Cosimo Pizzulli, Neomannerist 2000, 1992, computer print (Mac II CAD) 8x10 in. (20,5 x 25,5 cm). Wagner Collection, Beverly Hills, California, USA.
Cosimo Pizzulli is an architect specializing in interior design. He studied in the United States, where he was born. However, his Italian family origins and a series of happy coincidences placed him in touch with the latest European figurative ideas. He found that his work was in many ways in harmony with that of the Neo-Mannerist painters. In his Santa Monica studio in California he uses modern, sophisticated design techniques aided by computer graphics, remaining aware, however, of the profound transformations that science and technology—and hence also rationality—have undergone over the last decade. He does not delude himself that human rationality can be contained within the confines of formal logic, for Euclidean geometry is no longer sufficient to define space, and topology and phenomenology have brought about profound changes in the conceps of form and phenomenon. There are areas of existence which can no longer be expressed by formulas, but only by form. And these forms cannot be reached through classical logical and mathematical processes; we need to call upon intuitive processes. These processes are close to those usually defined as aesthetic. Practical planning and execution processes, in their turn, themselves tend to go beyond pure rationality. In consequence, once the possibility or necessity to go beyond pure rationality in project execution has been realized, we find ourselves in realms beyond approved modernism and even beyond the historical-aesthetic tradition. Pizzulli's design thus points the way beyond the mechanistic character of rational procedures, introducing (through advanced technology) the fantastic and the irrational, in a way only permitted by a recovery of images from the Museum.
Lorenzo Ostuni