james beckett/blade

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james beckett

Blade, recovered cooling blade, varnish, 250x40x4 cm, 2009

courtesy of agi verona collection

Blade is part of a project called “Element from Bagnoli (and Italsider as extract-arrangement)” in which the artist has taken into consideration the industrial heritage of the Bagnoli neighborhood in Naples, as well as its flourishing 900s manufacturing branch. The production and treatment of steel, introduced in the area by the then thriving plants of a company called Italsider, became a source of income for the community, and an important foundation on which to build the path from rural borough to economic power. Beckett, in the course of a still ongoing investigation on a series of industrial affairs, though a multidisciplinary approach  pushes forth his abilities as a technician, historian and archivist all at the same time. Bagnoli becomes a kind of ensemble of events and parts, some sort of intricate scenario which needs to be reorganized in order to lead to a new meaning. Through the project “Element from Bagnoli” the artist links and compares paintings, sculptures, and recovered objects, rebuilding a system halfway through an Italsider communication centre and a handicraft exhibit by its supposed employees. Rather than an historical regeneration of the subject, Beckett offers a personal perspective, a human approach: a lens, both to examine and to give new light to the topic at hand. The cooling Blade invites the observer to catch one of the perspectives necessary to comprehend both technology and the ordinary in their meeting point inside the history of industrialization.

artwork found in:
la lama di procopio/procopio’s blade
curated by gianluca d’incà levis and giovanna repetto
nuovo spazio di casso
august 5th – october 1st 2017