In a world of over-produced images how and why does an artist engage with the history of (photographic) reproduction? In the age of digital photographic capture, we frequently groan at many a trite encapsulation of the banal. Visual diarrhoea can seep everywhere. Waves of familiarity can sickeningly race over me as I search for something new that combines an understanding of photography’s history with a fresh application to produce stimulating visuals. I tend to feel guilt as my eyes lap-up sumptuous images that appeal to my personal tendency towards realist aesthetics. Contradictory, I know. I know. I feel pulled into the world of the history of visual culture in order to figure how photography fits into a broader artistic framework. Artists such as Fabio Marco Pirovino sit squarely in my dilemma; I have to search for the photographic.

The famous ‘McLuhan equation’ offers a red herring of a framework to ebb and flow within; gently washing over various thoughts about the relationship that an artist, such as Pirovino, has to his tool kit and the gallery as outlet (with all its art world particularities). Which tool will he pick up today? Each tool offers a different possibility, a different process, and possibly appeals to a different section of the art-viewing audience. Context as a framework for artistic production can’t be defied when viewing his work; it’s predetermined here. His work is produced for walls: gallery walls. It also yearns critics: art critics. Do we need to know what ‘he knows’ to observe his work and fully appreciate his engagement with the medium. I would suggest yes. It is highly informed work.

The context of the art world provokes a need to understand and unravel what is seen, and gather an experience from that engagement by uncoiling the scribbles and considering the history behind work such as Razzle Dazzle (2010). Pre-existing knowledge of the symbolic history of Guernica, painted by Picasso in 1937, is a necessary springboard to hit squarely before departure into the processing that he deftly subjects this painting to in the digital domain. Pirovino reworked this famous and widely re-produced image for a new wall, this time an outside gallery wall. The resulting image appears camouflaged. It is controlled, re-produced content produced by an appropriately reductive digital process.

In Pirovino’s recent Scribble (Drawing) XXV (2015), the very history of markmaking itself is the fodder for digital re-production and re-working. This compilation is an orchestration of erratic, continuous and coiled digital imagery that journeys across the canvas in a tantalizing way. This visually striking scribble, perfectly charcoal-coloured, is reminiscent of the therapeutic applications of random mark-making fresh from the inner workings of a child’s mind or the aggressive ousting of interior confusion from the disturbed mind. Mesmerizingly, its associations can lead the viewer to many a chapter in the history of art but remains acutely photographic.

Biography is an important aspect of the journey to artistic production. The geographical backdrop to his thinking is, too. Many years of working with ‘publics’ in galleries have taught me to deal with specific questions about biographical and geographical knowledge: the ‘glocal’ aspects of art enquiry. The reception and transmission of ideas in that special place is unique but it also varies enormously with geography. The conversation between artist and audience is important, whether the artist is present or not.

As for galleries: I almost feel they need to be more like swimming pools, with a sort of disinfectant chamber before you enter. Drop your inhibitions and contaminations here, and enter with a free, cleansed mind. Come as yourself and bring your own, personal, naked knowledge; you are entering a territory with its own conventions. Learn from your artist, look at his references. But, there again, I’m an educator not a curator.