Artist # 21 Maurizio Savini

I came across this artist and thought that he was interesting. He uses pink chewing gum and fiberglass. His work is really good considering what he's using to sculpt with. It would be very difficult. Here's a quote by Mario Codognato found from this blog.

"The sensual act of chewing, the voluptuous warmth of rebelling saliva, the artificial and secretly aseptic fragrance which spreads from the mouth as a promise and missed kiss. The synthetic fleshliness of the pink color, the obsessive square shape of the product unwrapped and ready to be shred to pieces by the power of the tongue, all compete in crashing on the senses. Applying all this to the power and energy of the Sculpture and its history causes a short circuit having the capacity of turning the ludic into stately and vice versa. The strict minimalism of parallelepiped is subverted by the uniform coating with many bars of chewing-gum completely cover it, rendering chewable to desire, soft and provoking to forbidden touch, what was abstract and distant."



I read that he manipulates the gum when it's warm. He said that the most important process of his work is fixing the sculptures with formaldehyde and antibiotic.

Savini is still relatively young and his work has been displayed all over the world, selling for a lot of money. I think that his sculptures are interesting and different, but I don't necessarily like them. I wouldn't buy one or want one. I don't like that the whole thing is pink, and knowing that it's gum. It makes it seem like it would fall apart, or not be sturdy, characteristics I like to think of sculptures having. I'm not sure about the subject matter he chose for his sculptures either. He has done humans, in odd positions, and animals. I couldn't find an explanation of that, but there must be one because the positions he puts his people in is different and looks like it means something.