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Since the 14th Century, men have been accustomed to seeing picture frames simply
as accessories to art. Structures that surround and support paintings and, subsequently, other artistic expressions: simple containers.
Now, suddenly - in one clear and decisive act - Daniele Cima is turning the container
into the content. The object becomes the subject.
In framing themselves, his “frames” lose their limited (and delimited) function, they
ascend the steps of the hierarchy of values and become autonomous and complete
works of art: no longer frames, but “Auto-frames”.
His frames move from the periphery of the image to the centre, they become the
centre itself: finally the frame has become the picture.
They no longer contain images, they are themselves the images. They are no longer
functional, they are totally devoid of function (if you consider art to be without
function).
Cima creates his original pieces starting with pre-existing frames; he exaggerates
their ornamental aspect, he subdivides their surfaces with colour, draws new shapes
and spaces to arrive at a radically new interpretation, a different and unforeseeable
meaning.
A sort of transposition into the visual context of a characteristic concept of the
Russian formalists: “Form is simply content that flows into form, and vice versa”.
The artist is not timid in his use of colour, he dares to make unusual colour
combinations - the aesthetics of which, however, are subjected to a Teutonic
geometric rigour.
A disciplined order of form is created in contrast with a surprising and courageous
fusion of codes and messages that speak out for life, positivity and optimism.
Daniele Cima daringly risks intense, decisive, lively colours tinged by something of a Latin American culture, by the psychedelic summer of the West Coast, by the
Memphis design of Ettore Sottsass, by Bollywood styling and by the multi-coloured
houses of Whitehead, La Boca, or Bo Kaap.
We also find subtle allusions in the Auto-frames to Josef Albers, Piet Mondrian,
Peter Blake, Frank Stella, Robert Indiana, Shigeo Fukuda...
The shrill and vital colours of Cima's works penetrate and light up the darkness of this era in history, they represent a powerful antidote to the “total black”, the contemporary trend in fashion and thought.

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