In occasione della VIII edizione di Arte all’Arte, i curatori Elio Grazioli and Hou Hanru hanno invitato Sarkis ha realizzare un opera per Poggibonsi, La fontana dell’acquerello
"Sarkis was born in Istanbul in 1938 and has lived in Paris since 1964. Active since the 1960s, he took part in When Attitudes Become Form (1969), and has participated in numerous international events, including two editions of Documenta in Kassel, three editions of the Venice Biennale, and many other exhibitions around the world.
His greatest quality as an artist is his ability to perfectly combine his cultural origins with the contemporary tradition of Western art, to which he adds local cultural elements from the places where he is invited to exhibit and intervene. He does the same with the blending of ancient and contemporary techniques, and with references to original archetypes, not without allusions to recent episodes in art.
Because of these characteristics, he moves today between art that has found in anthropology an essential core of its research and the so-called ‘relational’ art, which sees the active involvement of viewers as an intrinsic mode of the work.
The project for Arte all’Arte revisits one of his recent favorite themes: the relationship between color and transparency, and therefore light, depth, immateriality, transition, and transformation—elements he has long explored through the use of watercolor and glass. These ancient techniques, yet rich in contemporary implications, are treated in a wide variety of forms, culminating in the memorable series of short videos 25 Films de Saché, 1997–98, a small compendium of the possibilities of his work.
In a square in Poggibonsi, already a place of gathering for the town, Sarkis places a fountain sui generis, composed of 12 small basins that can be used by anyone who wishes to create watercolors. A ritual, a game, a creative engagement, with Sarkis as the first initiator and teacher of the initial workshop, which will then remain permanently available to the community."
Arte all’Arte VIII, 2003
