If Sam Bornstein’s (b. 1983, New York) exhibition at Richter Fine Art Gallery in Rome had an alternative title to Cosmic joke, it would certainly take its inspiration from Giorgio Manganelli’s poem in which he narrates the strange and surreal conversion of the moon, which, maddened by the blue of the sea and its fish, suddenly burns and blazes, blowing a hot breath onto the earth[1]. In fact, the works in the exhibition derive from this narrative dimension, revealing a peculiar relationship with the fantastic, an element that is irrational by nature, to be grasped as a free and imaginary approach. Among the literary sources that have led the artist to conceive painting as a set of mystical and doctrinaire contents, moving away from being cultured pretexts or exotic artifices, is the study of the texts written by Tzvetan Todorov.
Sam Bornstein, “Cosmic joke”, installation view, Galleria Richter Fine Art, courtesy Richter Fine Art, Roma, ph. credit Giorgio Benni
The latter, with crisp clarity, considers the fantastic a «world without devils or vampires, there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of the same familiar world[2]». In his pictorial research Bornstein spontaneously develops a decisive relationship with narrative, raising the question of whether painting should depict or otherwise be a symbol and allusion of something else unknown to us. Thus, scrolling through the works on display, is equivalent to listening to the artist’s narrative with its moments of inflection, emphasis and adagio, always aiming to focus attention on human actions staged in mysterious lunar lands, not at all cold and inhospitable, but burning with the warm tones of vermillion and the nuances of calm peach tones.
Sam Bornstein, “Cosmic joke”, installation view, Galleria Richter Fine Art, courtesy Richter Fine Art, Roma, ph. credit Giorgio Benni
Therefore, it is necessary to emphasize that in all the works on display, the pedantry and meticulousness typical of a study based on forced correspondences between symbol and image is absent; rather, the structure of the scenes and their meaning remain free, expressly mysterious. Thus, Bornstein’s interest in the narrative element is balanced in relation to the size of the support. Therefore, the setting up of the exhibition, divided into two rooms in which large and medium sized works are exhibited, reveals the link with the meaning of what is presented, vaguely hinted at and never explicitly stated. Thus, the greater the extension of the pictorial surface, the less narrative laborious the scene, which inversely is simplified through a reduced compositional skeleton, to the point where the narrative disappears, and the scenario is transformed into a mysterious epiphanic vision. Inversely, the smaller the format, the more the artist reveals, also focusing on the choice of tone, form, impasto and balance of colors. However, if the works unveil an enigmatic syntax, what induces us to go beyond their laborious figuration is the unearthly trait of each character, whose eyes are half-closed in timid slits. Such thin crescent moon, barely open to a fantasy world, claim a systematic abrasion of meaning and any element of clarity, so that we wonder: where can one live with closed or half-closed eyes if not where the supernatural reigns?
Sam Bornstein, “The Geocentrist”, 2024, mixed media and oil on canvas; Sam Bornstein, “Morning postcard and mirrors”, 2024, mixed media and oil on canvas, courtesy Richter Fine Art, Roma, ph. credit Giorgio Benni
In this way, Sam Bornstein reveals a special connection to physics and the infinite combinations of tones that touch upon a question about the spiritual and symbolic aspect of the work. In this context, it is useful to quote what Sandro Chia said during an interview, when he was asked what he felt when he painted, and then replied that he smelled paint, because painting was mostly «a physical activity preceded and followed by spiritual moments, but any form of spirituality at work is forbidden [3]». This is the case for Bornstein, who, by using impossible tone relationships to reality – such as the use of orange tones with rare openings to lapis lazuli and lilac for the characters’ faces – naturally opens to the mystical, touching on its most metaphorical aspect. Acting like an astrologer, he favours the study of objects, coloured shapes, profiles of noses, effigies of the cosmos, bells, icons of birds, machines, microphones, vinyls as a set of complex coats of arms and effigies that are repeated flat and floating on the pictorial surface. In this way, as in a poem, the work does not present itself to be understood in its profound meaning, but to live simply for what it is, with its complex narrative and as in a joke mockingly stimulating us to go beyond its figuration.
Sam Bornstein, “Encounter (European Mythopoetic Filmmaking After World War Two)”, mixed media and oil on canvas, 2024, courtesy Richter Fine Art, Roma, ph. Credit Giorgio Benni
For these reasons, for Bornstein, painting is a natural and highly complex act that certainly reveals an irrepressible instinct: reading, studying, researching literature and his own sources, loving uncertainty and listening to any doubt or unknown visual source. In fact, the third edition of Quaderno, a collection of the artist’s drawings and writings, was published to accompany the exhibition. And from this, it is even more evident how for Bornstein, creation is a useful and fundamental act in manoeuvring his vast and heterogeneous culture. This is a terrain in which his imagination naturally flourishes, nourished by his interest in man acting and practising futile movements, a corollary of acts, which fit randomly into a pre-established order of the cosmos.
Sam Bornstein, “Quaderno”, edited by Aniene Publishing, courtesy Richter Fine Art, Rome, ph. credit Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
Moreover, it should be noted that the dominant element of these narratives is tone, so that the events are illuminated by a spring-like glow in which everything relaxes, transitions, blows and projects elsewhere. And even when the subjects are numerous, the rhythm is never heavy but remains light, so that the figures are set in warm settings or otherwise calmly cold and humid, typical of a clearing after a storm. In some cases, the subtlety of the stroke seems excessive, yet the outline, similar to thin copper wires floating in flat, calm backgrounds, proves necessary to detach and never divide the figures from the background, making each part of the work a fundamental element of a precise and concrete mechanism. One must ask: what is the correct interpretative approach to the cosmic joke to which the figures are subjected? What are the actions and their tonal form emblematic of, typical of a warm moon on fire?
Maria Vittoria Pinotti
[1] Giorgio Manganelli, Poesie, Crocetti Editore, 2022, p. 161.
[2] Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic a structural approach to a literary genre, 1975, p. 25.
[3] Interview by Giancarlo Politi with the collaboration of Helena Kotnova and Claudio Verna with Sandro Chia, originally published in “Flash Art” no. 1221 June 1984 and edited again in “Flash Art”, Pittura Ottanta, special supplement no. 353, 2021, p. 62.
Info:
Sam Bornstein. Cosmic joke
Galleria Richter Fine Art
Vicolo del Curato, 3, 00186, Roma
24/09/2024 – 8/11/2024
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 3 pm to 7 pm, or by appointment
www.galleriarichter.com
Maria Vittoria Pinotti (1986, San Benedetto del Tronto) is an art historian, author, and independent critic. She currently is the coordinator of Claudio Abate’s photographic archive and Manager at Elena Bellantoni’s Studio. From 2016 to 2023 she was the Gallery Manager in a gallery in the historic center of Rome. She has worked with ministerial offices such as the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture and the Central State Archive. Currently, she collaborates with cultural sector magazines, focusing on in-depth thematic studies dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
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