Pietro Terzini

Pietro Terzini, born in 1990 with a degree in architecture, worked for several years in fashion - digital field and is the perfect example of a personality and a contemporary artistic phenomenon that starts from popularity on social media to get to big brands like Tiffany, Stella McCartney , Moncler and Palm Angels. Eclectic, emblematically contemporary in his digital communicative approach, Terzini experiences social media as a modern agora through which he conveys his personal and original poetics. Let's get to know him better through this interview by Artribune: When did you start making your artistic content on branded materials? I've always wanted to make art that could reach a wide audience and that could be read immediately, a sort of Pop Art 2.0. The intuition of using brand packaging came naturally by observing the reality in which we live: a globalized, consumerist and interconnected world. Today, thanks to advertising and social media, designer labels are increasingly present in people's lives, they not only promote products but lifestyles. Brands certainly have a great seductive power and they come mostly perceived as status symbols. I use the wrapping of these modern simulacra, I deconstruct and reactivate them to describe our contemporaneity directly and without rhetoric. How did you manage to make the idea serial and transform it into a project? Seriality is inherent in the productive cycle of the brands themselves, which continuously launch new products and collections. This sudden change constantly offers prompt for reflection and materials for creating new artworks. You had an analog period before becoming “Pietro Terzini” on Instagram and online. How much did social media influence this phase and how did you move? Yes, of course, I had a very long analog period! I come from the world of design and architecture, I trained above all through analog references. For many years I have created paintings and abstract objects inspired by the great masters. However, these works of mine had a mannerist character and were unable to fully describe the contemporaneity. The advent of Instagram changed everything. Not only that, it brought about a radical switch in my visual and conceptual language. Why did you choose this way of communication? To me, art must tell the present, be a photograph of it. We live in an era of technological revolutions, internet and social media above all, in my opinion, is the one that has and will have the greatest historical reach in the future. The social revolution has not only changed the way we buy and consume products, but it has changed our way of relating to us as human beings. My art talks about this. I use digital platforms to make it accessible, share it, sometimes create it. I draw on the formal language of social media by adopting its aesthetic synthesis and narrative immediacy. Art is an abstract concept, which contains many areas. What do you define art today? I think that everything which is able to excite us or make us think, should be considered art. I really like it and I find myself in the definition that Banksy gives it: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”. The Millennial audience identifies more through social accounts than with reality. How can this phenomenon impact on history of art? I think that the theme of language and of the correct use of communication channels is central. The only way to trigger curiosity, whether it's Millennials or new ones generations, is to use their own language and to be present on the platforms where they get information: Instagram, TikTok, Youtube and Twich. The worlds of fashion, design, art, as well as that of creatives and the web, are increasingly intersecting and your artistic expression is a living proof of this. What could be done to make these areas more synergistic and to communicate the value of art and art history? I believe that in order to grow, every creative discipline must draw on and relate to other similar disciplines. I consider this process fundamental to produce a new expressive language. Synergistic mixes between fashion, design and art are certainly to be considered enriching, and art, in all its forms and declinations, benefits from it, thus being able to be enjoyed by a much wider audience than in the past. I think at the moment there is no perfect formula, it is an ongoing process. What do you think we will inherit from this historical period? The awareness that, using the right technology and communication channels, everyone can have a chance to make their own voice heard. What do you think about NFTs? They will be the future, but not necessarily in art field, they will have transversal applications in various fields. What is your advice for young people who have an artistic project to carry out but are afraid to take the plunge or don't know how to actually carry it out? I would recommend to use social networks and internet, then I would tell them to take the plunge and not be afraid of making mistakes. Sources of inspiration? In scattered order: Kanye West, Kaws, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Andy Warhol. Having said that, I believe that the contaminations between different forms of expression are unavoidable, especially if you want to try to describe artistically the world.