(Typo)graphics  > I TAPPITRATTI

I TAPPITRATTI – the portraits made with caps (of beer bottles) started with IL TAPPITRATTO of Charles Bukowski. i was asked by my friend Lucio Strippoli if i wanted to do a wall-work in a new bar he wanted to open and if i could help him thinking about a name – i was proposing LUNA – LU, the beginning of his name and NA, the end of the name of his wife TiziaNA.. he liked it, so when i was sitting next to this space looking at it i liked that you could see it from far – one time through the door at the end of the tunnel-space on the only big wall, one time coming from a street through a huge window. so then i was imagining something which changes perceptibility with the distance of the observer. LUNA, round, beer caps – Bukowski. i went very quick also because i knew how much Lucio likes pop art, the beatniks, their literature, Bukowski. so right away we told all bars in town (Polignano a Mare) so save all caps from all beers and some months later we could start – me and my fantastic assistant at this time, Enrico Eugeni. the most difficult was to find out how to do it, to generate the image from which we would build il Tapitratto, cap by cap, line by line. having that done it was just four intensive days nailing about 7000 caps onto a round plywood. after Lucio gave his bar to other people some months they changed completely style and i took Tappitratto out. now its as a guest-image in Peppino Campanellas laboratory nearby. i didn’t sell the work, Lucio paid the production and together we are the owners. we’ll see what we’ll do with it. but one thing i didn’t get out of my mind anymore and therefor just started a new Tappitratto – this question: if the person which i portrait is the message, what is the messenger (resp. the media) to transport this message? you may think Bukowski is made out of beer bottles because he liked to drink. right, that was also my first thought, but when i saw the work done and how it changes depth because of the very different reflecting surfaces these caps have, i was happy to realize that there is something much more interesting in it. the image is as enigmatic because of this always-changing effect as Bukowski seems to me. the next portrait it did because of this question was from Edward Snowden. and right know i am working on a much larger portrait of Romy Schneider aka Sissi (…) made out of SEMMEL (buns). you can see first studies and the result at the bottom of this page.

< IMAGES

– 1st, the completed work, ∅ 230 cm, approx. 1000 crown caps from beer bottles and few other drinks

– 2nd, the image i was working on and the precise template i generated from it

– 3th, 4th, some images from the process

– 5th, Pepinos lab where il Tappitratto is hosted now

– 6th, study/template for Tappitratto II from “Sissi”, ∅ 400 cm, made with approx. 12.000 images of colored buns

– 7th, work in progress, spring 2016

– 8th, seen from 30 ≈meters (on open image)

– 9th, the finished work

– 10th, the pixel-buns i was creating and using