The Double-Edged Worlds of Mr. Alberico
Kenneth Martina
Inspiration can come from a variety of sources: from the things I read, see
on TV or just observe during the course of the day. They can be things that make
me angry or things that evoke a sense of awe like a visit to Mt Edna in Sicily.
They can also be things as mundane as a trip to the shopping mall in Paramus,
New Jersey. —-Rocco Alberico
The complexity
and contradiction of Alberico’s miniature worlds infer a working process
of curiosity and an ability to embrace ambiguities. This artist’s concern
is with culture’s skewed values. His latest series of small (7 – 27”h)
sculptures are brightly colored building forms with unusual extensions and decorated
interiors, a cohesive surreal village.
The works reveal the broad understandings necessary to integrate art and architecture.
They are postmodern in the sense that they exaggerate the referenced architectonic
forms and contain ornaments which have unusual ocular functions. Exaggeration
and unpredictability are central strategies. The sculptures contain the artist’s
personal symbolic messages as well as a wake-up for American culture in constant
need of reevaluation.
The sculptures
are contractions. The bright color and cheerful forms belie the underlying politics.
In the seemingly happy dwellings, this artist takes on formal religion, corporate
America, and Bin Laden, for example. Blatant messages of contempt on the interiors
of the sculptures reveal Alberico’s agenda of cultural critique. The swastika
is blended into the Turkish flag leaving the viewer to wonder what the Turkish
Flag Regulation no.2/7175 of 1937 ever did to us. Toy soldiers are poised for
action. Allah is referenced in an unclear manner. One can imagine a number of
scenarios if the artworks were to become animated.
If it can be argued
that good art gives us the capacity to think and feel in reaction to it, then
Alberico’s art that does just this for the viewer. Additionally, it invites
conversation. Discussions could be based on aspects of beauty, play, the problematic
relationship between politics and art, or on, perhaps, representing and perhaps
misrepresenting culture.
One can only imagine,
as Alberico’s structures continue to be constructed, will they resemble
Leon Krier’s version of a beach house, a “Toys are Us” Venturi-Graves
vision, or will they be clouded by conspiracies and world events yet to be schemed
. . . perhaps all of the above?
