There, I staged a small, half-serious, half-absurd retrospective: an ironic self-sabotage performance in which I publicly put my own artistic career on trial. In my opinion, Stefano was, of course, a key conspirator in all of it.
The starting point was, and still is (as of 2025) ,my side job at Tabularasa srl, a small, smart tool shop in Carrara and Rome, run by Stefano Dazzi himself: friend, supporter, accomplice, and one of the few people who never called me completely insane.
Back then, I often joked that this job would destroy my artistic career. So I turned the joke into an installation:
“TabulaRasa rovina la mia carriera artistica.”
The scene took place on an junkyard in Castelpoggio, old furniture, broken machines, fragments of a world that keeps throwing itself away.
Somewhere in between: me, standing in my underwear, holding a sign, and my sculpture. A small golden Caesar, upside down, balancing his own head on his foot.
A grotesque creature, half hero, half clown, one of my later Pinokels. He stands (or falls) on a tall marble column, a kind of perverse Roman triumphal pillar. Upside down.
TabulaRasa was my ironic comment on the relationship between art, labour, and survival.
I wanted to show that even in the middle of junk, between tool racks and daily routines, you can still create something that lasts, maybe even because you’re surrounded by all that mess.
Stefano understood it right away.
He gave me the tools, the space, the materials, and sometimes even paid for the electricity. He laughed at the title and still took it seriously.
Without him, this piece wouldn’t exist.
Today, I see TabulaRasa as a turning point, one of those strange stations where you realise that failing and continuing are basically the same thing.
A work about irony, friendship, and self-assertion.
And proof that even a ruined career can look pretty alive, if you carve it from marble of course. And if you keep growing, have fun, and, above all, never take yourself too seriously.
Over the years, TabulaRasa became more than just a sculpture. It turned into a strange kind of compass, a guiding line that followed me through my entire artistic path.
That phrase, “TabulaRasa ruins my artistic career”, became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. But not in a tragic way, more like a punchline that turned true.
At some point you stop wanting to be the big shooting star, the genius everyone bows to. You just want to be in tune with yourself, make the work you need to make.
Maybe fuck someone’s brain once in a while with your art.
Have enough to eat. And if it doesn’t rain through the roof, life’s already good.
Girl and your dog by your side and an old Mercedes parked out front, that’s the golden ending.
I don’t need more than that.
Because seriousness never beats irony.
Carrara 2012
