108 – MAY 2022
Take a look inside 108's residency
“One man claimed, ‘I know the shape of reason and error.’ When someone asked him for clarification on this, he replied, ‘Reason has four corners and does not move even in an extreme situation. Error is round and, not distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong, it lets itself roll everywhere to one side and the other.”
Varsi Art&Lab is pleased to present a new collaboration with 108. The Italian artist had already worked together with 56Fili in 2018 on the production of prints made for the group exhibition Livelli. This time we hosted 108 in residency at the new Varsi Lab, thus having the opportunity to deepen and expand his screen print research.
The synergy created, today as in the past, between 108 and 56Fili, finds its roots in the common passion for experimentation, which led on this occasion to the realization of a wide variety of prints, which differ in both technique and format.
In fact, the new production of 108 for Varsi consists of a series of four limited-edition silkscreen works and five unique hand-finished pieces.
The resulting body of works is inspired by the artist’s recognizable style, but grows and evolves from it. And so it is that in the “game” of screen-printing, 108 finds space to add a piece to what he calls the “aesthetics of error” inherent in his entire research, which harks back to an Oriental reading of reality, both philosophically and graphically. The Japanese philosopher Yamamoto Tsunetomo wrote thus:
“One man claimed, ‘I know the shape of reason and error.’ When someone asked him for clarification on this, he replied, ‘Reason has four corners and does not move even in an extreme situation. Error is round and, not distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong, it lets itself roll everywhere to one side and the other.”
And 108 in the form of error lets himself roll to one side and to the other and builds his aesthetics and artistic thought: soft shapes are tinged with black to evoke the irrational side of things, and they are countered by orthogonal, colorful signs that attempt (often in vain) to bring order and make sense out of chaos.
Thanks to 56Fili’s experience, the concept of mass printing is challenged and error can thus be transposed onto paper. Subtraction, waste, and superimposition make it possible to manipulate the machine by recreating the textural strokes and the skillful use of color that characterize 108’s works on canvas and that characterize his entire imagery.
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