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08/12/2005: "Sandro Chia in Pietrasanta, Italy" by Andrew Wielawski
For those of you who can afford a trip to Tuscany, this show is worth seeing. And, for those of you who aren’t going to be able to, here’s my synopsis of what is there. Sandro Chia belongs to a group of artists called ‘trans avanguardia’ which one can find information about easily by using a search engine. It’s a movement that captured the spotlight, and still has a big piece of it, in the art market around the world. There’s a huge pair of public Chias in New York City, and he has to be considered one of the most famous artists in the world. Still alive and looking very fit at around sixty, he speaks humbly and clearly about his art, and candidly about where he gets his ideas. He says he goes to museums to ‘steal ideas’, and that when he goes, he usually looks at only one piece. I find this a very sane way to approach art, which museum administrators don’t encourage by costly admissions tickets. It would be hard to imagine going to the Uffizi in Florence, waiting three hours on line after making an appointment, and being hustled through in a pre-determined amount of time, if you were going just to study one piece. Chia has enough clout, and enough money, for that not to be a problem. A native Florentine, he owns a vineyard in Montalcino, producing many thousands of sixty dollar and up bottles of Brunello, one of the most prestigious wines in the world.The ‘piazza’ of Pietrasanta is surrounded by an eclectic mix of different styles and periods of architecture. It is a splendid setting for the exposition of large sculptures, because the surroundings don’t conflict with whatever is placed in that open space. In a modern city square, usually what looks best is a contrasting organic form, or a real one like a tree, or a big rock. A very geometric vertical/horizontal piece tends to clash. In renaissance settings, the same is true, and Chia’s work, which is mostly figurative, combines with the surroundings well.
What does not work well is the scale. In a piazza this size, there is a formula to follow for scale which makes a sculpture look like it was made for the space if the piece is the right size. These pieces seemed small. Tom Wolfe used the phrase ‘the turd in the plaza’ to describe art which he didn’t like in open public spaces. His reference is more profound than it appears at first glance, since it refers both to the organic nature of a form, and to it’s scale relative to the space. Architects often say anything works, as long as it’s the right size, because they are more interested in scale and proportions than in content.
Chia, however, belongs to a school of artists that has built their reputation on jarring, sometimes clashing effects, and in this case, the scale works in the same way as those other elements.
When a piece is colored, the colors are chosen to jump out at you, and throw you off balance. This is not a group that uses harmony of elements in a traditional way, and although they know those rules, and have thoroughly studied them, they use their knowledge to build upon elements that throw the viewer into a state of unbalance. That is the power of transavanguardia.Pietrasanta makes its living by producing sculptures for artists, with fourteen foundries and hundreds of marble and granite carving studios. The more sculptures an artist pays to produce, the more welcome they are here. The local newspapers are sensitive to this, and rarely say anything negative about anyone who is supporting the families of a dozen or so marble and bronze workers. But with a community in which hundreds of artists live, some not able to pay to produce even one sculpture, and coming from a host of cultures, there is a certain underground element that always seems to make itself heard. Years ago, there was a photocopied ‘Art Word Jornal’ which used to appear on the tables in the bars of the piazza, nearly always criticizing one of the famous, doing an exhibition in the piazza. I always read them, because it was such a contrast to what you’d read in the local papers. Not long after the Chia exhibition opened, one of these came out, this time done on a fancy laser printer, free of spelling errors, and written under the pseudonym ‘Janusz’.
It starts, “Here we go again…”(rough translation from the Italian), and for a change, compliments Chia for ‘multidimensionality’. But then, about halfway through, it takes a turn, and begins to talk about the phenomenon of having other people make the work for an artist. This is one of my favorite themes, because I really don’t believe that unless your work is as simple as a milk carton, you can have other people make it for you. ‘Janusz’ makes the point that a work of art, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest element, and that everything Chia hasn’t made falls way short of what he does by himself. Money, it says, is key to an artist’s success or failure – if you have too little, you can’t produce, and if you have too much, well…you produce so much that the work loses your brushstroke.
And on the same piece… 
Here is an oft used finish for stone. High quality, costly, work by skilled artisans.
In fact, Chia has combined paintings one hundred percent made by him with many bronzes and marble elements produced quickly from a limited list of choices for finishes, and the farmed out stuff diminishes the ‘Chia’ effect, because it looks so much like everything else that comes out of this town.
There’s the weakest link. I know the difference. I visited Chia while he was painting, and I saw with my own eyes that there were no ‘assistants’. The cathedral is full of a vast panorama of works on paper and canvas, well worth going to see, but the bronzes all look like they were made by the same guys that produce work for the other artists. If you were to produce chocolates made in the form of one of Michelangelo’s dying slaves, what would they look like? Pretty much like the bronzes coming out of Pietrasanta.
An aside – I can’t but jump at the chance to associate myself with greatness. I find a similarity between what I saw in this show, and two pieces of my own. I sought harmony, and Chia seeks disharmony…perhaps that’s why these pieces of mine aen’t on the cover of Artnews, even if one went to a big time collector, and the other’s probably going to another one.
He did a painting on a sculpture, me, a sculpture on a painting. 
6.)On the other ‘similar’ piece, he used mixed media, and I didn’t. That must have been it! But mine was done in ’87 and his in ’05. And remember, transavanguardia is open only to Italian, French, and German artists.
If I have to cast a bronze, I’ll do it here. But I’ll finish and chase the piece myself, do the patina and the waxing. I’ll get the ‘chiaro scuro’ with a sponge, water, and sand. You just can’t do that if you make a hundred pieces in a few months. That is, however, a dilemma that I probably won’t have to deal with. And will my finishes last? Probably not as long as the ones turned out by the places making sixty a week.
Pietrasanta is one hour from Florence by train, through Pisa. There is an active café nightlife, and this show is well worth a visit, and a discussion about it with strangers at one of the café tables. They serve Absinthe, called ‘Assenzio’ in Italian. My limit on those is three.
