MASSIMO MARCHIORI

My name is Massimo Marchiori, class of '73.

Born in Venice into a family of artists and creatives.

I grew up breathing the scent of oil paints, cardboard and paper.

My maternal grandfather (born in Silba, a small island in Croatia) taught me to walk barefoot, respecting nature and the sea.

The imprinting waited years to show itself, it needed stimulation and motivation.

 

My rebirth came at the most difficult time.

A bad illness has the power to reawaken the courage to live in pursuit of one's dreams.

This is how Massimo the artist, designer and sculptor was born.

I reopened the drawers of memories and those smells and materials that had accompanied me during my childhood became my life.

I started with cardboard: recycled and recyclable.

In a suburban basement I started to give cardboard a different shape from the big boxes in the supermarket.

A poor material for packaging, good as a mattress for the homeless, in my hands the cardboard came alive and revealed a different and unexpected nature.

 

Why cardboard?

Because it represents exactly the model of society we have built.

There are many of us (7 billion of us in the world...) and like the 'cardboard boxes' we are used and abandoned.

The hustle and bustle of everyday life distracts us and we all too often forget the uniqueness of our lives.

I collected the cardboard and gave it a new shape, transforming it, shaping it, creating sculptures depicting life-size objects.

Bicycles, motorbikes, musical instruments, a plane from the First World War...

But being a cardboard "sculptor" was not enough for me.

I wanted to create objects that could become a teaching and educational "tool" for those who will be the new adults of tomorrow: our children.

So cardboard became a toy, preserving its naturalness and essentiality, but my creativity reinvented its use.

 

They, my toys, published in 2016 on the ADI DESING INDEX (Compasso d'oro) and distributed throughout Europe, exhibited at the Triennale Design Museum (Milan) on the occasion of "Giro Giro Tondo, Design for Children" alongside the "creations" of my mentor BRUNO MUNARI.

But what seemed like a point of arrival was instead a new start.

The essence of my rebirth was linked to memories of my childhood and feelings of sadness born from the vision of a World mistreated by global pollution generated by human beings.

It was 2010, and what started out as a 'simple' ecological mission of cleaning up the plastic from beaches soon found material expression through my artistic vein.

Cardboard "fused" with plastic and my first fish were born.

 

Unique sculptures that today allow me to reshape my sadness by transforming it into three-dimensional and material still images that encapsulate my love for the sea and nature.

This is how my fish are created, using what I find on the shores of my beloved Silba and Venice.

The sea brings the dirt generated by human beings to the surface, and on my boat I look for the places where there is the most plastic and collect it.

An old plastic bottle becomes the mouth, a comb becomes the fin, a coat hanger becomes the tail, plastic ropes and nets become the back...

The spectator looks for the various fused elements, recognises and understands them.

The mono-colour cover amalgamates the different elements, the eye, which is a light bulb, turns on and the sculpture comes to life...

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My art form becomes a tool to raise the viewer's awareness of the problem of sea pollution.

It is for this reason that my 'creating' wants and must be accessible to everyone.

Of course, this is my job!

My livelihood!

Fatigue, dedication, attention, research, discipline, study, these are the ingredients to make my art my profession!

But that's not enough for me...

I believe that spreading a message is not enough. Only the active involvement of everyone can create a sounding board capable of changing the way we live in the world.

That's why whoever wants can help me by collecting the plastic they find along the beaches - I use it for my fish - by speaking about you.

 

Today you can find my sculptures for sale in my shop/laboratory in Verona, in various sales outlets around Italy and online: on my Facebook page, Instagram profile and on the website www.stariribar.it

 

Stari Ribar

 

fantastic fishes and where to find them.