67 - Simone Negri

Simone Negri Occurrence #73 Sculpture Gray stoneware and black ceramic pigment Date of creation: 2022 H38 L31 P31 cm Simone Negri’s works are not merely objects of perception; they do not merely engage the senses of those who observe them, but are also—and above all—objects of an intellectual nature, the fruit of cognitive thought. They fit perfectly into the discourse that analytical philosophy has been conducting for decades on the ontology of the work of art—a discourse that, to date, has not yielded definitive answers: What is a work of art? How do we recognize it? How do we understand it? Can one appreciate it without first interpreting it correctly? What must one know to have an accurate experience of it? But are there such things as erroneous experiences of a work of art? And the list of questions could go on and on. In reality, Simone Negri’s *Accadimenti* fit very easily into the philosophies of many authors, even those who are very different from one another, both in terms of historical context and theoretical school of thought. Among the most immediate associations is undoubtedly that with the concept of aletheia by the German philosopher Heidegger, a Greek word translated in various ways: “unveiling,” “revelation,” or “truth.” Events, in fact, do precisely that: they reveal something that would otherwise remain formless; they bear witness to an evanescent and intangible entity, of which they become the trace. They are a receptacle of time and chance, but they are also much more than what they show on the surface. They are “forms of life,” to borrow the words of the English philosopher Richard Wollheim; they are the result of a vital activity, not only because ceramics is the quintessential living clay, but because the artist’s action in creating the work is the beginning, the origin, the birth of something that will then live its own life.