Luigi Archetti

Luigi Archetti's artistic practice revolves around the intersection between art and music, which the artist seeks to make tangible in a variety of ways. In his installative settings, he uses drawing, painting, video and sound to create spaces of tension and multi-layered systems of reference. The vocabulary of music manifests itself not only in the ideas and execution of the works, but also in the direct use of objects and concepts from this field. Luigi Archetti orchestrates the space as medium in which different impulses - visual and sonic - meet.

Luigi Archetti's works build up a multiply interlaced system of references and interactions. His view of the sonorous and visual world challenges established notions of perception; the familiar and the new overlap. He beguilingly entices us to transcend the boundaries of seeing and hearing and to experience the world anew in the simultaneity of both.

The term "Partituren (Interferenzen)" meaning "Scores (Interferences)" as the title of the new lithographic series suggests the recording of a polyphonic music. Visually, a musical composition is asserted. Is this a pictorial transposition of music? Or does the sheet stand for an acoustically tuned space? Hatches, strokes, lines form condensations and spaces, bend and clench and strive towards and away from each other. They are undetermined spaces that allow for multi-layered interpretations.

Luigi Archetti's works were shown in 2020 at the Kunstmuseum Olten and the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, among others. A solo exhibition by the artist will be on view at Kunsthalle Will from 28 February to 18 April 2021.

After the body and headstock, the pickguard is the most important design element on the guitar. Originally it was less a design element than a profane protection against damage by picks. Luigi Archetti has selected twelve different pickguards for the present group and printed them on hand-made paper. The individual motifs bear a name as their title, which refers to certain rock 'n' roll guitarists. Since these are "only" first names, however, this attribution remains mere speculation. Luigi Archetti works at the interface between art and music. In his media-layered work he explores constructive interferences of these two areas and amazes with immensely poetic worlds of sound and images. His work as a musician and visual artist cannot be sharply separated, his thinking is visually and sonically influenced. The vocabulary of music manifests itself not only in the ideas and implementation of the works, but also in the direct use of objects, concepts and sign systems from this genre. This is especially true for the graphic series "PICKGUARDS", which captivates by its concentrated reduction, which carries the "sound" in a hidden yet visible way.

Dunlop Manufacturing is an American company that manufactures accessories for electric guitars. In addition to effect devices, the company also manufactures guitar picks, among other things. These bear the fictitious name "Jim Dunlop". Picks for electric guitars are a popular collector's item, especially for fans and concert lovers of rock music. In the cultic worship of a star or a certain rock band, picks can transform into real fetishes that trigger admiration, desire, eroticism and stimulation. The present silkscreen edition revolves around the iconography of the plectrum and also around the playful shifts in references, memories and the way the object is handled.

Designed as autonomous images, these, with their manifold quotations and references, refer to the traditional design of record sleeves. The image is intended to capture the potential listener, arouse curiosity and, even before the first sound is audible, evoke a tonal association. In this case, however, the viewer is left in the void, the music remains imaginary. With the series "Covers" Archetti refers to an absent acoustic world, the supposedly familiar eludes. At the same time, this withdrawal opens up the possibility for an immersion in one's own acoustic worlds.

In the present inkjet print, a "music still life" is staged on five successive pictures. This creates a frieze of images in which colour valences and object constructions make each other "sound": Objects from the sonorous world - such as loudspeaker membranes and siren antennas - appear on coloured surfaces. The printed graphic sheet is the visual translation and condensation of sound and silence. The individual images stand for a fermata in the imaginary score and refer to the silence in the sound, to the emptiness in the fullness. The sheet becomes an echo chamber for the associations of the viewer.