Accelerazione (Acceleration) is an exhibition on the variegated graphic output of Stefano Tamburini, a prophetic “media engineer” whose work – ranging from design to music, by way of fashion, publishing and advertising – is reinterpreted in the light of the theme of acceleration, already central to his oeuvre and expanded here through written contributions by the philosopher Franco “Bifo” Berardi, the theorist Amy Ireland, the DJ and musician Steve Goodman and the designer Silvio Lorusso.

Killed by an overdose when he was just 30 years old, and famous in the world of comics as the inventor of the character Ranxerox – the ultra-violent cyborg inspired by the upheaval of 1977 in Rome and forerunner of figures like the Terminator – Stefano Tamburini was actually an all-around interpreter of the passage which led to the hyper-mediatized reality of the 1980s from the torrid climate of the Italian Sessantotto.

After making his debut very early in life in the underground sphere, in 1977 Tamburini founded the movement magazine Cannibale, which in 1980 triggered the monthly Frigidaire, his main creation and an ideal forum for all his future visual experiments. . For Frigidaire Tamburini took the role of graphic designer, developing the magazine’s cold and maximal aesthetic: using an iconic zigzag line made with pinking shears to add a sense of restless movement to the layout, obliquely inserting zones of colour, relying on striking lettering and conducting conceptual experiences of meta-fashion and Xerox art, Tamburini formulated a very personal street savvy response – frigid, ornery and coatta – to the emergent postmodern imaginary. He favoured plundered citation and deconstruction of the modern over its detached recuperation, the humour of the Roman outskirts where he was raised over the bourgeois irony of Milan, embodied by Mendini and Sottsass.

The exhibition reprises the artist’s typical attitude of pilfering and mixture of images, presenting a visual apparatus that abandons the concept of originality to dismantle the display of the fetish.  

STEFANO TAMBURINI (Rome, 1955-1986) was an Italian graphic designer, cartoonist and musician. He made his debut in 1974 with the short comic strip stories Fuzzy Rat, published in the Roman underground magazine Combinazioni. Between 1975 and 1977 he collaborated with Stampa Alternativa as an illustrator and graphic designer, creating book covers, illustrations, logos and flyers. Together with Marco D’Alessandro and Massimo Mattioli he founded in 1977 Cannibale, a comic magazine on which Filippo Scozzari, Andrea Pazienza and Tanino Liberatore would publish and for which, in 1978, Tamburini drew the character of Ranxerox. In 1980 Tamburini is among the founders, together with Vincenzo Sparagna and Filippo Scozzari, of Frigidaire magazine, for which he creates graphics and layout, also inventing the stories of Snake Agent through the manipulation of old comics by using a photocopier. Throughout his life he made numerous graphics: from medicine asvertising and promotional gadgets for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Italia, to illustrations for magazines such as Uomo Vogue, fashion provocation projects such as the Vudu Moda series of postcards in which he proposed models and clothes he invented, advertisements and graphics for the Primo Carnera publishing house, posters for events and exhibitions.
He collaborated with musician Maurizio Marsico, writing lyrics for songs like Tongue In Cheek Giulia, My Head Is A Broken Heart, and Crish Crash. He also produced a music tape titled Thalido Music For Young Babies, sewing together bizarre sounds and noises, plagiarized and subversive sound fragments, released under the false name of the Italo-Hungarian performer Mongoholy-Nazy. For Frigidaire magazine, he took on the role of Red Vinyle, a severe and ironic music critic who debunks the most successful bands and singers.