Norberto Civardi

About artist

Norberto Civardi is an eclectic artist born in Fiorenzuola d'Arda on 13.03.1947.

Creative consultant for prestigious international advertising agencies such as Young & Rubicam and McCann Erickson, Norberto Civardi has worked on numerous TV commercials for Tabu, Candy Alisè, Mcfarland Red Beer and Coca Cola. He has also worked with several directors including Renzo Martinelli, Alessandro D'Alatri, Peter Care (author of the experimental videos for Clock DVA), Roger Lunn (author of Paul McCarthy's videos), Russell Mulcahy (author of the film Highlander) and Bruce Weber.

Among the most important prizes and awards given to Norberto Civardi are the Clio Award at the New York International Film Festival, the Short List at the Cannes International Film Festival, the Best Animation at the Anipa Award and the Advertising and Success Award at the Venice Film Festival.

Norberto Civardi has also held several pictorial exhibitions at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the Palazzo Reale also in Milan with murals, the International Center of Culture in Amsterdam, the Galleria Biffi Arte in Piacenza, the Pompidou Center in Paris with a video installation for IBM and Expo 2015.

One of the many special art objects made by Civardi and often cited by critics is a large clock-table for the Swatch, purchased by the brand and now exhibited at the Watch Design Museum in Lucerne. Norberto Civardi also participated in the Milanese exhibition Elephant Parade, in 2011: event for which he decorated his Asian elephant inspired by the campaign promoted by Eurofishmarket and Iper in favor of swordfish sustainability and thanks to which he won the Ethic Award of Il Sole 24 Ore. And in this regard the famous painter explained that <<In addition to the references to the marine ecosystem, I placed on the back of the elephant a spring winding, turning this work into a game. Like a child who loves to dream, I would like to save the Asian elephant and the swordfish (...)>>.

It is no coincidence that critics agree that Norberto Civardi's creations often refer to images that seem to come out of Alice in Wonderland, that is, they seem to come out of a dream crowded with characters and bizarre objects, in improbable environments. This is testified, for example, in the Personal exhibition "Toys and Prayers" in which the two words that make up the title of the exhibition seem to be juxtaposed in a blasphemous way, although this is not the case. Many toys in fact come from the world of the sacred such as the swing, the spinning tops and dolls - objects once reserved for the worship of the divinity, but later decayed and no longer focus of this religious activity, solemn. Civardi, however, does not build toys of the sacred, but rather paints sacred objects that become artistic elaborations (and therefore are no longer simple vehicles of concrete activities, objects useful for a specific purpose). Summing up, Norberto Civardi seems to want to free art from commodification in this way and instead place the attention on beauty - and not on the value of common use.

In order to achieve the aforementioned transfiguration of ordinary objects into something other than the means of everyday life, Norberto Civardi often produces shocking and shocking images by juxtaposing Christian symbols with those of animated films in order to make things happen in art that instrumental reason considers impossible. This is why the artist, like a child, subtracts things from their pragmatic value by transforming a stool into a stagecoach, a boulder into a throne, etc., or by making his inner world objective through toys.

As far as the technique is concerned, the color palette of the fiorenzuolano has a rarefied light as when the winter sun dyes the surroundings with chiaroscuro. That is, there is no light that blinds and dazzles with sparkling primary colors, but rather there is a light that is placed on the surroundings to warm rather than to let people see, and this creates a feeling of intimacy and warmth on peripheral details that therefore appear surreal. Not infrequently, finally, in the works of Norberto Civardi some words intervene to narrate in a veiled way, to force the viewer to think when he is in front of the acrylics on tables, chairs, beds, screens and oil on canvas of masterly paintings.