Picchio |
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The ongoing discussion about the supposed end of painting gives a particularly contemporary feel to the work of Picchio, since he has always attempted to reach beyond the boundaries of this medium and move it into the third dimension. Indeed, this focus reflects the essential aim of the particular style developed by Picchio, which is based on the striking observation that the reality surrounding us is largely defined by the vertical. It is vertical forms which dominate such different phenomena as the silhouettes of many cities and of old villages with their jumble of streets, statistics represented in the form of bar charts, the way stock exchange prices are listed and of course in the ubiquitous newspaper column. This emphasis on space is also evident in Picchio's deliberately lavish application of the paint using a pallet knife and the integration of collage. In a series of flowing transitions the picture becomes an object or an installation made up of several three-dimensional elements, which may then be resolved into individual segments to be offset and displayed next to each other. Spatial effects are evident, too, in the painted beams that overcome the space in which they stand freely or that we find placed against the wall, resting in a corner, turned on their own axis or on their heads, and in their variable alignment and complementary positioning. They offer observers, who themselves become, as it were, an interactive part of the installation, completely different perspectives depending on where they stand. It is important, too, that the beams are reordered occasionally to give them an added temporal dimension. A particular hallmark of Picchio's work are his threedimensional 'torn' pictures based on a technique which can also be applied to spatial objects. He covers the surface with canvas strips which can be folded out from the top, the bottom, the centre and even diagonally and which can then be hardened using epoxy resin and painted. The formal possi bilities offered by this process are every bit as varied as the associations which they can evoke. What was concealed appears to be disclosed, what was disguised is unveiled, and beauty that was hidden is now revealed. To a large degree, Picchio's art is interactive. It begins right at the start with the unmixed application of the paints which, in the manner of divisionism, only combine to produce the desired effect when seen in the eye of the beholder. This brings us directly to the artist's declared aim, in particular where his works are incorporated into a business environment, of exercising a positive influence on the company's employees and visitors and of stimulating their attention and emotions. Nor are such emotions contradicted by the fact that the works are not purely intuitive but clearly planned on the basis of an original concept. Picchio spent many years as a successful businessman before taking up a career in art, and he has not lost this talent for entrepreneurial thinking. The exhibition of artwork is now widely recognised and acknowledged as an essential part of our business culture; indeed, nowadays many demanding artistic projects can only be developed with the help of business partners. Picchio [Dieter Specht] is German (from the Rhineland). He was born in Remscheid in 1936 and has lived and worked in Ticino, Switzerland, for nearly twenty years. The international group Interroll, of which he is a co-founder, has been listed on the Swiss stock exchange since 1997. Following a successful career as a manager in industry, he was very quickly able to realise his ambition and to develop his talent in the field of modern art. These two worlds may appear to be diametrically opposed, but Picchio makes clear that the decisive qualities which he possessed as a businessman are also those of the artist: creativity, productivity, a desire to innovate, imagination, the capacity for spatial thinking. Moreover, he essentially runs his new career exactly the same way as the old one: with enthusiasm, professionalism and complete dedication. His long absence from art now turns out to be equally advantageous in that it has enabled him to work less self-consciously, to find his own personal style independently of trends and fashions and to maintain a constant flow of new ideas. Martin Kraft
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