Teller & K (also Tellerk) are the Italian artists Erika Gabbani and Daniele Tabellini. Their work falls into the middle lands between installation, drawing, performance and digital arts. From 2003 to 2016 they were known by the stage name Fupete.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Intro
Philosophy
Making visions tangible and three-dimensional. Giving space to emotional intelligence and that which goes beyond reason. Enabling mental journeys, like going onto Mars. To cross over unknown spaces that can be found in our own dark depths. Slow, dark, vivid and moist.
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The projects we have created stem from our ongoing reciprocal dialogue. We bounce ideas off of each other, pass them from hand to hand, and sometimes even throw them into each other’s faces; we both feel free to add, remove or transform, eliminate or destroy work until we both agree that it’s good, that the work is done, and that the essence is there.
We both feel responsible for each project we create and sign, even if there’s only one of us physically under the limelight.
We’re interested in boundaries, combinations and middle grounds. We want to go further, pushing towards the infinite, mixing and remixing in search of the substance and form of vital energy.
Sometimes we give life to powerful imaginary friends, the aleph as the distance between life and death.
Intro
Formal Approach
Drawing is linked to forgetting: we prefer using a soft pencil tip, leaving traces that we choose to never delete. Decades-old paper, full of history. Red, fire and hot wax. We have always designed faceless little men, devils and space dreams with legs and arms. John Berger says that drawing has to do with courage, and we agree with him.
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Digital tools for drawing, programming and physical computing are tools for our artistic work, not vice versa. The only poetic approach is the humanistic one, expressive and improvised: digital brut, as we like to call it.
Canvas is an artistic material, we free it from signs and take it to infinity. The materials we use are environmentally friendly, recycled when possible. Rough, dirty. Life leaves marks. The point of view is flexible, the structures are strict.
The space for expression — be it performance, public, art — is beauty, is free space, is full of tensions, is the site of resistance. Making art is a choice, and a costly one.
Its teaching is done together, it’s a workshop, it’s reasoning over things together: brainstorming, tons of research, ideas, notes, drawings, improvements, the final product-elaboration. It’s learning from others and creating a culture of collaboration.
BIOGRAPHY
Intro
In 2016 Tellerk performed Mitopoiesi 001 feat. Roberto Paci Dalò at the Drawing Biennal in Rimini and presented their new tour of audiovisual concerts, Ad Infinitum, with the musicians Eva & Il Lupo at the Rossini Theater in Casciana Alta (Pisa).
In 2013 they held the self-retrospective Vagabondage at Wild Flowers/NOPX in Turin.
They have lived and worked between Crespina and Florence, Tuscany since 2013.
In 2012 they did live drawings at the Strati Graphie performance on the painting Abstraction (Siqueiros, 1934) at the MAM Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, the first work of the Canvas project at the MIS Museu da Imagem do Som in Sao Paulo Brazil was installed and exhibited, the Cirio Pom Art collection for Cirio Alta Cucina was designed and live drawings for the Twin Tones concert at CCE Centro Cultural de España in Mexico City and at the Ferrocarril Mexicano del Sur Museum in Oaxaca City were carried out.
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In 2011 they got married and did the first performance of the Strati Graphie project on the painting Il Volto Santo (Lorenzo Viani, 1915) at the GAMC Municipal Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Viareggio.
In 2009 they displayed their personal exhibition, Jolly Roger, at the Since Gallery in Paris.
In 2008 they published two monograph books: Punkie Totalista (Fupete. Barcelona: ROJO, 2008, ISBN 978-84-6121-408-2) and Animal Collective (Fupete & Jacklamotta. Rome: Drago, 2008, ISBN 978-88-8849-323-7), they held their first international solo exhibition Punkie Totalista at ROJO Artspace in Barcelona and Tierra y Azul at the Kong Gallery in Mexico City.
Towards the end of 2006 they moved to the village of Crespina in the countryside of Pisa, Tuscany.
In 2005-06 they directed the cultural space gallery Studio Fupete in the Pigneto district of Rome.
In 2004 they began working and living together between Rome and Barcelona.
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PRESSErika Gabbani (1976, Pisa, Italy) is an Artist, Curator and DSA Tutor.
Daniele Tabellini (1975, Livorno, Italy) is an Artist, Hacker and Art Director.