Avantgarden gallery presenta
// NO FONT ((CODEX)(…2
 
@AVANTGARDEN GALLERY
Feb 15 – Mar 16, 2018
http://www.avantgardengallery.com/
 
Chaz Bojórquez
Cryptik
Diaa Allam
Faust
Hassan Massoudy
Luca Barcellona
Poesia Transcend
Rae Primo
Skki
Usugrow
Zepha
 

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//NO FONT ((CODEX)(…2 is the second edition of one of last year’s most interesting exhibitions in Milan. It is a collective that places the calligraphic means at the heart of its message.
 
With this new edition of //NO FONT ((CODEX)(…, the Avantgarden Gallery proudly shows the works of 10 more carefully selected artists from the international calligraphic scene. These include Chaz (maestro from Los Angeles’ El Cholo), Cryptik (creator of incredible mandala and calligraphic exponent whose work has an asiatic influence), Luca Barcellona (internationally recognised Milanese calligrapher), Skki (an artist at 360 degrees and concept writer) among others.
 
Calligraphy is gaining a new audience. It’s becoming more and more of a protagonist and is drawing more and more attention to itself. Yes, because we use calligraphy to speak and explain shareable content. If no means is ever neutral (The Medium is the Massage, An inventory of effects. by Marshall McLuhan), then calligraphy may be the means that can give the most profound form to the message that it is bearing. It always has been.
 
In my text from the first edition, there was a quote from Rammellzee (a visual artist and performer from New York who is linked to the tides of Graffiti), that we refer to once again because it is the narrative bridge between the two editions of //NO FONT ((CODEX)(…: “Power uses language to control us, but if we own the letter, we are in control of our own destiny”.
 
The letter, the symbol, allows the content to become real through the sign. A sign which, if placed in the hands of a calligrapher (or a writer) can become the clear and powerful content. In this 2.0 edition, the Avantgarden Gallery manages to exhibit one of the works of the New-York artist.
 
Rammellzee, theoretical godfather of the first edition, appears in this edition of the exhibition with one of his graphics. Whilst observing the exhibition, it will be totalizing to grasp the suggestive artistic and conceptual connection that Rammellzee’s work is able to form with the works of the new guests who have been called upon to deepen that possible representation of power.
 
A great success in the first edition, //NO FONT ((CODEX)(…2 will also reflect Noam Chomsky’s works, but this time regarding his concept of power.
 
Noam Chomsky claims that power is based on ten principles. //NO FONT ((CODEX)(…2 has asked the 10 artists to allow themselves to be freely inspired by the 10 key concepts that are explained in the works of the 20th century’s most important linguistic philosopher within his brusque meeting with the concept of power.
 
Ideology, democracy, economy, money, the masses, solidarity, regulators, elections, rich against poor and consent are the concepts, the headwords, the visions with which each artist has formed connections and representational possibilities because it is from the declination of each of the ten concepts that the idea of power within our society’s political and economical system is born, grows, gains strength and becomes reality.
 
Recognising what is being represented by each displayed piece is immediate, yet crypted. The more immediate it is, the more active the natural and instinctive connections are between the spectator and the work of art. Calligraphy has a coded and multi-level “reading”. You can “read” it and you can “feel” it. This is the experience that //NO FONT ((CODEX)(…2 is inviting you to – to perceive how power can infiltrate our lives becoming either a recognisable or an unrecognisable sign if you undertake unexpected sharing.
 
Knowing the mechanisms on which power is built makes it possible to understand how to use it, how to cultivate it, how to support it, but also how to destroy it. Each chosen and analysed concept is obviously declinable in opposite directions: at the service of power, or aiming to destroy it. Feeling a sign is like chosing one of these directions – at times through a rational decision, at others through gut instinct.
 

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