This work is the first in a series inspired by the seasons of the plastic age and tries to answer a question: does it make sense today to depict the seasons with their typical fruits, or is it more correct to identify them with the waste produced most in that period?
The seasons, understood as "stationes" or rather as stops of the Sun in its circular path during the year, have always aroused interest in artists and, in general, in human beings. Symbols of the passing of time marked by a rhythm, also an allegory of feelings and emotions, the Seasons are tenaciously linked, in their representation, to female figures. On the other hand, if you look at mythology, it is precisely in the story of a woman, Persephone, that the seasons originate and, specifically, in the decision of Demeter, angry at the deception of Hades, to bring down the cold and fall asleep. nature in the periods of the year when the daughter was forced into the kingdom of the dead. The allegorical images of nature in the different periods of the year with female figures bearing its fruits are so present in our imagination that, easily, they will be recalled to our memory if we are asked to draw an image of a season. In art, there are many examples of it, just think of the splendid representations of Cezanne and Mucha. A the same are common the representations of the seasons with the typical products of the Earth of that period, we can remember, to quote perhaps the most emblematic work, the Arcimboldo cycle.
The reflection from which the work presented here takes its cue starts from here and tries to answer a question. In the Plastic Age in which we are deeply immersed, where there is no longer the typical fruit of the season, or rather, where you can find anything at any time of the year, where Nature occupies a space less and less preponderant, does a representation of the Seasons make sense with grapes, spikes, flowers and hawthorn? Does it make sense or does it appear fake and cloying a call so strong to Nature that we constantly disfigure, that we feel so stranger and far from our daily lives, in the representation of the seasons? Thus, my Autumn, the Autumn of the Plastic Age takes on the face of a little girl, who puts her severe gaze on us with liquid eyes, as if to hold back tears. She is a child not by chance, because she refers to the future, to that point of no return to which we will arrive by continuing to carry out irresponsible behaviors towards the environment. She is a child not by chance, and she is beautiful not by chance, because there is nothing more perfect than Nature. This shining season of light, in addition to the typical dry leaves, is dressed in two ornaments: a mosaic rose that, on closer inspection, seems to be made of a can of Coca Cola and a singular earring made mainly with beer caps. The waste chosen to decorate the Autumn is not accidental. Coca-Cola was named the largest plastic polluter in the world in 2019 for the second consecutive year and is an unseasonable waste, a bit like greenhouse fruit found at all times of the year. The earring, on the other hand, has a cluster shape, deliberately, almost to remember the grapes but it is mainly made with beer caps, because, traditionally, beer festivals fall at this time of the year. The Autumn of the Plastic Age thus strips itself of its traditional fruits, source of life and nourishment, to welcome new, sterile and cold ones.
