Giuseppe Ragazzini (b. London, 1978) is an Italian mixed-media artist, and son of the photographer and Op-Artist Enzo Ragazzini. After finishing studies in philosophy, Ragazzini was enthralled by Henri Georges Clouzot’s documentary, Le mystère Picasso, where we see the legendary artist drawing in real time, through a sheet of transparent glass. Ragazzini, who was already creating physical mixed media pieces (ink; collage) decided to apply the idea to his own practice by animating his work with movement in harmonic videos or loops that could be projected, displayed upon a screen, and sold as an NFT.
He has made work in collaboration with numerous reputed media sources, cultural festivals, fashion design brands, singers and music ensembles (accompanying music with visual art and color just as Scriabin had wished, and sometimes doing it in real time, like Picasso in Clouzot’s documentary!). His animations were featured in several major international animation festivals, and his work has been displayed in international exhibitions, collections, galleries, and books. He is based in Milan.
Giuseppe Ragazzini, like his contemporary, Guglielmo Castelli, is influenced by the graphic expression of Francis Bacon who, like the cubists, shows a figure from multiple facets, but with sinuous lines blending into one another through color. Ragazzini’s characters, whether drawn or composed, however, do not have the same grim aspect as those of Bacon. Their attitude is rather one of reverie and nostalgia— the delicate associations of color, line, detail (stars, subway poles), or texture in their decor tries to reimagine the transitive nature of daily life in urban spaces; to enrich their blandness. The cold, white leds of a subway car become a miraculous star-scape. Ragazzini’s sensibility does not try to force out a tortured interiority from the modern individual. It is a gaze that tenderly, endlessly reimagines an expression fitting for the realities of Eleanor Rigby, accompanying its sad, soft notes which turn up at the corners.
There are three elements in my work that coexist. Philosophy of mind, in the sense of identity, conscience and language; Technology, in the choice of a medium that often allows me to express and reinterpret my imagination in an “innovative” way; and finally Art
