Francesco Finizio

Francesco Finizio was born in 1967, he lives and works in Plouzané (FR)

Francesco Finizio’s work is imbued with the oppressive material saturation that surrounds us. The artist uses everyday resources—simple yet sophisticated means—that allow him to materialize his research on the language and gestures of consumerism and mass media. His works thus poignantly renew the way we view and articulate our economic, cultural, social, political, and artistic condition.

Through a “handmade” aesthetic and a spontaneous approach full of humor and irony, Francesco Finizio develops a unique and idiosyncratic practice based on the observation of incidents and phenomena that question both the notions of transaction and value, as well as “agency” and the meaning of our cultural constructs. His installations are both models and events. The representation of spaces planned for commercial activities, for housing, exhibitions, construction, archiving, or work, all have a programmatic aspect that allows one to actively speculate on the uses, statuses, and feelings that these spaces cultivate.

Since nothing is certain under the reign of capital, we spend our time speculating. Whether we work for an investment bank or belong to the precariat, we are all encouraged to create a set of rules to follow. The only unchanging dictate is the perpetuation of the market economy. In the capitalist era, the independent and reflective thinking once embodied by speculation has become a way to ensure the durability of a certain economic and political world.

With their playful and improvised appearance, Francesco Finizio’s mischievous installations push a given situation to its breaking point, thereby revealing the contradictory states and hidden dimensions of the economic world in which we live. Because it unfolds as the opposite of our familiar world, Francesco Finizio’s work suggests an operational mode that could be described as “counter-speculation.”

Text by Joshua Simon, on the occasion of the exhibition ARKPARKCRAFTRAFTCLINICCLUBPUB at MOBY, Bat Yam, 2015.
Translation: Triangle-Astérides

Francesco Finizio’s work in on display during the exhibitions Denis Brun, Francesco Finizio, Michel Gerson, Marta Vrablicova, Olivier Malfait, Lionel Scoccimaro, 1999, Art et bande dessinée, 2000 and Après avoir tout oublié [After having forgotten everything], 2015.