pittura

Da Sabato 26 Marzo al 6 Aprile 2022, presso la Ikigai art gallery di Roma diretta da Alessia Ferraro, entra in scena l’arte di Silvana Troisi. 

Uno scricciolo di artista, dagli occhi brillanti e dal pennello soffice come una piuma, mostrerà la sua visione di luoghi magici, con colori pastello tenui e delicati come la brezza marina che profuma di poesia. Silvana, con grande amore, ha dipinto e rappresentato  il Circeo e Sabaudia, luoghi storici e affascinanti al centro del Mar Tirreno. Sapete una cosa? Adesso, con la mia fantasia voglio immaginare una navicella che dallo spazio scende proprio sulla spiaggia di Sabaudia dipinta da Silvana Troisi. Ne escono due marziani che si trasformano in due umani come in Man in black. Si mettono in costume da bagno, prendono ombrellone e  sdraio, vanno a farsi il bagno, tranquillamente godono della bellezza del posto, poi  guardano l’orizzonte e sospirano, guardano il monte della maga Circe e sognano, bevono un buon caffè e ridono. Alla fine dicono: “Minchia, ma noi questa roba qua in giro per il cosmo mica ce l’abbiamo!”.

 Questo è ciò che ha dipinto ad arte Silvana Troisi. Se potete, venitela a vedere…

Volete sapere dei due marziani? Ve lo dico alla prossima mostra. Cari amici lettori del blog più stellare che ci sia, è bello parlare di arte con voi, ci rivediamo in giro per il blog signoradeifiltri e sarà sempre un piacere.

Amici lettori, eccoci catapultati nel nuovo anno, come sarà questo 2022? Lo ignoro, ma sono ottimista e spero diventi migliore dei precedenti. Pertanto a voi, che ci seguite fedeli e appassionati, facciamo il nostro fervido e sincero augurio di buon anno. Vada come vada, noi cercheremo di impegnarci perché sia buono davvero.

Molto bene, sicuramente ricorderete che tempo fa vi parlai di un progetto artistico riguardante il mondo del football. Ebbene, dovete sapere che a Suwalki, una cittadina della Polonia, in un quartiere imprecisato, c'è una strada chiusa. Sul muro di fondo la porta del calcio è stata dipinta con vernice bianca. I ragazzi hanno scelto questo spazio per giocare perché ai lati ci sono solo alcuni box o botteghe e quindi la palla non può uscire in strada rotolando tra le automobili. Ha nevicato, il terreno potrebbe essere scivoloso ma per questo sarà  più divertente. Il muro è alto e qualcuno ha disegnato delle scritte sulla parete grezza, magari per farlo sembrare un vero stadio. Con la vostra fantasia non vedete i giocatori? Giocatori di calcio? Sì, perché a breve è qui che si svolgerà una partita fra due squadre speciali. Io e Mario il fantasma racconteremo la cronaca dell’incontro. Mario? Un fantasma? Per chi non mi conosce, quando scrivo tutto può succedere…

- Walter, sono pronte le squadre che ti ho procurato, non ti preoccupare, si gioca per divertimento, ma più tardi possiamo avere altro cioccolato?

- Ehi Mario, ma non ti farà male?

- Abbiamo tanto bisogno di ridere, e poi a noi fantasmi il cioccolato aggrada molto.

- Penso di non poter raccontare tutto questo in giro.

- Oh sì, certo che puoi. Allora andiamo?

E così, io e Mario abbiamo portato in Polonia una squadra di fantasmi. Sul campo di calcio improvvisato che ho dipinto, se la vedranno con dei ragazzini del posto.

Ha nevicato ma il campo  fortunatamente è praticabile. Ben schierati da una parte i ragazzini polacchi, con le guance rosse, i calzoni corti e la faccia sfrontata di chi non vuole perdere, di fronte gli avversari, una squadra di fantasmi amici di Mario, alcuni anzianotti, altri un po' meno. Va detto che è davvero una squadra di pivelli alla "viva il parroco" ma vogliono divertirsi e, in fondo, non ci stanno a perdere neanche loro. Ce la metteranno tutta per fare bella figura.

- Ok ragazzi, mettiamo la palla al centro e iniziamo a giocare, al termine cioccolata calda per tutti.

- Ehi Walter, vuoi fare l'arbitro?

- Non ci penso proprio! Mica avete bisogno di un arbitro. E poi voglio godermi la partita!

La partita è iniziata, le due squadre si affrontano come se stessero giocando la finale di coppa del mondo, sonore risate si mescolano agli incitamenti a passare la palla, fiocca anche qualche parolaccia per un passaggio sbagliato o per un duro colpo ricevuto. Tutti corrono  spensierati a perdifiato con l'unico obiettivo di vincere e divertirsi, i ragazzi polacchi sono più forti ma i fantasmi se la cavano con qualche piccolo colpo di magia. Da una parte e dall'altra ci vorrebbe un pallottoliere, i gol non si contano più e la partita rimane in parità. 

Sembra una gara senza fine ma il gioco termina quando un ragazzino calcia la palla così in alto, ma così in alto, da raggiungere il cielo. Come per incanto, quel pallone rimbalza sulla luna che si accende e illumina tutte le stelle più belle. Il cielo pieno di stelle è bellissimo, davanti a questo spettacolo tutti si fermano a bocca aperta con il naso all'insù.

- Ehi Walter, abbiamo finito la partita, ci siamo divertiti un sacco, ora puoi portarci del cioccolato, sbrigati che abbiamo bisogno di dolcezza!

- Certo, sto arrivando... Non vuoi il tè caldo prima?

- No, per favore, solo cioccolato e... anche un sacco di biscotti, sbrigati che abbiamo fame!

Amici lettori, ora c'è un problema, per favore non spifferate l’inghippo: mentre guardavo la partita ho sgargarozzato tutta la cioccolata da solo, qualcuno di voi può aiutarmi?

-Ehi, ragazzi sul campo di calcio, tranquilli, ho ordinato la cioccolata per telefono, via mail, via megafono, via telefax, insomma, tranquilli, sta arrivando.

Cari lettori, che disattenzione! E adesso? Ho molta fantasia ma come posso risolvere la questione? Idea!  Chiamo la Befana, ci penserà lei a portare la cioccolata, va tutto bene quel che finisce bene, lasciamo i ragazzi su quel campo di calcio improvvisato in Polonia e speriamo che la vecchina si sbrighi a portare il cioccolato e non dimentichi i biscotti. Io e Mario andiamo a preparare la prossima partita, vi porteremo in Irlanda del Nord, amici lettori, ancora buon 2022: passarlo insieme a voi sarà sempre un piacere.

Due interessanti mondi a confronto sono quelli presentati all’IkiGai Art Gallery durante il periodo natalizio. L’arte di Stefano e Valerio Scarapazzi, mostra come la creatività, pur attraversando la medesima linea di sangue, scorra libera, disegnando differenti personalità. Stefano adotta uno stile più intimo ed evocativo, fatto di correlazioni oggettuali, in cui la realtà è riprodotta lucida e razionale. Lo spazio è definito da linee ben progettate che ritraggono il quotidiano. La sua operazione creativa, ispirata dal celebre poeta Eugenio Montale, tende quasi a isolare dettagli degli oggetti che ci circondano, dando maggiore risalto, così, alla loro funzione. Proprio sottraendo, alla nostra vista, parte del contesto che solitamente li ospita, infatti, si evocano emozioni e sensazioni. La vena nostalgica, che permea le sue opere, conferisce quel romanticismo che si allaccia perfettamente all’arte di Valerio. Sono poetiche, infatti, le narrazioni urbane di quest’ultimo. Il pennello scorre vorticoso, il colore si frantuma, si trascina danzando sul foglio, fino quasi a polverizzarsi davanti ai nostri occhi, riprendendo ed esaltando la linea acquarellata del paesaggismo romano. L’interpolazione dell’elemento multimediale, invece, in questo delicato volteggiare, sorprende e dona estrema contemporaneità. Nelle opere di Valerio ciascun soggetto interpretato, che sia essere umano o scorcio cittadino, è una storia. Storie del tempo in cui viviamo, tra quotidiano e multimediale, tra concretezza e pixel. Sia Stefano sia Valerio, vogliono raccontare, con i loro linguaggi, una personale visione del mondo, in cui poesia e realtà si fondono insieme per instillare nello spettatore la speranza di plasmare la propria realtà con incantevole maneggevolezza. Un invito a prendere consapevolezza del mondo che ci circonda con innovativa delicatezza.

Alessia Ferraro

IkiGai Art Gallery Director

Valeria Biotti
Frida Kahlo
Diarkos, 2021

 Euro 17 - pag. 215

Valeria Biotti sceglie un modo originale per raccontare Frida e la sua arte, da giornalista ma pure da autrice teatrale, perché mette in scena la vita dell’artista come se fosse una sceneggiatura non consequenziale, tra salti temporali, ricordi, vita corrente, amori, dolori, passioni e capolavori artistici. Vive meno di cinquant’anni la messicana Frida, figlia della rivoluzione messicana, come amava dire, barando sulla data di nascita (1910 e non 1907)), donna rivoluzionaria e ribelle, innovatrice e anticonvenzionale, di grande talento e personalità, nonostante la malattia che l’accompagnò per la sua breve vita. Valeria Biotti mette in primo piano l’evento più importante che segnò i giorni della pittrice ribelle, quando Frida aveva solo otto anni: un grave incidente di autobus contro un tram, colonna vertebrale spezzata, collo del femore distrutto, costole in frantumi, non bastarono trenta operazioni per rimetterla in sesto. I dolori l’accompagnarono per tutta la vita, lei sfruttò l’immobilità forzata per leggere libri sul movimento comunista e per dipingere, affinando la sua arte e migliorando la sua cultura. Comunismo e pittura furono le cose più importanti della sua vita, oltre all’amore per il pittore Diego Rivera, che la protesse e la fece conoscere al grande pubblico, oltre a sposarla, cosa che non vietò a Frida di avere diverse storie extraconiugali (che il marito contraccambiava). Amanti famosi per Frida, come il poeta André Breton e il rivoluzionario russo Lev Trockij, come pare non mancassero le donne nella sua collezione di amori fedifraghi (Rosa Rolando, Chavela Vargas …). Frida non ebbe figli e fu il suo cruccio maggiore, lottò da femminista ante litteram per l’emancipazione; la sua vita intensa e la pittura intimista che raccontava i suoi dolori, al tempo stesso surrealista, pure se non voleva ammetterlo, hanno ispirato registi e scrittori, non ultima Valeria Biotti, che narra la vita dell’artista come se fosse un film. Un libro ottimo, diverso da tutti gli altri, che in appendice cita una corposa bibliografia dove poter attingere notizie ulteriori.

Parlami in silenzio Modì

Giovanna Strano

Aiep Editore, 2020

pp 272

14,00

Un’altra bella biografia romanzata a firma Giovanna Strano. A parlare in silenzio è Amedeo Modigliani, scultore e pittore livornese, ebreo sefardita, artista bohemienne maledetto, morto precocemente dopo una vita di eccessi tutta dedita all’arte, all’affinamento della ricerca, allo studio dei volumi e dei colori. Lasciarsi ritrarre da Modigliani equivaleva a farsi spogliare l’anima, metterla a nudo, ma anche avere uno scambio con il pittore, fondersi con lui persino fisicamente.

Il romanzo ripercorre la sua vita, dalla nascita - nel letto che la partoriente condivideva con gli oggetti ammassati per evitare il pignoramento - alle numerose donne che lo hanno accompagnato e alle quali ha dato amore ma anche tormento. Donne belle, forti, indipendenti, che per un periodo gli hanno fatto da muse ispiratrici e da sostenitrici, per poi arrendersi all’impossibilità di vivere con un alcolista, un drogato, un fedifrago devoto solo alla sua arte, anarchico e libertario nel profondo. Donne che, alla fine, lo hanno abbandonato, tranne la dolce e sfortunata Jeanne, la più giovane, la più innamorata, la più ingenua, di cui tutti conosciamo la tragica fine.

Una vita minata dalla malattia, bruciata in fretta, consapevole della propria brevità, ardente di passione umana e artistica, vissuta in luoghi sordidi ma fervidi di cultura e arte.

Più che un resoconto di fatti, il romanzo della Strano è due cose: una splendida ricostruzione d’ambiente - la belle époque, Parigi, i quartieri di Montmartre e Montparnasse, il crogiolo di avanguardie letterarie e fermento artistico all’ombra della prima guerra mondiale - e una carrellata di dipinti e sculture, studiati nella loro plasticità ma soprattutto nel loro significato filosofico e umano, perché fra modello e pittore s’intuisce una corrente di comprensione e di scandaglio che va oltre il rapporto artistico. Ogni figura è interpretata nell’animo ma anche riportata alla sua essenza storica, alle sue origini culturali.

Il testo mi ha ricordato il film I colori dell’anima di Mick Davis, perché anche qui una vicenda che potrebbe essere carica di pathos viene invece vivisezionata nel suo contenuto intellettuale, di riflessione sull’arte, e questo si rispecchia nei dialoghi viziati da un didascalismo che li fredda, ma che trova il suo riscatto nella commovente e bellissima analisi finale dell’autoritratto di Modì. Uomo, artista, donnaiolo, bevitore, bruciato dalla passione, mangiato dalla tubercolosi, ma immortale, per noi, per tutti, per l’eternità.

.

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.