Nicola Evangelisti

by Emiliano D’Angelo

Some of the latest forms of artistic expression vaunt a communicative self-evidence and an emotional impact that is so immediate and vivacious that it overcomes the scepticism of those least inclined to welcome contemporary proposals. Among these we find, in my opinion, the variegated but extremely coherent experience of Nicola Evangelisti.
It pivots on the two crucial factors of light and space, observed in an interrelation which is so inextricable and profound as to almost lead to the formulation of a rudimental and unassailable theorem; namely that there is no light without space, and no space without light. This binary combination of elements serves to differentiate the itinerary of the Bologna-born artist from many analogous experiments which have succeeded one another in the last decades, last but not least the adventures of an interactive and site-specific character: that of Tatsuo Miajima.
Evangelisti’s inspiration is anything naïf or based on pure postmodern spectacular quality; neither does it aim to elicit the direct participation of the spectator, except in the sense of inviting him to an environmental auscultation that is more profound and relaxed, of which final purpose appears to be that of realizing a kind of utopian epistemology: to bring scientific knowledge back to its poetic and philosophical origins, to the pioneering splendours of the great pre-Socratic explorations on the physis and on the origins of the universe.
It draws on a composite tangle of elements and cultural stimuli, the first of which is undoubtedly a study on the psychology of perception (with particular reference to Gestalt theory, of which influence among other things takes the form of an intense and expressed interest for visual forms of a reticular structure, as those represented by lighting or by other types of electric conduction).
A consciousness of historical and territorial roots enables the Bologna-born artist to escape an attempt to disperse his cultural background in the treacle of a misunderstood international artistic jargon which is more and more frequently found in our museums, and to guide it in a convincing way towards a clearly Italian experience as the Fontana’s spatialism (which among other things has served as source of inspiration for his “Proposal for a new spatial manifesto”, an interesting theoretical complement to his activity of inveterate experimenter). While the fascination with nature, captured in its transitory and phenomenal, micro-sensible and intangible aspects, as well as with mirrors and geometric fractals and with modulations of chromatic and luminous effects on all kinds of surfaces, his work also reveals influences from Italian pauperism and conceptual art from the Sixties (it is no coincidence that he was invited in 2008 to exhibit in Brussels along with two established giants as Paolini and Pistoletto).
Due to these characteristics, and unlike the other artists who appear in this catalogue, Evangelisti’s interest for photography is perhaps not a “primary” interest seen in the context of his entire production. But his images nevertheless remain a precious complementary tessera, a rare and fascinating document in a research process wholly aimed at capturing the “physical substance” of light, to cross the borderline (futuristic and unexplored) in which reality and phenomenological illusion surrounding the most volatile, the most archetypal and elusive among the elements observable in nature, intermingle to the point of being indistinguishable from one another.