arte

Welcome back, readers of signoradeifiltri, here we are for a new appointment. For this occasion, after meeting many old artists, today I introduce you to a young man.

Unfortunately, we still have a problem with our means of locomotion, in this last period we are not very lucky, but in our blog we have the most powerful antivirus in the world and, therefore, Matteo Gentili, the great writer lent to motoring, gave back to us the 600 by minibus, borrowed from the pacifist nuns, perfectly in order, just missing the engine. On the other hand, he installed a pedal, so now, assisted by my Libereria team of pedalers, pedaling we will go to get the young Keith Haring.

I introduce them, they are all passionate writers with a loose verb, today they will pedal for you: Marta Bandi, author of Parlami di un fiore, Roberto Inzitari, author of Se rinasco m’impegno di più, Roberto Stasolla, author of Il Valore del peccato Alessandro Mazzà, author of Ne varietur and Laurent Verken de Vreuschmen author of Qualcuno inadeguato.

But you look carefully, stop to imagine, between the lines you will see hearts full of love, the names are the cradles of the questions that I protect, that I am afraid, that I contain, so much missing, nothing is missing who saves your heart has saved you whole . @ libereria2017

Come on guys, you have the mini bar, color TV, a giant picture of Totti, pastries, chocolates and the vanilla-scented environment, so now we pedal, we are late.

For those who have not understood, this car goes by pedal, on the other hand it does not pollute and does not consume fuel. Excellent for athletic training, you will soon see similar ones going normally on all national and international roads. Guys, don't complain, there are those who pay to go to the gym, aren't you happy? But here, I see Keith Haring at the end of the avenue. Very well, I call him.

- Hi Keith!

- Hi everyone, nice this bus!

- Keith, can I introduce you to my friends?

- Of course, what are you doing?

- We are writers.

- Writers? Interesting ... Guys, where are you taking me?

- We can go to Pisa and then take a ride to the sea, would you like to pedal?

- Oh yes, good idea. On a wall of that city there is a piece of my heart.

Keith Haring (Reading, May 4, 1958 - New York, February 16, 1990)

Keith Haring can be considered a predestined artist because, thanks to the influence of his father, passionate about comics and graphics, he has shown great interest in the world of comics since childhood. After the first school phase, his father made him continue his studies in the field of advertising graphics, very fashionable at that time, but Keith's personality led him to go outside the box. He could not stand the cold tools typical of graphics, the sitting at a table keeping his imagination in check. The limits of the advertising standards were not for him and so he abandoned his studies. To support himself, like many young people, he practiced many different jobs, a situation that did not prevent him from drawing and reading. At twenty years of age, in his enthusiasm and creative strength, he organized his first exhibition. From Pennsylvania he moved to New York, the big apple was the capital of American art, he enrolled in the art academy and started an exciting new life, he made contact with new friends and the fun was guaranteed, the maximum for a promising young man.

But the school, the walls of the school building, are like a prison, the didactic rules of artistic learning once again a loop in the throat, cuffs for the wrists and a sleeping pill for his imagination. So he still leaves school and goes out into the street, every corner is a source of inspiration, freedom of expression is total and Keith Haring is not alone. There is an air of pictorial anarchy among young people, no myth to follow, no master to imitate, street art is fire and flames of colours, a whirlwind of novelty among young people.

In 1980 the first underground exhibition took place in which Keith Haring participated with great enthusiasm. Street art was now his home and the other art writers were his brothers, the subway, probably because it was sheltered from the weather, the safest place to do a laboratory.

Keith Haring did not take long to succeed and so, thanks to a gallery owner who had had a forward-looking eye, in 1982, with his personal exhibition in which some established artists intrigued by Keith's inspiration participated as visitors, he began his climb.

His originality took him around Europe and by the end of the 1980s he had become a star. Unfortunately New York could have been heaven but also hell, the artist in those years contracted the unfortunate disease of the century. While his state of health progressively worsened, he managed to create his last great work Tuttomondo in Pisa, Italy. Upon returning to New York, on February 16, 1990, still very young, he died. The art world lost one of its most talented figures.

- Keith, drawing for you was like the voice for a singer, how did you feel when you drew?

- Walter, it was so easy for me, the pencil, or any of my tools, was one with my arm. I drew effortlessly - the lines, the curves, the features with which I created my figures - for me it was like dancing, floating with the fantasy on the sound waves of my happiness, inside me I felt invisible music and my hand went alone on the rhythm that made me feel good. Did you ask me how I felt? I felt light, almost transparent but still with great strength. In those moments I had the strength of Popeye.

- When you moved to New York, were you afraid? You left the province for a megacity.

- At home, of course, I was feeling well, even if, with a pencil in my hand and a stylus, I turned into a super hero, with my round glasses, a few dishevelled hairs on my head, my slouchy walk, like a comic always with the usual sweatshirt. In short, I felt a little out of place, on the one hand I was a weak boy, as an artist I was in ecstasy on another dimension and, at that moment, only New York could give me the opportunity to make my dreams come true.

- Keith, what was your relationship with people?

- I liked people, I have never been a lone wolf, I loved working in crowded places where everyone could enjoy my imagination, anyone could ask me what I was doing and I loved to answer, explaining and laughing with them, in short, mine artist life was alive, lively and fun.

Rreaders of the blog, whose pages are like spring, today we will have a great protagonist of the Impressionist movement. But before I reveal his identity to you, I confess to feel excited because, probably, of all the Impressionists he was the most important and, if he had not been so stubborn as to reject all the aspirations of the father who wanted him employed in something else, we would never have had an exstraordinary artist.

I'm going to pick him up on our 500. Here he is, ladies and gentlemen: Edouard Manet.

- Hi Edouard, come on.

- Hi Walter, thanks for inviting me, where are we going?

- How about Piazza Navona? We sit in front of Borromini and look at Bernini's fountains (then we go to Pasquino).

- I accept, I trust you, I like your means of locomotion.

- Would you like a coffee? A sweet treat? A prosecchino?

- I'd really prefer a cappuccino.

- Fasten your seat belts, we'll be at the bar in five minutes.

- Matteo Gentili has installed a one hundred thousand watt solar panel and has put two pistons of a Lamborghini Miura, who knows where he will have found them.

- Edouard, here we are, do you know that we had other distinguished guests in this bar?

- I am pleased to. Come on, let's not talk about artists of the past, what is your first question?

- What do you think of modern art?

- Modern art does not exist, or rather, it would be good not to give it a classification. Art must be constantly evolving, which does not mean ignoring the production of the past but working on the continuous search for new languages. And users do not have to side with one style or another but only enjoy and assimilate the wind of passion transmitted by a piece of art.

Edouard Manet (Paris, 23 January 1832 - Paris, 30 April 1883)

As a young man he had the luck / misfortune of living in front of the Academy of Fine Arts, a fundamental point of reference for every artist. Lucky because he had his destiny at hand, unfortunate because in the family they stubbornly disapproved of his natural talent. Only a maternal uncle, who had recognized innate qualities in him, encouraged him to pursue his dreams. But his father wanted him to be a magistrate, and so Manet, at sixteen, thought of rebellion before enrolling in the Naval Academy, from which he was also rejected, then embarking as a deckhand on a commercial ship. The father accepted, Manet could do anything but the artist.

But the father had not considered the tenacity of the son. On board and on land in Brazil, after four months of sailing, Edouard filled notebooks and notebooks with notes and sketches.

On his return he tried again to enroll in the Naval Academy, rejected again. At this point the father, convinced that he had a failed son, exhausted by the obstinacy of the future prince of Impressionism, left him free to study art.

At this point Manet begins a new life, his only life, the one in which he could demonstrate his value and his true essence. After his studies, six long years of apprenticeship with an established artist, and after traveling to Holland and Italy, temple of art, in 1856, intolerant of his mentor's schemes, slamming the door, he left the atelier where he was employed.  

Paris at that time is the paradise of art, realist art is supplanting painting linked to classical and mythological schemes, and Manet manages to refine and personalize his technique.

He shares the philosophy of Gustave Courbet and is appreciated by Delacroix. While recognizing their ideals, he prefers to keep away from the group of realist artists. He is too well educated to frequent the usual meeting places with them. Manet knows all the most popular artists but does not socialize, selects his friends carefully and, probably, thanks to Charles Baudelaire he finds the strength and courage to wander with his talent on canvases of great beauty which, however, presented in public are not appreciated.

But by now he has become a revolutionary. Breakfast on the grass and Olympia are his calling card, he is proving to be a great artist but he is unpopular with the public and all the critics who consider him mad. In this case the saying "for better or for worse as long as you talk about it" is appropriate. The more they speak ill of it, the more he is artistically on everyone's lips.

Manet is too sensitive. Not resisting the pressure, he leaves for Spain, where he does not find the inspiration he seeks. He returns home, now labeled a provocateur and nonconformist.

He has the support of writers and artists but he is alone against everyone, so he decides to team up with young emerging artists, rebels against official painting, among which, Pizarro, Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Degas who give life to the Impressionist movement .

Manet is the leader but, having no phisique du role, nor the ambition to put any medal on his chest, he is the theorist detached with the headlights off, remaining in the shadow of the nascent successful movement. In the meantime, opposition to his modern art has gradually diminished, and he has regained credit on the art scene. Stopping on his theories, Manet paid a heavy price for his resisting attacks.

His physique debilitated by always going against the current, first against his father and subsequently against criticism, is weakened and exhausted. Between 1881 and 1882 he made the one piece of art emblem of his great talent and his last existential state: The bar of the follies Berger.

He died in Paris on April 30, 1883, now deceased, he receives great honours and recognition for his value.

This is how Edouard Manet expresses himself towards one of his latecomer admirers: "It could have been he who decorated me. He would have given me luck, now it is too late to repair twenty years of failure." Furthermore, ironically and bitterly, he told a critic who did not have the courage to tell the truth and admit his immense skill: "I would not mind finally reading, alive, the amazing article that will consecrate me after death".

- Edouard, why have you never tried to be a "genius and unruly" artist? It would have avoided you many sorrows.

- Walter, surely I would have overcome obstacles by acting crazy, instead I was taken for crazy by behaving in a formal and civil way. I had to raise my voice but I wasn't capable of it. Why scream and take my opponents by the collar when my art was so clear and natural? Actually, I was an honest and good person, but shy and reserved.

- Of course, the world in all eras is not for gentlemen, I believe that they did not see you favourably for an unconscious envy, a sort of jealousy. You proposed real life when the right-thinking people hid their mikschieves masked with respectability,  double-faced hypocrites.

- Yes, but luckily art walks, walks, over the centuries it has always been like this, art walks and goes on overcoming the temporal barrier of ordinary mortals. Common mortals perish, art survives forever.

- Edouard, what do you think that flying thing is?

- It looks like a paper airplane hovering in the air.

- That looks like a pirouette.

- The round of death too.

-It comes towards us. It glides gently on this table.

- There are words written on it, Edouard, do you want to read them?

- I think fate made it fly, they are very intense words and written with true love, who is the author?

- It is written at the foot of the page ...

"Edward runs towards the bench and immediately recognizes the pink note from a notebook that he had given him and his writing, always so orderly and clear as to seem printed, caresses him, as if that sheet could transmit that fear and that affection, and he reads all in one breath ". Signed Mariateresa Scionti 1 + 1 = 1 Libereria editions

- What we have read and what has come to us from heaven is from a book and the author is called Mariateresa.

- Walter, I think this book is about a suffered love. Do you know that sometimes suffering depends on too much love? For example, my father loved me and wanted the best for me, his desire for love was so great that it blurred his sight, he didn't see that I was attracted to art, he loved me and he was afraid for me. My father knew that at his departure he could not protect me and therefore, following his standards, he preferred a peaceful and rewarding life for me. Instead he didn't understand that he hurt me, his was too much love, he certainly didn't want to harm me, he just wanted my good and I didn't have time to thank him and tell him that being an artist was what I wanted and that made me happy. Although I was misunderstood in my career, when I was painting I was happy and this was enough for me. Heaven sent these words to me, I want my father to read them too and maybe he will smile.

- Or weep.

- Sincere love agrees to laugh and also to cry, I think this is what Mariateresa Scionti means in her 1 + 1 = 1. In the end it is only the confirmation that this feeling is a simple and only word ... love ... Walter, I'm going to tell my father. Come on, let's get back in the car I have to reach him.

- Okay, that would be a nice happy ending. By the way, now here at the bar there would be a small bill to pay.

- Let's run, there is no time, leave it to the next artist, who will he be?

- I think a penniless young man.

- Don't worry, his art is worth gold.

- It is better that we leave. So, after the flight with Picasso, here at the bar they are resigned.

Readers of Signoradeifiltri I, Edouard Manet and Mariateresa Scionti greet you and look forward to seeing you at the next appointment and it will always be a pleasure.

Amici lettori della signoradeifiltri, bentornati al nostro blog che, grazie alla cultura, vince lo stress da virus. Eccoci per una nuova intervista, solo un attimo che chiamo il mio amico Matteo Gentili, lo scrittore prestato all'automobilismo, il quale dovrebbe aver modificato il motorino d’avviamento della 500 sostituendolo con quello di un trattore, che a sua volta ha preso in prestito sostituendolo a quello del trattore di Antonio lo Frate che non se ne accorgerà perché con la fantasia è da una settimana che sta’ sognando la California.

Readers of signoradeifiltri, welcome back to our blog which, thanks to culture, overcomes the stress of viruses. Here we are for a new interview, just a moment, I call my friend Matteo Gentili, the writer lent to motoring, who should have modified the starter of the 500 by replacing it with that of a tractor, which in turn he took by replacing it with that of Antonio Lo Frate's tractor, who will not notice it because with fantasy he has been dreaming of California for a week.

- Hello Matteo, then can we be quiet tonight?

- Walter, calm as a fisherman from Lake Trasimeno, I'll bring you the 500 in ten minutes.

- Perfect, I'll wait for you with Majlinda in the square.

Majlinda Petraj, aka Mishel, will go out at night to meet a very important Italian artist.

- Majlinda are you worried?

- Well, I have made our story safe among the lines of thousand-year-old poems, so for millennia everyone will know how much I loved you.

- But then you love me!

- But no, I wasn't saying to you, it is the overture of my book Planet hear".

- I almost believed it, ah, here comes Matteo.

- Guys, you see I’m early? So where are you going?

- Yeah, Walter, where are we going?

- We are going to interview Mimmo Rotella but I promised him we would help him out.

- To do what?

- To tear the posters off the walls. Lately our artist is a little short of material., Now advertising is television, virtual, subliminal, telephone and digital, in short, the advertising channels have amplified, even the election posters, due to the crisis, have shrunk and, there are also many plastic billboards around. In short, for traditional paper posters there is no room anymore and so tonight we have to go around Rome in search of the torn poster.

- But I'm a writer!

- Majlind, the night is a source of inspiration and then, on board the 500, we have coffee, mini bar and super tech music.

- Then may I come too?

- Matteo, could you look out?

- Triple sandwich with porchetta?

- Yeah. Come on, let's start. Mimmo Rotella is waiting for us at the Trevi Fountain

Mimmo Rotella, (Catanzaro, 7 October 1918 - Milan, 8 January 2006)

If we think about the date of birth of this artist, it would seem a time so far away that we could  ask how such a modern and revolutionary character could have been born in an era so close to the 1800s. The explanation is in the fact that Mimmo Rotella was naturally endowed with an intense intellectual liveliness and with a creative enthusiasm such as to overcome any preconceived scheme. Immediately after the war, after first studying and then teaching art in Catanzaro, he moved to Rome, where he joined the groups of young rampant artists, to bring art out of the ashes of the war drama. But it was during the 1950s and 1960s that Mimmo Rotella bravely left for Europe and the United States to expand his artistic experience. This impact with new exciting realities, as far away as a galaxy, will illuminate him on his being an artist. They will be intense years of meetings and contacts with the most propulsive artistic environment of the moment, and the eclectic Calabrian artist will space, with his talent and his art, between painting, decollage, photography, typographic technique, audio recordings and experimental poetry. Precisely for this reason Mimmo Rotella will not bask in enjoying success but will take a running, always ready to experiment with new techniques in search of a new language.

He puts aside brushes, canvases, tubes of colour, tools that are no longer enough for him and, in 1953, after returning to Rome he discovers, as electrocuted by the god of art, that world, his world, which will make him famous and protagonist of pop art. From that moment on, he worked closely with the artists of like him who, around the world, invented a new realism, a steady point of modern art for which Mimmo Rotella could be considered the Italian answer. In 1980 he settled in Milan and until 8 January 2006, the day of his death, he worked tirelessly and left a significant mark on the art world.

- Mimmo, we are happy to meet you, I brought the reinforcements with me.

- Me too, but four of us won't be a little tight inside this 500?

- But no, fantasy broadens horizons, let me introduce you to my friends, they are two writers: Majlinda Petraj and Matteo Gentili.

- Nice to meet you, did you bring gloves?

- We have everything: books to read, coffee, sandwiches, whiskey & soda, chocolate and cigarettes, indeed no, cigarettes not because they seriously harm health. Not art, Mimmo?

- You can swear to it but, I said ... did you wear gloves?

- Mimmo I have to be a back guard.

- And I will look out at Matteo.

- But I brought the uniforms from fake dustmen.

- Then Matteo and Majlinda look out, you and I dress up as scavengers and get the artistic material.

- Okay, let's get busy. Now that we are talking about these expired ex-election posters, I like to imagine you when, in the silence of the Roman night, you wandered alone on the streets to tear the posters from the walls, to give them new life. I can see you happy as a boy, with bundles of posters tied and held in your arm. I see you load the car driven by your creative enthusiasm, an impossible courage for ordinary mortals. I dare not think of the comments of the people of the nightlife of that time, "La dolce vita". Groups of people intoxicated with cheerful and excited frenzy, while meeting a man from behind who had his eyes full of fantasy, in the act of recovering precious material because it was still alive in the colours and original in the form. Of course you had to have an unprecedented resistance and strength of character in order not to hear the jokes and the boos of the people who perhaps mistaken you for an old fool.

- Walter, to be an artist you have to be a little crazy, or rather a reasonable madman, a madman who knows how to isolate himself and see the invisible who then materializes in art. At that moment you are on another dimension and everything around you does not exist. However, I didn't have time to worry about others, art for me was the factory of my dreams.

- Hey, guys, there are people coming. They look at us, what do we do?

- Let's be what we are, street artists. Majlinda, wouldn't you have a poem to act?

- Yes Mimmo, of course.

- Please, put a lot of emphasis on it! Like on a stage!

Majlinda puts on her glasses, messes a little, becomes serious, takes a breath and ...

The girl looks at Matteo with tender and dreamy eyes, she would like to kiss him, he approaches her, puts a chewed gum in her hat. A little snobbish, she slips away with the others into the darkness of the Roman night illuminated by suffused street lamps.

- Guys, what do we do then?

- Cappuccino and hot croissants?

- And the posters to tear?

- Enough for this night. Matteo, throw that chewed gum in the trash, load the posters and get in the car.

- Mimmo, where did all your energy come from?

- From hunger.

- From hunger? And why?

- If you want to fly you have to stay light, light without ballast in the head, without feeling swollen with your ego that distracts you and makes you lose love. Instead, you have to love your art, with love you have to work the matter with which you mix yourself, your soul becomes matter made of love, the same love that your two writer friends sing. Theirs is a delicate, passionate, intense, suffered love, a love that you desire, pursue and achieve only if you are hungry. Is it true that you poets too are hungry for love?

- Mimmo, we are always looking for it. If you knew how hard it was to find the right words.

- It's easy, just take a pen and write without being smart.

- That's all?

- Eh! ... Okay, I'm sure that you two, with those clean faces, are real poets, but, speaking of cunning, I understand that lately a rich drink at the bar has been paid with a can of shit.

- It was an artist's shit that of Piero (Manzoni).

-Ah so what are we going to pay with now? With the torn posters with these trou du cul faces printed on them?

- Mimmo they would be a bit bulky.

- And then what?

- Once with Picasso we g drank and ran off on a Vespa.

- Aren't you crazy?

- Majlinda and Matteo, do you have any of your books?

- I have Planet Heart.

-I The Tales of a Stranger.

-It would be a lot of stuff ... Ok, very well, I have a caricature of Mario er benzinaro. Let Mimmo Rotella sign an autograph. We go to the bar, we drink, we leave what we have and then we leave.

- Well, what if the bartender doesn't accept?

- We tell him to let Edouard Manet's pay the bill because he knows about the bar, he is one of us .

- Mimmo, the last question.

- You are welcome.

- If you hadn't been an artist, what would you have done?

- The farmer, because nobody wants to do it anymore and I would still be an original visionary. I would grow salad and tomatoes, grapes and apricots, every day I would be happy to live in contact with nature, our sister, friend, lover. Like a good farmer I would see the sun and the moon with attentive and spontaneous eyes, caress the earth and then paint the sky with my fingers. Nature among artists is the most authentic, the best.

- And the torn posters?

- That was a legacy of unbridled consumerism, it was the fall of the gods, the demystifyzation of vanity. As a farmer in the countryside I would not have needed it.

Readers of signoradeifiltri, we would like to take you with us for breakfast but it is night and maybe you are sleeping. I, Mimmo Rotella, Majlinda Petraj and Matteo Gentili greet you, and it will still be a pleasure to see you again at the next meeting with a new surprise artist.

Amici lettori della signoradeifiltri, bentornati ai nostri incontri artistici, oggi voglio fare un cambiamento di programma, il periodo che stiamo vivendo lascia poco spazio alla nostra immaginazione e ha stravolto il nostro quotidiano, le nostre abitudini, tutte le cose che amavamo fare quindi, tratta dal libro Parlami di un fiore, opera della mia amica Marta Bandi pubblicata con @libereria, voglio recitarvi questa poesia il cui titolo è

E’ MAGIA

Godere di un incontro

Inaspettato, occasionale

Programmato, anelato

Assaporato, capitato,

Godere di un silenzio

carico di parole

non necessarie

non richieste

in bilico tra gli sguardi.

Godere di due battiti

Che si accordano

Si sintonizzano

Nella magia di un abbraccio

Marta Bandi

Attraverso la poesia mi piace pensare che presto tutto tornerà come prima, meglio di prima. Per ritornare alle nostre interviste, oggi avremo ospite un artista dal cognome altisonante, Piero Manzoni. L’appuntamento è al solito bar, ho chiesto alla mia amica scrittrice di accompagnarmi per fare un break con il covid19.

 Marta, sei contenta di questa occasione?

 Anche se non sono abituata mi fa molto piacere. Spero che non tu non mi faccia  spingere la 500 come con Laurent.

 No, tranquilla, oggi abbiamo un altro mezzo di locomozione.

Ah! Meno male, e qual è?

Non lo so, lo deciderà Piero Manzoni, ecco che arriva.

Carissimo, grazie di aver accettato di farti intervistare, posso presentarti la mia amica scrittrice?

Molto lieto, Piero Manzoni.

Piacere, Marta Bandi. Anche lei ha qualcosa a che vedere con la letteratura?

Veramente sono solo un artista.

Piero, ti ho invitato per intervistarti e per partecipare con te più tardi a un azione artistica che tu hai in serbo per noi e che rimarrà nella storia.

Che faremo?

Tranquilla Marta sarà un gioco da bambini.

Walter, ti prego, non facciamo cose strane!

Non avere paura, siamo fra artisti. Molto bene, veniamo alla prima domanda: Piero, secondo te l'arte cos'è?

Secondo me l'arte è la ciambella di salvataggio per l'umanità, ed è una delle poche cose che abbia un futuro assicurato. E volete sapere perché?

Naturalmente sì.

Sapete chi sono i migliori attori del mondo, i più straordinari comici, i migliori pittori, i migliori ballerini, in sintesi, sapete chi sono i migliori artisti del mondo?

Piero, pendiamo dalle tue labbra.

E' facile... sono i bambini! Solo loro sanno agire liberamente senza nessun condizionamento. I loro disegni, i loro scarabocchi, ogni loro azione è spontanea. Purtroppo, l'artista, nella maggior parte dei casi, ama issarsi su un piedistallo e guardare tutti dall'alto con fare distaccato. E il pubblico, sbagliando, vede gli artisti come miti, come super star da idolatrare. L’opera d’arte non è più un piacere che arricchisce lo spirito ma un oggetto super valutato da collezionare. Invece l'arte è pura condivisone, appunto bisogna imparare dai bambini, oppure, per meglio dire, ognuno di noi, crescendo, dovrebbe mantenere entro di sé la gioia di vivere dei bambini con naturalezza. Finché ci saranno loro, l'arte e l'umanità intera avranno un esempio da seguire e le sorti della nostra esistenza saranno al sicuro. A proposito di bambini, che ne dite di una bella bomba al cioccolato?

Che bomba di idea dolce, certo, bombe al cioccolato e un buon caffè per tutti.

Ragazzo, aggiungine pure qualcuna alla crema.

Pure alla crema? Ma Piero, non ti faranno male?

Ma no, non ti sembro un fiore proprio come il libro della tua amica?

Piero Manzoni (Soncino, 13 Luglio 1933 – Milano, 6 Febbraio 1963) nasce da una famiglia benestante. Terminati a Milano gli studi classici dai gesuiti, frequenta l’ambiente artistico ed entra in contatto con Lucio Fontana, in quel momento teorico e co-ideatore dello spazialismo, quindi, agli occhi di Piero Manzoni un autentico visionario. Pertanto, sin da giovane attratto dall'arte, poco più che ventenne, dopo un breve approccio alla pittura tradizionale, passa alla sperimentazione, introducendo nella materia pittorica altri elementi di uso quotidiano. Successivamente, come tutti i giovani emergenti aventi quella fiamma interiore - una miscela esplosiva di vitalità artistica e di voglia di cambiare il mondo - sin dalle prime uscite in pubblico manifesta la sua filosofia basata su un inusuale materiale vario, snobbando le tecniche e gli strumenti classici.

Alla fine degli anni ’50 ormai il dado è tratto e Piero Manzoni è un artista senza freni sull'autostrada della creatività, collabora con menti affini al suo linguaggio, fondando una rivista, “Azimuth”, attorno alla quale orbiteranno artisti che faranno la storia dell’arte. Inoltre lavora a più progetti anticonvenzionali, provocatori e impermeabili alle critiche.

Il 1960 è per Piero Manzoni un anno ricco di lavoro e contatti a livello internazionale, un fermento incandescente di idee che alimenteranno il suo mito. Dello stesso anno una delle sue performance più originali, “la consumazione dell’arte dinamica del pubblico divorare l’arte”, nella quale i visitatori saranno invitati a mangiare vere uova sode firmate con l’impronta digitale dell’artista.

Nel 1961 la sua originalità si manifesta firmando i corpi nudi di modelle e di gente comune, facendoli diventare “sculture viventi” e realizzando 90 barattoli di “merda d’artista”.

Il 1962 lo vede protagonista a livello internazionale con opere dal formato di maggiori dimensioni.

Il 6 Febbraio del 1963 l’artista, dopo una breve ma intensissima carriera, in seguito ad un infarto, a soli ventinove anni, scompare definitivamente a Milano, lasciando un gran numero di opere mai eguagliate.

Piero, ma lo sai che tu assomigli a Yves Klein? Mi sembra che hai quasi la sua stessa faccia da Pierino la peste.

Walter, non ci avevo mai pensato ma è vero, ci assomigliamo e abbiamo lo stesso sguardo ironico, con lui ho condiviso un periodo della mia vita e parlavamo la stessa lingua, ci divertivamo da matti perché l’arte è anche divertente.

E provocatoria.

Sì, e sai perché?

 Già.

Perché negli anni ’50 l’arte era troppo sfruttata, gli artisti esageravano, spinti da un vento mistico, celebrativo, iperbolico e il pubblico li osannava come se avessero visto la Madonna. Quindi la mia provocazione verso il pubblico era di dargli quello che voleva. Tutto quello che io toccavo, firmavo e autenticavo diventava arte.

E non ne eri contento? Non eri contento del successo? Del fatto che la gente avesse la percezione dell’esistenza dell’arte, anche se in maniera così eccentrica e irrazionale?

Senza dubbio volevo far divertire la gente e farla riflettere. L’artista non è un dio, il linguaggio dell’arte è universale e vitale ma non può essere divinizzato. Comunque, posso anche dirti che il vecchio detto “parlatene anche male basta che ne parliate”, con me funzionava, pure se largamente incompreso, avevo la visibilità per dimostrare le mie teorie che poi sarebbero state utili ai posteri.

In quegli anni, secondo la tua filosofia, la smitizzazione dell’arte da parte tua poteva andare bene, ma adesso?

No, adesso penso che l’arte debba tornare protagonista in tutti i modi possibili, vanno bene anche le banane incerottate. Io continuerei con le mie trovate, ogni artista libero di esprimersi, l’arte sarebbe l’unico baluardo ai nuovi miti presenti e futuri, per non rischiare di soccombere al grande fratello.

Marta, che ne pensi?

La poesia farebbe comodo?

Certo che sì, per esempio puoi vedere anche qui la sua importanza.

Piero, dove? Io non la vedo.

Eh già, non la vedi perché ce la siamo mangiata.

?

Le bombe alla crema e al cioccolato… vera poesia, vera arte!!

Geniale come le tue uova sode! Abbiamo ancora lo zucchero sulle dita, vogliamo lasciare qualche impronta qui al bar?

Forse è meglio di no, arriverebbero le formiche.

Marta, hai ragione, sei una donna saggia, paghiamo il conto e andiamo che dobbiamo fare la nostra azione artistica e anche molto poetica. Ragazzi, lasciate che paghi io.

Piero, veramente il conto potrebbe essere salato, alla cassa c’è segnata anche la consumazione della colazione con Salvador Dalì.

Walter, e che problema c’è? Gli lascio un mio barattolo e ce ne andiamo.

Ora che mi ricordo, ne è rimasto uno nel cassettino della 500.

Quello regalalo a Mimmo Rotella, così la pianta di andare in giro per Roma a staccare i manifesti.

Speriamo che Matteo Gentili me la ripari.

Vogliamo dare un barattolo pure a lui?

E’ meglio di no, a Foligno lo prenderebbero per matto.

Ok, come vuoi tu, forza,  prendi quello scatolone e andiamo sulla piazza.

Walter, ci possiamo fidare? Non è che ci fa spogliare per poi autografarci?

Marta, quella è roba del passato, sicuramente ora ha in mente qualcos'altro.

Ho paura, assomiglia pure a Yves Klein, non voglio fare la modella desnuda e che mi tinga le tette.

Ma no, tranquilla, tanto, male che vada, non ci vede nessuno. Dai, dammi una mano a prendere lo scatolone.

Molto bene ragazzi, sapete che c’è nello scatolone?

Boh?

Nello scatolone c’è l’aquilone!

Ah! E allora?

Questi sono aquiloni d’artista, ora ne prendiamo uno a testa e, spinti dal vostro ponentino, prenderemo il volo. Faremo un giro sui sette colli, vi piace l’idea?

E l’azione artistica dov'è?

Walter, volteggiare con un aquilone d’artista è poesia, fantasia, felicità, come volare con l’immaginazione, fluttuando nello spazio, sognando di essere un gabbiano. Voliamo nello spazio liberi da condizionamenti, hai visto mai volare i gabbiani felici?

Qui a Roma? Ehhhhhh!

Ecco, pronti, si parte, andiamo a divertirci.

Amici lettori del blog che vi fa volare come un aquilone, io, Piero Manzoni e la scrittrice Marta Bandi vi salutiamo, vi ringraziamo e ci rivediamo al prossimo appuntamento che, vi anticipo, sarà di notte con un artista a sorpresa.

Readers of Signoradeifiltri, welcome back to our artistic encounters, today I want to make a change of program, the period we are experiencing leaves little room for our imagination and has distorted our daily lives, our habits, all the things we loved to do so,  from the book Talk to me about a flower, work of my friend Marta Bandi published with @libereria, I want to recite this poem whose title is:

E’ MAGIA

Godere di un incontro

Inaspettato, occasionale

Programmato, anelato

Assaporato, capitato,

Godere di un silenzio

carico di parole

non necessarie

non richieste

in bilico tra gli sguardi.

Godere di due battiti

Che si accordano

Si sintonizzano

Nella magia di un abbraccio

Marta Bandi

Through poetry I like to think that soon everything will return as before, better than before. To return to our interviews, today we will host an artist with a high-sounding surname, Piero Manzoni. The appointment is at the usual bar, I asked my friend writer to accompany me for a break with the covid19.

 Marta, are you happy with this opportunity?

Even if I'm not used to it, it makes me very happy. I hope you don't make me push the 500 like with Laurent.

 No, don't worry, today we have another means of locomotion.

Ah! Thank goodness, and what is it?

I don't know, Piero Manzoni will decide, here he comes.

Dearest, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, can I introduce you to my friend writer?

Nice to meet you, I’m Piero Manzoni.

Pleased to meet you, Marta Bandi. Does it also have something to do with literature?

Actually, I'm just an artist.

Piero, I invited you to interview you and to participate in an artistic action that you have in store for us and that will remain in history.

What will we do?

Steady, Marta, it will be child's play.

Walter, please don't do strange things!

Don't be afraid, we are among artists. Very well, we come to the first question: Piero, in your opinion what is art?

In my opinion, art is the lifeline for humanity, and it is one of the few things that has a secure future. And do you want to know why?

Of course, yes.

Do you know who the best actors in the world are, the most extraordinary comedians, the best painters, the best dancers, in summary, do you know who the best artists in the world are?

Piero, we are waiting.

It's easy ... the kids! Only they know how to act freely without any conditioning. Their drawings, their doodles, their every action is spontaneous. Unfortunately, the artist, in most cases, loves to hoist himself on a pedestal and look at everyone from above with detached attitude. And the public, mistakenly, sees artists as myths, as super stars to be idolized. The work of art is no longer a pleasure that enriches the spirit but a highly valued object to collect. Instead, art is pure sharing, it is necessary to learn from children, or, better to say, each of us, growing up, should keep the joy of children naturally within. As long as children are there, art and all humanity will have an example to follow and the fate of our existence will be safe. Speaking of children, how about a nice chocolate bomb?

What a sweet idea, of course, chocolate bombs and good coffee for everyone.

Boy, add some with cream.

Pure cream? But Piero, won't they hurt you?

But no, don't I look like a flower just like your friend's book?

Piero Manzoni (Soncino, 13 July 1933 - Milan, 6 February 1963) was born into a wealthy family. After finishing his classical studies by the Jesuits in Milan, he attended the artistic environment and came into contact with Lucio Fontana, co-creator of spatialism, therefore, in the eyes of Piero Manzoni, an authentic visionary. Therefore, at little more than twenty, after a brief approach to traditional painting, he moved on to experimentation, introducing other elements of everyday use into the pictorial material. Subsequently, like all emerging young people with that inner flame - an explosive mixture of artistic vitality and desire to change the world - from the first outings in public he manifested his philosophy based on an unusual varied material, snubbing the classic techniques and instruments .

At the end of the 1950s, the die is cast and Piero Manzoni is an artist without brakes on the highway of creativity, collaborating with minds related to his language, founding a magazine, "Azimuth", around which artists who will make history will orbit. He also works on multiple unconventional, provocative and impervious to criticism projects.

1960 is a year full of work and international contacts for Piero Manzoni, an incandescent ferment of ideas that will feed his myth. In the same year one of his most original performances, "the consummation of the dynamic art of the public - devouring art", in the in which visitors will be invited to eat real hard-boiled eggs signed with the artist's fingerprint.

In 1961 his originality is manifested by signing the naked bodies of models and ordinary people, making them become "living sculptures" and making 90 cans of "artist shit".

1962 saw him protagonist on an international level with larger format works.

On February 6, 1963 the artist, after a short but very intense career, due to a heart attack, at only twenty-nine years of age, finally disappeared in Milan, leaving a large number of works never equaled.

Piero, but do you know that you look like Yves Klein? It seems to me that you have almost his face as Pierino the plague.

Walter, I never thought about it but it's true, we look alike and have the same ironic look, I shared a period of my life with him and we spoke the same language, we had a lot of fun because art is also fun.

It is provocative.

Yes, and do you know why?

Uhm.

Because in the 1950s art was too exploited, the artists exaggerated, driven by a mystical, celebratory, hyperbolic wind and the public praised them as if they had seen the Madonna. So my provocation to the public was to give them what they wanted. Everything I touched, signed and authenticated became art.

And weren't you happy? Weren't you happy with the success? The fact that people had the perception of the existence of art, even if in such an eccentric and irrational way?

Without a doubt, I wanted to entertain people and make them think. The artist is not a god, the language of art is universal and vital but cannot be divinized. However, I can also tell you that the old saying "talk about it even badly but just talk about it",  worked with me, even if widely misunderstood, I had the visibility to prove my theories that would later be useful to posterity.

In those years, according to your philosophy, the demystification of art on your part could be fine, but now?

No, now I think that art must return the protagonist in all possible ways, even bananas with scotch tape are fine. I would continue with my ideas, every artist free to express himself, art would be the only bulwark to new myths present and future, so as not to risk succumbing to the big brother.

Marta, what do you think?

Would poetry be convenient?

Of course yes, for example you can also see its importance here.

Piero, where? I don't see it.

Yeah, you don't see it because we ate it.

?

The cream and chocolate bombs ... real poetry, real art!

As brilliant as your hard-boiled eggs! We still have sugar on our fingers, do we want to leave some fingerprints here at the bar?

Maybe it's better not, the ants would come.

Marta, you are right, you are a wise woman, we pay the bill and we go. We have to do our artistic and also very poetic action. Guys, let me pay.

Piero, really the bill could be salty, there is also the breakfast with Salvador Dalì to pay.

Walter, what's the problem? I leave him a jar of mine and we leave.

Now that I remember, there is one left in the drawer of the 500.

Give it to Mimmo Rotella, so he stops going around Rome to remove the posters.

We hope that Matteo Gentili will fix it for me.

Do we want to give him a jar too?

It is better not to, in Foligno they would consider him mad.

Ok, as you want, come on, take that box and let's go to the square.

Walter, can we trust it? Will he not make us undress and then autograph us?

Marta, that is stuff of the past, surely now he has something else in mind.

I'm afraid, he also looks like Yves Klein, I don't want to be a naked model and that he dyes my tits.

But no, worst case scenario, nobody sees us. Come on, help me get the box.

Very well, guys, do you know what's in the box?

Boh?

There is a kite in the box!

Ah! So?

These are artist kites, now we take one each and, driven by your ponentino, we will take flight. We will take a ride on the seven hills, do you like the idea?

And where is the artistic action?

Walter, circling with an artist's kite is poetry, happiness, like flying with the imagination, floating in space, dreaming of being a seagull. We fly in space free from conditioning, have you ever seen happy seagulls flying?

Here in Rome? Ehhhhhh!

Here, ready, let's go, let's have fun.

Readers of the blog that makes you fly like a kite, I, Piero Manzoni and the writer Marta Bandi greet you, thank you and see you at the next appointment which, in advance, will be at night with a surprise artist.

Readers of Signoradeifiltri, welcome back to my appointment with art and with the blog always in orbit in the galaxy of culture. This must be an unfortunate period, because I have to go get the artist I will interview today. Unfortunately my means of locomotion are still broken down, we had to return the 600 bus to the pacifist nuns, we could not take advantage of their generosity, so today I just have to take the old 500, which starts only if it is pushed and, in these cases, who do you ask for help? But yes, you ask for help from a friend, wait a moment for me to call him.

- Hello Laurent.

- Hi Walter.

- I have a problem, you have to help me.

- What should we do?

- There is a 500 to be started, the starter does not go.

- Wait for me, I'm coming.

Dear readers, I am sorry for this setback, I realize that we are in 2080, in full science fiction, in full modern and super evolved era, but to us poor artists, if we want to move, all that remains is to push this small car miserably by hand. Luckily a friend of mine is coming: the poet Laurent.

- Here I am, what do we do?

- We push, come on, I get in the car and you push. I turn on, the engine starts, with the right hand I open the door and you, with a jump, enter.

- I begin to catch the catch: is that why you called me?

- Come on, it's a little help. And then, afterwards, I introduce you to a friend artist, we interview Giacomo Balla.

- Is he your friend?

- Laurent, I have a lot of high-ranking friends with fantasy. Come on, let's hurry up.

And with a snap of your fingers, the two @libereria artists start the 500 and go to meet Giacomo Balla.

- Laurent, with the famous artist from Turin we will make a return to the past, we will go back in time to talk about the present which is then the future. I know that this is a confused concept but, through fantasy, we will explain what will happen in 60 years. Here he is, in the company of his dog on a leash.

- Giacomo, welcome on board, I introduce you to a friend of mine, Laurent Vercken de Vreushmen.

- Hallo!

- Boy, just call me Giacomo. In short, Walter we are in the post futurist era, why did you come with this prehistoric car?

- Giacomo, that's what's available.

- Ah, I understand! That's why you went to Dalì with the nuns' minibus.

- Giacomo, that's another story. But you're right, we are in 2080 and technology is part of our life, it has facilitated our daily lives. What cinema had always anticipated as stage fiction has now become reality. Fortunately, in 2080, before we ran the risk of becoming slaves, we had time to take a few steps back. Virtuality, automation cannot replace us, this planet was born to be the home of every form of natural existence with a human dimension, technology must remain only a tool. Giacomo, are we talking about the Futurist movement?

- Walter, we were first of all men with a head, a heart, two arms and two hands to forge and shape the material. The myth of speed was the application of our theories, art has always been the forerunner of new languages, breaking the patterns of the past was our strength, our illusion. Futurism, like all artistic avant-gardes, had limited time to make way for new trends. See how everything turns? There never remains a situation of stainless static, it is the dynamic energy of our existence that moves together with the terrestrial globe, in an infinite vortex, at such a speed as to make everything seem invisible, in the almost loss of time cognition. There is only one thing that compacts us and harmonizes us with nature: color, an infinite range of shades, an intrinsic part of our DNA. Color is the heart of everything. Do you know that Italy is the most colorful country in the world? It is by its natural conformation, it is by its history, naturally by its art, there is no country in the world more colorful than ours.
 

Giacomo Balla, in 1895, left Turin for Rome and to experience the new Italian Divisionism of which, together with a group of young artists, his students, was an important promoter.
The early 1900s were years of great modernization, despite the belligerent period, art was very active.
Giacomo Balla, an unstoppable personality never tamed, laid the foundations of the Futurist movement. In those years, through an exceptional creative liveliness, he also created theatrical sets, furnishings, various accessories for daily use. All this with the new Futurist language, a dynamism above all, and more "colorful", to affirm a 360 ° universe projected towards the future. Giacomo Balla in this was one of the major protagonists.
Unfortunately, during those years, if on the one hand living tasted of modernity and relative well-being, on the other hand war drums were rolling. The artist could not help but get involved. Power has always used art and printing as communication tools. In 1937 G.B. felt the feeling that society was taking another route and that art was no longer a human feeling, but something excessively led to presumption, something that made color, the soul of our existence, a mere patina facade. He therefore decided to estrange himself from the change of his ideals, he pursued the matter with courageous intellectual honesty, undergoing, on the part of the official culture, the removal as a leading figure of Italian art.
After the war years, Giacomo Balla's work was deservedly re-evaluated worldwide. He had been a true master, creator of an artistic uniqueness, leaving a fundamental mark on the international cultural scene. In the following years he continued his artistic production, remaining a serious and passionate artisan of the art, he disappeared  at eighty-six on March 1, 1958.

- Giacomo, now I would like to talk to you about a work, an important and revolutionary one-color for those times, "Dynamism of a dog on a leash".

- Dear guys, I had the awareness inside me of feeling a strong attraction for photography, which I thought was great news. I have always been an experimenter, I felt like a navigator discovering new lands and I could not remain indifferent.

- Giacomo, why the format of the work is almost square, with the dog in the foreground and the figure of the woman cut at the height of the legs? -

- It's easy, for a matter of freedom. I wanted to free the dog from the leash, ideally snatching it from the woman, tight, oppressed in her ankle-length ancient dress, which held her captive. A dress that accentuated, but at the same time concealed, the beautiful feminine and natural forms, while the animal, with the speed of its steps, hovering the leash wanted to speed up the legs and all the woman's personality towards a modernization of its customs and traditions.
As you can see the protagonist is the dog, which I have depicted in an oblique line upwards, seeing a distant horizon. My own signature is placed in the lower right corner, as author and man of this new epoch I follow with my graphic authentication that direction. I, transforming myself into an invisible being, crossing the time barrier, project myself, like a series of frames of a film in use to the camera together with the images imprinted on the cellulose, towards the future.
About the future. Oh yes, my boys, in 2080 we went too far, we carried humanity too far, dampening a beating heart, a universe of feelings, the fantasy that makes you happy with simple and genuine things, the joy of existing, and we fell in love with progress, with science superior to the human dimension, leading men and women to become unhappy automata and this was a serious mistake.

- Giacomo in 2080 did we become unhappy automata?

- Well yes, luckily we stopped in time, we were on the edge of the abyss, then the power of art magically aroused, through all humanistic expressions, that power that allowed us to separate technology from the true essence of humanity, an essence made of the five primordial senses that make us unique and happy. We managed to get the best out of the tools of science by simply remaining human. Like this car ancient outside but modern and hyper-equipped inside, which rises in flight, does not smoke and does not pollute, beautiful to live it humanly with the most pleasant and spontaneous of smiles.

- Laurent, what do you say?

- This futuristic discussion was delightful, to stay on topic can I delight you with a poem of mine?

- Laurent, I will listen to you with pleasure

The title is A little background genius.