The Artificial Colors of the Ocean, 2023, plastic caps, colored aluminum foil, red netting placed in three Plexiglas cases, each measuring 14 9/64 × 14 1/16 × 2 3/64 in.
©Foto Massimo Listri
Maria Cristina Finucci (Lucca 1956)
An architect and artist, from a very young age she has embraced and experimented with various forms of expression, such as painting, sculpture, architecture, design, video art and film post-production. Her ongoing project, Wasteland, takes the form of a constellation of installations and actions throughout the world, aimed at drawing a map of clues that provocatively suggest the existence of a “nation of garbage.” This led to the creation of a new state, the Garbage Patch State, which took place in 2013 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris: in doing so, Finucci wants to provide a concrete image of the environmental disaster caused by plastic waste in the ocean. Her numerous monumental installations include: The Garbage Patch State Pavilion in the context of the Art Biennale, Venice, 2013; The Embassy at Museo MAXXI, Rome, 2014; The Vortex, Fondazione Bracco, Milan EXPO, 2015; Climatesaurus, COP 21, Paris, 2015; Help the Ocean, Roman Forum, Basilica Giulia, 2018, What About the 8%?, IIC, Los Angeles, 2022; H2o, Fuorisalone, Milan, 2023. In 2018, as Head of State, Finucci “signed” the UN Agenda 2030 resolution on sustainable development. Her work has received numerous awards and has been exhibited in national and international museums and institutions. In February 2019, she was named Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2022 she founded the Finucci Foundation, a non-profit organization that uses art to raise collective awareness of ocean pollution, the destruction of the planet, and social inequality.
The work is part of the Wasteland cycle, started by the artist in 2012 and still ongoing. Wasteland is a transmedia work that uses various means of expression in synergy in order to build the image of a sovereign nation, the Garbage Patch State. Along with the installations that have been presented throughout the world, Finucci has produced smaller works, often using material recovered from her monumental works. The triptych The Artificial Colors of the Ocean was made using red netting from the installation The Age of Plastic (Isola di Mozia, Sicily, 2016). The bottle caps also came from the same work, but they were wrapped in aluminum foil of various colors to create different shades and obtain luster. Among the multiple interpretations of Finucci’s work, the one that refers to “reuse” is the most immediate; as a matter of fact, the artist never relies on waste material in her work, but she often uses recycled plastic caps as the symbol of the positive attitude of the many people who have virtuously set them aside to give them a new life. (Fondazione Finucci)