Fabrice Bernasconi Borzì is a Swiss-Italian artist, born in Geneva in 1989, where he completed his studies graduating in Construction at HEAD in 2016. Since 2018, he has been living and working in Catania, where he obtained a second-level academic diploma in Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts.
This relocation for the artist is a sort of journey backward, in reverse to that made by many of his peers: in moving from the North to the South of Europe, he attempts to rediscover a cultural otherness, peculiar to his places of origin, which is functional to his work as an artist. This national and existential dualism, this dual citizenship, with the resulting contradiction, underlies the balanced conflict between forces that his work intends to express.
The formal elements used more often than not are simple, minimal, or depotentiated, almost as if to subvert the ‘usual’ with the use of a paradoxical and at times provocative language, of a Dadaist matrix, which does not disdain quotations and recuperation. The intent is clear, as it develops a series of questions about the very meaning of ‘making’, its implicit conceptual assumptions, and how this is interpreted within the current art system. From these assumptions moves a reflection on human beings and their alienation from existence, in a dichotomy that politically picks up the tradition of the conflict between productive and social forces, against hegemonic and capitalist powers.
His seems to be a kind of philosophy of idiocy, whose linguistic structure - often precarious forms and extemporary assemblages - is the result of an oxymoronic ‘discipline of the provisional’ that at times recalls a certain intellectual intent of situationist détournement seen from the process perspective of rigorous and methodical behaviorism. Contradiction in terms that leads him to work, with obstinate discipline, on complex concepts such as loss, precariousness, and resilience, hidden under the expressive stratagem of ill-concealed irony. Under these conditions, nihilism, and history, defeatism and teleology are one and the same, posing a form of active and catalyzing resistance. This is the conjunction of philosophy and revolt, of belief, of subversion and belonging. Politics and poetry in the raw gesture of balancing despite the evidence of facts.
Fabrice Bernasconi Borzì sees himself as a ‘sponge and a thief of ideas, but he
is working hard to be, truly, what he is’.
CV :
ESPOSIZIONE PERSONALE
2023
¬ TBA, Spazio Display, Parma, Italia
2022
¬ oh, i am just visiting, BOCS-box of contemporary space, Catania,
Italia
2021
¬ Impro#1, con Ivan Terranova, Massimoligreggi, Catania, Italia
2020
¬ La vie d’ici bas, White Garage, Catania, Italia
2019
¬ METAL MADNESS - A Breath of Fresh Air, con Simone Caruso, a
cura del White Garage, Palazzo La Rocca, Ragusa Ibla, Italia
2016
¬ PRELUDIO - Les Nouveaux Résidents, con Luca Veuillet, La Galerie,
Ginevra, Svizzera
¬ Unboxed, Kunstbox - Contenitore d’arte, Ginevra, Svizzera
2015
¬ è quello che sognavo da bambino?, Burger & Jacobi - artist run
space itinerante
ESPOSIZIONE COLLETTIVE
2022
¬ Agata on the road, Fondazione Oelle/GAM, Catania, Italia
2020
¬ Sine die, Fondazione Oelle/Palazzo della cultura, Catania, Italia
¬ They, Massimoligreggi, Catania, Italia
¬ TBA, a cura di Las Palmas, Lisbonna, Portogallo (posticipata a
data da definirsi - covid)
¬ Hybrid Art Fair, Madrid, Spagna
2019
¬ SWAB Art Fair, booth S7 - White Garage, Barcelona, Spagna
¬ Premio Naziole delle Arti, Accademia Albertina, Torino, Italia
¬ Border Crossing ha incrociato Geografico, a cura di Pietro Fortuna,
diverse sede Palermo, Italia
¬ AD IN VISIBILIA, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania, Italia
2018
¬ Contemporaneo, a cura di Low Cost Gallery, White Garage,
Catania, Italia
¬ Garden of the forking paths, a cura di MASS Alexandria, MANI -
FESTA12Palermo, 5x5x5 collateral event, Palermo, Italia
2017
¬ La ruche et la valise, a cura di Noah Stolz, Villa Bernasconi,
Ginevra, Svizzera
¬ 900 secondes - Science-Fiction Institutionnelle, Frac Poitou-Charentes,
Francia
2016
¬ Fermez les portes en sortant, LIVE IN YOUR HEAD, Ginevra, Svizzera
¬ MUESUM, Institut et Musée Voltaire, Ginevra, Svizzera
2015
¬ CAPTATIO BENEVOLENTIAE , Topic-independent art space, Ginevra,
Svizzera
2014
¬ BIVOUAC, VVV et 37° 05’N / 2°30’W, Villa du Parc, Annemasse,
Francia
¬ OOPS - Convoi Exceptionnel, Endla 15, Tallinn, Estonia
¬ OOPS - Convoi Exceptionnel, Duplex, Ginevra, Svizzera
¬ OOPS - Convoi Exceptionnel, Tehtaankatu 27-29, Helsinki, Finlandia
¬ LU’X, collective show & music festival, Bain des Paquis, Ginevra,
Svizzera
WORKSHOP
2015
¬ LE VETEMENT, DE LA POCHE A L’IMMOBILIER, HEAD, Ginevra,
Svizzera
¬ TACTICTALKS, Strahler Raum für Fotographie, Berlino, Germania
2014
¬ REWIND THE BOCS (REVOX), BOCS-box of contemporary space,
Catania, Italia
PREMI
2022
¬ Premio Combat, segnalato
2021
¬ exibart prize, finalista
2020
¬ exibart prize, quinto in classifica
Giuria : Alessandra Pioselli, Giulio Alvigini, Carolina Ciuti, Ilaria
Bonacossa, Matteo Bergamini, Eolo Perfido, Gilda Lavia, Sveva e
Francesco Taurisano
¬ JaguART-Catania, finalista
Giuria : Ilaria Bonacossa, presidente, Salvatore Lacagnina, Massimo
Ligreggi, Santa e Paolo
Brodbeck.
2019
¬ PNA/FISAD, vincitore opere interattive
Giuria : Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, presidente, Beatrice Merz,
Sergio Toffetti, Irene Dionisio, Piero Gilardi.
PUBBLICAZIONI
2022
¬ Premio COMBAT (uscita settembre 2022)
¬ Exibart prize 2021, finalisti. Exibart
2021
¬ Exibart prize 2020, finalisti. Exibart
¬ 222 artisti emergenti su cui investire 2021. Exibart.
ISBN: 978-8885553033
2019
¬ Premio nazionale delle arti XIV edizione, Building a new world,
Pinacoteca Albertina
ISBN : 978-88-94843-29-3
2018
¬ Manifest12Palermo The Planetary Garden, Collateral Events5x5x5,
ISBN : 978-88-333-3011-2
2017
¬ Interventions artistiques, un abécédaire des tactiques et stratégies,
Jean Pierre Greff (dir. HEAD),
ISBN : 978-2-940510-18-4
2014
¬ Dérive, HEAD,
ISBN : 978-2-84066-723-0
