THE ART TO SEE ART
An exhibition experiment
"I could have done that."
"That looks like a child’s drawing."
"Is this really art?"
Contemporary art sparks endless debate. What makes something art? Is it talent, intention, or just clever marketing? And most importantly, can we really tell the difference?
To put this to the test, I chose the perfect challengers: engineers. A category of people known for their love of logic, structure, and equations, yet often skeptical (if not downright dismissive) of contemporary art.
In a student residence full of them, I set up an exhibition with a twist.
5 real artworks
+ 5 fakes
Would the analytical engineer's mind see through it, or would randomness pass as genius?
The pieces
I carefully selected five works from well-known contemporary artists and paired them with five “fake” pieces: random scribbles, childhood drawings, everyday objects assembled in a hurry.
The engineers were asked to evaluate each piece based purely on their own perception. No prior knowledge, no external influence: just their raw, honest reactions. Afterward, five of them were interviewed, where they learned the real (and fictional) backstories behind the artworks.
EXAMINING PICTURES, John Baldessari (1967-1968)
Baldessari theorizes about everything, including painting, but unlike strict conceptualists, he infused his work with abundant irony.
One of his most well-known paintings, Examining Pictures (1966–67), consists of his own definition of painting, introduced by a series of questions: not the image, not the mark, but a definition arrived at through a logical process—eliminating certain elements in favor of others.
ART IN COMA, Ígull Ídai (1971)
With Art in Coma, Ígull Ídai positioned himself within the highly intellectualized space of conceptual art practice in the early 1970s. In this work, it is art itself that takes center stage, recounting how it nearly died. To emphasize the contemporaneity of art, the Icelandic artist gives it a childlike voice.
The “doctors” (classical art enthusiasts) refused to treat it, and even the ambulance (the museum) couldn’t save it, hindered by the snow (the classical art lovers' vision of Beauty). The grandfather (art history) takes it to the hospital. The mother (the creator of the new) informs the father (artistic genius) that art has died, but he spends the entire night with it, bringing it back to life by morning.
Ídai offers a commentary on what art is today, layering the false objectivity of grammar and didactic education over incredibly surreal yet seductive solutions that lie at the heart of defining art.
Leda and the Swan, Cy Twombly (1962)
Leda and the Swan, one of Twombly's most accomplished works, illustrates his long-standing fascination with stories, literature, and events from classical antiquity—an interest that deepened after his move to Rome in 1957. The title, scribbled by Twombly in the lower right corner, refers to the Roman myth in which Jupiter, transformed into a swan, seduces Leda, who later gives birth to Helen of Troy.
Rather than the conventional imagery of a graceful nude languidly entangled with a swan, Twombly combined multiple media, resulting in violent, powerful swirls, scratches, and zig-zags flying in all directions. Among the chaotic, graffiti-like elements, he included recognizable hearts, a phallus, and a window-like rectangle—the latter interpreted as a stabilizing aspect within an otherwise explosive composition.
Nets on Fire, Jo Gujar (1969)
In Nets on Fire, Jo Gujar—an African American poet, musician, and graffiti prodigy—depicts the traumatic fire that remained seared in his memory from January 15, 1968, when he was serving as a firefighter. That day, a gymnasium in his Lowell, Massachusetts neighborhood was set ablaze during a basketball game. In the midst of the tragedy, he was explicitly ordered to save the white boys first. Among those who didn’t make it was his sister, Emma—whom Gujar hadn’t even known was there. Seeking therapy through his art, Gujar embeds his guilt over his sister’s death into this piece, along with the fire raging beneath a night sky lit by flames, the glare of floodlights, and the devastating urban landscape he witnessed.
His passion for cultural blending and his deep hatred of racism gave rise to a neo-expressionist work that is at times dark and distressing. With this painting, Gujar refines his style of obsessive scribbling. Often associated with neo-expressionism, the African American artist quickly gained widespread recognition, standing alongside figures like Julian Schnabel, David Salle, and Francesco Clemente.
Woman-Ochre, William De Kooning (1951)
Willem de Kooning’s work is driven by a desire to create an interaction between space and matter, between representational illusion and the flat quality of painting. It is also an ongoing struggle to find a balance between the expressive prominence of drawing and the emotional immediacy of color. De Kooning painted highly abstract images of the female form on tortured, painterly surfaces, almost resembling collages. At the time, his work was controversial—like the other paintings in the series—due to its explicit use of figures, which Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists saw as a betrayal of the movement’s ideal of pure, non-representational painting. Feminists also criticized the works as misogynistic, suggesting that they conveyed violent impulses toward the women depicted.
Une Poupée, Fred Le-Busque (2001)
Une Poupée presents a unique blend of gestural abstraction and figuration. A haunting painting, it embodies several qualities of the surrealist object: subversive and erotic, sadistic and fetishistic.
Through the depiction of the doll, Le-Busque appropriates and subverts the idea of a child’s toy. As an object of erotic obsession, the doll encapsulates the artist’s fascination with the corruption of innocence. In its sadistic scenes, the artist leaves masochistic traces; in the erotic manipulation of the doll, Le-Busque explores a sadistic impulse that is also self-destructive. In this way, the doll enters into the realm of sadistic mastery, reaching the point where the subject is confronted with their greatest fear: their own fragmentation and disintegration.
Fiato D'Artista, Piero Manzoni (1960)
In Fiato d’artista, Manzoni reiterates the concept of decay by using his own breath to inflate balloons meant to resemble female bodies. He selects a model—beautiful, willing, and with a bright smile. He seats her on a chair, still and motionless, while he blows, inflates, and exhales into a balloon.
He seeks to portray the woman as he perceives her: an inflated balloon. Yet, he hopes she is more than just that. Then, depending on how it takes shape—round like a ball, pear-shaped, or resembling an apple—he places the balloon on a pedestal, as if it were a statue.
Smoke her out, Jasmine Râh (2021)
Jasmine Râh demonstrates how conceptual art can transcend analytical rigidity to become a vehicle for intense poetic synthesis, rooted in historical awareness and the need to reclaim fundamental human values. Smoke Her Out merges aesthetics and protest, drawing inspiration from the testimonies of women who have endured political repression and institutional violence. The word FREE, constructed from matchsticks, suggests an illusory freedom—always at risk of being set ablaze—while the chained spheres evoke both imprisonment and resistance. The addition of the key and feather hints at the body as a battleground, where power and coercion intertwine with the hope of liberation.
This work aligns with the ongoing denunciations of systematic abuses against incarcerated women, particularly in authoritarian regimes where sexual violence is used as a tool to break their will. Yet, as figures like Shirin Ebadi have shown, some refuse to be silenced.
Twisting at my birthday party New York City,
Nan Goldin (1980)
Goldin created an entirely new genre with this revolutionary work—an ardent snapshot of bohemian life in New York between the late 1970s and the 1980s, dedicated to the memory of her older sister, Barbara, who died by suicide at nineteen in 1965, when Nan was just eleven years old. Nan transformed into a rebellious teenager, running away multiple times until her parents placed her in foster care. At eighteen, she was expelled from her foster home after they discovered she was growing marijuana and dating a Black boyfriend. It was 1972 when Nan arrived in Boston and found what she considered her true family: a group of seven androgynous young artists with creative aspirations. By then, Nan was already in love with photography, but now it consumed her completely. Fascinated by the drag queen community she became part of, she sought to capture a third gender, an alternative sexual identity—always with deep respect and affection. Her intent was to glorify them, to honor those who reshape themselves and publicly manifest their fantasies, celebrating their self-reinvention.
Green Sunglasses, Marcia Litlines (1983)
In Green Sunglasses, Marcia Litlines strives to capture the premature maturity of her niece. The photographer reflects on how the first signs of femininity emerge—sometimes bubbling up from that ever-present, inexplicable urge for children to be seen as adults; other times, drawn out by circumstance. In this image, often described as joyful, Litlines captures a young girl exuding a budding self-awareness that has yet to give way to insecurity.
The world seems to bend to the perspective of this child, who fascinates Marcia—despite playing at adulthood in her mother’s stolen sandals, she insists on wearing these green sunglasses. She had adamantly chosen them, defying her family’s attempts to steer her toward more traditionally feminine colors.
The green sunglasses stand as a symbol of youth resurfacing—a flame refusing to be extinguished.
There will be a storm
Copywriting, Storytelling and Troublemaking
Via Padova 7, Torino