Cesare Reg­giani
Dai­mon

A double book in a hard­cover bind.

48 pages each book.

Size 28x21 cm closed.

One ori­ginal black & white draw­ing on a 30x42 cm. Fab­ri­ano Artist­ico 100% cot­ton board signed by the au­thor.

The two il­lus­trated books, an in­tro­duct­ive text and one of the ori­ginal draw­ings framed in a black passep­ar­tout are in­cluded in a wooden case with a slid­ing cover.

Total size: 32 x 48 cm.

Edi­tion: 50 cop­ies, numbered and signed.

In­tro­duc­tion text in Eng­lish, Italian.

The Artist’s Book “Dai­mon” was presen­ted the first time in 2014 at Palazzo delle Es­pos­iz­ioni in Faenza, Italy, with a large in­stall­a­tion of 50 black and white draw­ings and a movie.

Reg­giani worked di­git­ally on the ori­ginal draw­ings for the second book. Then, the di­gital files had been des­troyed at the end of the work.

A part of the whole art­work is re­pro­duced in the pages of this double album.

The edi­tion of only 50 numbered and signed cop­ies of this Artist’s Book is pro­duced in order to be at­tached to one of the ori­ginal art­works.

This Artist’s Book, Dai­mon, is di­vided into two parts, al­most as if to em­phas­ise a du­pli­city of being: a real­ity (in black and white) and a pos­sib­il­ity (col­our). An­imal styl­ised red sil­hou­ettes also enter into the field in the col­ours part, sym­bol of a con­di­tion pre­cluded to man.

An­im­als as an ex­ample of a dig­nity and of a beauty that do not need claims and jus­ti­fic­a­tions. Such are Reg­giani’s Dai­mons: the Dai­mon of every true artist.

Everything, in Reg­giani, takes place in a crepus­cu­lar di­men­sion, and tinged with mel­an­choly. That same mel­an­choly that still shines from the eyes of the great clas­sical statu­ary and of the off­spring such as Dürer that made a sod of grass and a small hare mo­nu­mental and eternal, and him­self with them, with a fear at the same time of fail­ing in the task and of hav­ing to live in a per­petual state of search­ing and wait­ing.

The Dai­mon ap­pears and dis­ap­pears, between col­our and black and white, and Reg­giani chases them with weapons only of a “bar­ren, hard clas­sical po­etry” (T.S. Eliot). The res­ult is un­cer­tain but noth­ing else is needed.

Let’s go with him!

Franco Ber­toni