Alessio Bolzoni - ACCUMULO

Accumulo is a project about endurance and fragility, almost an oxymoron that the artist's hands appease. Like some of Bolzoni's previous projects, this work is in the shape of a book of images and has a profoundly introspective nature.
Conceptually, the book stems from the investigation of the accumulation of things and images, represented by photos of rubbish, consumed and wasted objects. However, in a world that produces everything in excess, including immaterial items, even images become the extension of this concept. Bolzoni operates a careful appropriation of existing images from various sources and the self- appropriation of photos previously taken by the artist. This element can be almost seen as self-inflicted criticism because even the artist is not immune to this hyper-production. Bolzoni, in other words, does not cast himself out of the universe that he coldly analyses and documents.
Accumulo is an organised repository of excess, the metaphor of what a Lacanian would call "surplus-enjoyment". This aspect is made evident by the appropriation of Slavoj Zizek's essay "The Varieties of Surplus" (another one, albeit explicitly approved by the philosopher). It is essential to specify that Zizek's piece lives in this book, not as a comment to Accumulo but as an "Other" caught in a dialogue with the vast body of images. The appropriated essay is akin to a psychoanalyst, a professional listener of Bolzoni's proposition. It is "Other" and yet inextricable from the book.