamics. 

The series “Simple Prepositions” (2019–2024) comprises several works in which two subjects coexist on the same plane. Photographic documentation of the artist’s ephemeral works and private memories serve as the backdrop to graphite or red chalk drawings depicting images and words. Transparencies, shadows and reflections distort and erase any temporal distance and hierarchy between the subjects.

The work consists of a symbiosis between drawing and sculpture. The relationship between the frame – carved from a single block of stone to the very limits of the material’s physical consistency – and the two-dimensional nature of the drawing alludes to an ambiguous physicality, like the solid materialisation of a virtual rendering. The drawing depicts Kenny Rogers, a white royal tiger born in Arkansas in 1999 and who died in 2008 due to health problems. Kenny Rogers was the result of a planned cross-breeding between close relatives, a practice dictated by our desire to be amazed. In the work, the subject evokes the tension between the desire to appear and a sense of inadequacy—a condition in which power and vulnerability coexist—and alludes to the ambivalent feelings of belonging, identity and self-affirmation.

The word ‘legato’ is a musical term denoting a group of sounds connected without pauses of silence. My contribution is a sequence of sound works and pieces of music created by my artist friends for their works or to mark their exhibitions.

“Drawer Bottom” is a series of collages created using paper traditionally used to line the bottoms of drawers. Through the combination of different colours and patterns, the works create optical effects that engage the viewer on a visual level and depict words that reflect as much on the nature of images as on interpersonal dynamics. The series evokes a private space in which references with differing aesthetic connotations coexist, linked by a shared memory.

The work is a diptych from the ‘Cast Of Pillow’ series. The photographs, taken in collaboration with Delfino Sisto Legnani, depict the physical interactions of some of my friends with two polyurethane sculptures whilst they were still being created. The series tells a potential story about two ephemeral sculptures destined to crumble away with the passing of time.

“Potsherds And Gazes” is a series of works depicting fragments taken from scenes in the cartoon The Flintstones, more specifically the points of contact where the bodies of humans and dinosaurs grasp, cling to and pull at one another. The images, pushed to the brink of abstraction, allude in a light-hearted manner to acts of power, domination and submission.

That work, presented in the form of a question, draws inspiration from specific views of the suburban landscape where I come from and from the flowers placed by the roadside by friends and relatives of road accident victims. By linking personal experiences to the theme of landscape, the sculpture reflects on resilience and the distance it establishes from the subject that inspired it.