Gianfranco Baruchello - Psicoenciclopedia possibile (Possible psychoencyclopaedia) | One Day Conference

Fondazione Baruchello presents the project by Gianfranco Baruchello, Psicoenciclopedia possibile. Esercizi per farla (Possible psychoencyclopaedia. Exercises for its creation), produced through support from the Italian Council (VII edition, 2019), a programme by the General Directorate of Contemporary Creativity at the Ministry of Culture for the international promotion of Italian art. The pivotal element in the cycle of exhibitions and presentations is the like-named work Psicoenciclopedia possibile (Possible psychoencyclopaedia), a reinterpretation of the encyclopaedia’s intrinsic identity, created by Gianfranco Baruchello from 2017 to 2020, commissioned and published by the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana (Institute of the Italian Encyclopaedia) founded by Giovanni Treccani. The first exhibition event is hosted by the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève from 14 September to 17 October 2021, which will be followed by Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, from 25 September to 24 October 2021 and by CIMA - Center for Italian Modern Art, #newyork, which completes the schedule, from 6 to 12 December 2021.

In this monumental and complex project, Baruchello, a crossover artist who has used a variety of languages and techniques, including painting, objects, installations and writing, has created a complex system that, in 816 pages, uses unexpected juxtapositions to connect 1,200 entries (in the first part of the volume) and 200 sheets of images (in the second part). The entries are derived from published and unpublished writings, notes and transcriptions of dreams, while the images are the outcome of a long process of selection and assembly utilising various sources, some of which pre-existent.

Could it really be possible to extend knowledge to the point that there is nothing else to know? What is the logic underlying the classification that encyclopaedias present us? What are the criteria followed in associating linguistic definitions with illustrated plates? In Psicoenciclopedia possibile, #gianfrancobaruchello looks at these questions and examines the validity of traditional forms of knowledge in order to create hitherto unseen connections between written and visual language. As an artist, he presents his own interpretation of the world and suggests the exploration of unusual identities, also creating new meaning and value for the historic model of a publishing concern represented by the encyclopaedia. In fact, a characteristic of Baruchello’s practice is the deconstruction of every form of consequential thought and the disconnection from

traditional systems of cause and effect. In this work, it is precisely the alphabet that becomes a tool useful for reshuffling the most consolidated (narrative, visual and semantic) connections. “The Psicoenciclopedia possibile is constructed as if it were a volume in the Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani (Treccani Italian Encyclopaedia), but it isn’t”, says Baruchello.

In this work, politics and history, dreams and removal, nature and the environment, narrative and memory, attain unusual forms of convergence and are given unexpected juxtapositions through Baruchello’s tireless curiosity that led him to develop an interest in every area of knowledge. Just as in all his other works, whether painting, sculpture or installation, on this occasion, though in a volume, the artist ventures into the territory of uncertainty, the “pleasure of thought” and the openings that are possible in every universal system of knowledge and vision.

The exhibitions that will be staged, based on this recent work by #gianfrancobaruchello, are therefore devised in the form of installations that explode the volume within the space, inside which visitors are invited to create their own routes or even to design a do-it-yourself encyclopaedia. The round-table discussions that will accompany the exhibitions represent, on the other hand, an opportunity for many directions of study, examining both the process that determined the project for an encyclopaedia in the 21st century, and specific aspects of Baruchello’s work: the archive, composition, and painting as a miniature system, as Baruchello habitually describes the development of his own language.

Painter, writer and filmmaker, Baruchello, from the late 1950s and above all from the early 1960s, in all his works has assembled words, images or objects in search of ever-new possibilities for thought and imagination. The colour white, boxes/display cases, works on Plexiglass, the assembly of different and sometimes recycled materials, writing as a quest, and above all, in painting, reducing images, words and cuttings to a state bordering on illegibility, are just some aspects of an oeuvre that made Baruchello one of the most daring and provocative experimenters of the 20th century.

The 2020 edition of the volume Psicoenciclopedia possibile (Possible psychoencyclopaedia) comprises 250 copies and XV artist’s proofs. The work is presented in a case together with a screen-print by the artist, which constitutes a sort of “reflection” on one of the plates, n° 128, and the book Note a margine. L’arte come esperimento del sapere (Marginal notes. Art as an experiment in knowledge) by Carla Subrizi, which describes the work’s origin and gives readers some of the possible keys to its exploration. On occasion of the presentations and exhibitions in Geneva, Paris and #newyork, 1,000 copies of a “concise” edition of the volume are currently being printed.

The volume will be displayed during exhibitions and round-table discussions.