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arte
Intervista con l'artista: Mimmo Rotella
Disegno di Walter Fest
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.
Arte al bar: Piero Manzoni
Disegno di Walter Fest
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.
Intervista con l'artista: Giacomo Balla
"Dinamismo di un cane al guinzaglio" di Giacomo Balla e l'omaggio di Walter Fest
- Giacomo, ora vorrei parlare con te di un'opera, un monocolore importante e rivoluzionario per quei tempi, Dinamismo di un cane al guinzaglio.
- Giacomo nel 2080 siamo diventati automi infelici?
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.
- Hey boy, but this is a futurist poem!
- Thank you, said by an artist like you is a great compliment, even in my book Someone inadequate, under a mask of drama I built a heart that pulsates with optimistic enthusiasm, a dynamic action to awaken the torpor of a life now spent, the energy that turns on the light in my mind, my light that wants to illuminate the path of those who have lost hope.
- Laurent, you were born in the wrong period, if you had been in my time you would have had extraordinary success, but I wish you to get it anyway in this modern era, you are young and time is on your side.
- Giacomo, I promise you that I will try.
- But Walter, Jackson Pollock told me that on this futurist toy car you have a nice assortment of chocolates.
- Of course Giacomo, you can find them in the drawer of the mini bar.
- I don't seem to see them, but what is this? A jar? Why do you keep a jar?
- A jar?
- Yes, it is really a jar and above it is written "Artist shit"
- Ah, yes it is the work of Piero Manzoni.
- And you want to confront it with the chocolates you gave Pollock? Do you now know what I can do with this jar?
- But Giacomo it wasn't my fault if Pollock got all the chocolates. And then the jar is by Piero Manzoni for the next interview.
- Even if it is artist shit, now I throw it in your head so you learn for the next time.
- Giacomo, please don't, that jar is worth more than two hundred thousand euros!
-But Walter couldn't they have given him Cattelan's banana?
- Banana? Laurent, but what can I do if the artists are crazy?
- So let's go get some coffee, that's better.
- Giacomo, we can't, Salvador Dalì left the bill to pay.
- Guys, don't worry, we drink and then you have Piero Manzoni pay the bill. With what his work is worth you can afford to pay us a coffee, wow!
And so, friends, while I, Laurent Vercken de Vreushmen, Giacomo Balla and his dog on a leash, go and have a coffee, which we will then charge Piero for, we greet you and look forward to seeing you at the next meeting. I think you understand who we will interview.
Arte al bar: Salvador Dalì
Disegno di Walter Fest
Readers of signoradeifiltri, welcome back to our artistic habitat, today we will meet a great artist but, unfortunately, we have a problem: all my means of locomotion have left me, I don't know how to go and get it, I need help and the only one who can run to our rescue is Matteo "spark", the writer from Foligno. Now I phone him.
- Matteo, only you can help me!
- Hi Wà, what happened?
- The 500 is brokent, the Vespa, after I had it driven by Picasso, has a crooked fork, the Guzzi is painted all pink with a green tank and, if he sees it, he gets pissed and gives it up, I have to go get him in 10 minutes and I don't know how to do it, please come up with an idea!
- There is the 600 minibus of the nuns of the convent of the pacifists.
- Ah! So?
- Then we steal it, but then we bring it back.
- Basically, we are on a mission on behalf of God!
- I know this joke, come on, let's not waste time, let's go to the convent, dressed all in black so as not to catch the eye!
- Like priests?
- What are you saying, like Diabolik! But didn't you read the comics? I recommend you also dye your face black!
- And how do I do this?
- With Giotto markers, but do I have to tell you everything? What kind of artist are you?
- I'll be right back!
Walter Fest and Matteo "Spark", the writer from Foligno, disguised as Diabolik, with Giotto's face tinged with black, are about to scrape the nuns' minibus, and then go running to pick up today's artist.
- With a jump we climb over the wall of the pacifist nuns, with a painter's spatula we open the door, Matteo the writer attacks the wires of the ignition lock, I start, there is full of fuel, we are going to start and ...
- But you're just too clumsy!
She is the abbess nun and has a large club in her hand.
- Take the keys and make no noise, of course you are really two idiots, the youngest here is 105 years old. It's a life we don't drive, instead of scratching it you could have asked.
- Sister, let's run, we have to take an artist!
- Well ?! Are you going to take him with a 600 minibus? And then who would this artist be?
- That's what designed the chupa-chups brand.
- The lollipops?
- Yup.
- Come on, don't keep him waiting. And when you bring it back I want it repainted.
- Like Pollock?
- On Sunday both of you come to confession, lazzaroni!
- Well, let’s go, the nun is still holding the club!
And thanks to the ecclesiastical recommendation, we start and in a flash we are with him, who is he? But it's easy, it's Salvador Dalì and he's waiting for us at the bar.
- Master, welcome, thank you for accepting our invitation.
- I have been waiting for you for an hour.
- Master, sorry, can we offer you a good coffee?
- Yes, but first I would like some pretzels, with olives, chips and a dry Martini.
Fortunately, Gianni, from behind the counter, saw the scene and in a flash brings us everything.
- So what do we want to talk about?
- Master, would you tell us brief notes about your life?
- Excuse me, what do you care?
- Maybe our readers are interested in your history.
- Do you want me to tell you something very frankly?
- Sure.
- Very well, then you must know that those who approach a work of art must not know anything about the life of an artist. These people only have to care about the pleasure, the taste of seeing the work done. They can study it, admire it, they can be led to reflect, they can dream, but to know the life, death and miracles of an artist, what would it do?
- Can you help us solve the dilemma?
- If the public were interested and enchanted by our love stories, passing through our human disasters, and therefore attracted by our fortunes or existential misfortunes, they would go into confusion. But aren't you tired of this crazy curiosity you call gossip?
- Without doubt the historical episodes have always influenced the artists, without popes and patrons your renaissance would not have been born, pass me the chips.
- Would you also like some cubes of Parmesan?
- After, after ... Here, you see, art must be admired, enjoyed, lived, contemplated. Art is part of the universe, consequently ,who cares who I was the son of, my love story, my performances, my travels, my mustache?
- Master, but if art is part of the universe, who is the artist?
- Let's say that the universe is the crumbling medium with which you arrived, let's say that you have no fuel in the tank and therefore it is a static vehicle.
- So?
- And then the genius of the artist intervenes, which is the fuel of the universe, it is the energy that lights up the colour, develops the vital power that illuminates people and makes them alive, an unstoppable explosion of perpetual motion, the humanity that merges with nature. Art puts the whole context in order and in disorder, creating balance and imbalance for your joy, in the continuous search for poetry and happiness.
- Maestro, speaking of poetry, I would like to introduce you to Matteo Gentili.
- And who is he?
- A writer, a poet who has music in rhymes.
- Boy, you should cut your beard, it ages you and makes you look, with all respect for the category, as a barber. But let's go on, what else would you like to ask me?
- Master, can you tell us about your style?
- I have no style, my painting is magic, if we have to talk about style that must refer only to my person, I am an object made of style, and the problem for others is that I am inimitable. Come on, try to imitate me! And do you want to know why I am shaped by my style?
- Of course we are curious.
- I wanted to be free, freedom is a great thing. Do I want to wear yellow trousers? I wear them. Do I want to wear a pair of fake shoes? Even if I am a painter, do I want to make a film? I can. And then I love to be photographed, because photography is a beautiful invention. But above all, I wanted to have fun, laugh, be cheerful, a mood that allowed me to paint and represent what escapes you humans and, without caterpillars in the head, to free my boundless fantasy. I admit it, I was a great worker of art, but still playful. And then the artist must not be too serious. Aren't politicians, academics, anchormans on all the pulpits of the globe enough?
- You were a surrealist.
- Yes and even the only one, although the movement was formed by a group of valid painters, I was “the” surrealist. Do you understand the difference?
- Let's imagine so. Master, what do you think of the other artists of that period who shared that path with you?
- Brilliant, capable, talented, daring, able to break with the art of the past, but held back by money, by the urgent need to satisfy critics and merchants to sell their works, a border that, if not crossed, precludes you to dive into the indefinite. Not that I didn't love money and success, but I didn't want to fix my mind on earthly matters.
- And you, detaching yourself from the crowd, created your myth.
- It was easy because I was born a myth, since I was a child I had my ideas and then, like many others, I was predestined. Do you see these hands?
- Yup.
- They are like those of a magician. I drew and painted magic. But you were asking me about the moment when I detached myself from the rest of the painters of the surrealist group, with whom there were divergent points. I am not a lone wolf, I have always worked with many other artists, photographers, directors, writers, advertisers, the only condition for collaborating was to have fun and be visionary.
- Master, did you also draw and receive inspiration from other artists?
- How to remain indifferent to the beauty of art produced by other artists of the past? I believe that the whole real and unconscious universe is a huge ocean of energy, which we must all draw on. I have never copied or imitated anyone, I have only drawn on that energy necessary to create new ones. Boy, what's wrong? You look nervous.
- Matteo, tell him about the poem.
- Master, would you like to hear a poem of mine?
- Sure, is that why you're nervous?
- You know, I'm kind of emotional.
- Boy, I read in your eyes that you must have a great energy inside, strength, let me feel your art.
“In the vast expanse of crazy diamonds I searched for memories without finding them.
Yet these thoughts shone like stars in the sky
But a man cannot
a man does not know
a man loves what he sees
So these thoughts turned into memories
savor the gestures of a heart in turmoil "
- Well done, good Matteo. And so you too dig with abstraction in the maze of your unconscious to talk about love. I know about love. Do you know that I have loved a woman for over fifty years? How is this poem titled?
- What title would you give her?
- Synthesis of a synthetic love.
- But you're a genius!
- I know!
- Matteo, tell him about the book!
- Boy from Foligno, did you also write a book?
- Yes, someone. It is published with @libereria: The stories of a stranger.
- You will be successful, but cut your beard and, since you are nice, I will allow you to make yourself a mustache like mine. And when you go to the presentations of your work, you keep this same charisma. Be anxiously emotional but real and spontaneous, this thing people will appreciate. But what do we do now?
- Actually we should bring the 600 back to the nuns.
- I understand, give me a ride to the bus stop. Hey, boy from the bar, I recommend you not to accept money from these two, marks the drink on Giacomo Balla's account. Come on, come on, my wife is waiting for me.
Friends, before returning the vehicle to the pacifist nuns, Walter Fest ,Matteo Gentili and Salvador Dalì thank you, greet you and look forward to seeing you at the next interview with the artist. And it will still be a pleasure.
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not a madman" Salvador Dalì.
INTERVISTA CON L’ARTISTA JOHN ATKINSON GRIMSHAW (Leeds 1836 – 1893)
Readers of signoradeifiltri, the blog that sails like a sailboat in the sea of culture, here I am, back to you in the company of a new guest, surely only a few of you you know him, and it will be a great pleasure for me to introduce you to him, but first you have to wait me to pick him up with my Vespa. Today there is a beautiful sun, we are in spring and the health emergency does not exist in our imagination. There he is, I see him, I brought a Viking helmet for him. Who knows if he will like it, I also brought a copy of one of his works and we will talk about it together.
- Hello.
- Hi Walter, as usual you're late, Pollock had told me that you would keep me waiting.
- It wasn't my fault, the Vespa had a dirty spark plug, a flooded carburettor and a clogged muffler.
- Why didn't you come with the Fiat 500?
- All the artists I interviewed have run out of stocks of chocolates and coffee.
- Ah, so what do we do now?
- I thought of going to get coffee and then take you to see the Colosseum what do you say?
- Okay, but don't run.
- Put your helmet on and let's go.
- But this helmet has horns!
- Yes, like a Viking. Why, don't you like it?
- Fortunately, there is no one who will see me.
- I say you're fine, come on, let's go.
Every time I go out on a Vespa with the artists, the helmet never gets a nod of approval. Yet they are artists, they should be extravagant, I begin to believe that they are just normal people with a low sense of humor, nobody is perfect.
Vrooommmm ... A few minutes by road and we arrived at our destination.
- Walter, do you know why I like Italy?
- I can imagine it ... Because you eat well?
- Walter, why are you so banal, everyone had spoken so well about you!
- I was kidding! Come on, I want to hear it from you.
- The light, you have a fantastic light, you don't need lighting, even in the dark, light creates a crazy harmony, and gives you a great emotional charge. I'm a bit of a cold guy and I'm comfortable here.
- I decided to interview you because a Scottish friend of mine recommended me. She is your fan, she likes your romantic spark. Instead, I like your works more.
- What?
- The depth, the breadth of the image and the sign, such a clean sign.
- What about the colour? Does the colour tell you nothing?
- Well, yes, the colour is also fascinating, but your works seem a single colour, I hardly see reds, blues or pinks.
- Walter, now I will explain, the use of colour was my business card, or, better said, my poetry. The people who could afford to buy my works wanted first of all works that represented the places of the time in an elegant form, free of dirty, violent or dramatically real images. And that was what I did, in short, I made a photograph colouring it with poetry and a touch of romance.
- You had a very refined technique.
- Let's say I had a very steady hand, and then consider that I am very calm, methodical, without emotional impulses. In just over twenty years I was an employee, a classic dandy, dressed neatly, and punctual like a Swiss watch.
- And how did you become an artist?
- Many of us have a dual personality, I was externally cold, but in my heart and in my soul I saw and felt different atmospheres, musical lyrics with warm and comforting background colours. I had no impetuous classic impulses like "genius and unruliness", but I was a disciplined and imaginative artist, and yet capable.
- It is true, your works are a mix of fantasy and photographic rationality, is it possible that you have never been tempted to change?
- And what would it do? That was me, myself, one with the work I was going to do and that, after years, gave me fame, success and economic gratification. My exaltation was not in experimentation but in the satisfaction of letting the observer enter into my work and to make him live the emotions he wanted to experience. And, modesty aside, even without school and teachers, I did well. And my children became appreciated artists and you know that children hardly follow in the footsteps of their parents.
- Yes, I understand, but let's go back to your works, as I said, I really like your large formats, I would define them as pictorial cinemascope, you are also famous for the brightness of your moons and reflections on the water.
- The secret was a steady hand, working in absolute silence. Before placing the brush, I closed my eyes to imagine the scene, paying attention to the smallest detail, using high quality tools and products that were not lacking in my part and, in addition, a lot of love. Without love we don't go far and my love was made exclusively of poetry, a gentle breeze that warmed my heart and gave me the serenity necessary to work at my best.
- What would you do if you went back?
- First of all I would stop smoking and sniffing tobacco, then I would do everything I did again. I'm honest, I wouldn't even have been eager to know the Impressionists. Too transgressive for my taste, maybe at best I could have gone for a ride in Japan.
- Japan? Not a bad idea. Look John, it's getting late, we didn't have a coffee and we didn't even see the Colosseum.
-Walter, how about going for a Neapolitan pizza with red wine and an evening stroll in the light of the stars with your Vespa?
-Neapolitan pizza and red wine? John, weren't you a cold guy?
- Yes, but your pizza and red wine are very good!
Ladies and gentlemen of our beloved blog, John Atkinson Grimshow and I greet you. We go for a pizza under the shining moon and look forward to seeing you at the next surprise interview.
Arte al bar: Pablo Picasso
Disegno di Walter Fest
- Dai, mettiti il casco che andiamo a prendere il caffè.
Per fortuna tutto fila liscio, ma la prossima volta prendo la 500, Pablo Picasso guida come un torero, ci sediamo al tavolo.
- Pablo, se tu non avessi fatto l'artista, che cosa avresti fatto nella tua vita?
Dear reader of signoradeifiltri, today we will have a spring edition, it is 8.30 am, I am waiting for an artist that I have to interview, we will go to the usual bar to have breakfast and then with my Vespa I will take him for a ride around Rome. My pistachio green Vespa is ready, my friend Mario has informed the bar tender that we will arrive with an illustrious guest, first I will offer him a hot coffee. I know that the interview will not be boring, static and formal. I see the artist who arrives: Pablo Picasso.
- Hi Pablo.
- Hi Walter.
- Come on, put on the helmet, we're going to have coffee.
- Yes, but I'll drive.
I'm afraid, he has a grim look, it's better to go along with him and not say no to him.
- Okay, but go slowly, can you put this helmet on?
- Hey, Walter, but this is a centurion helmet!
- Pablo, we are in Rome.
- Yeah, if we were in Venice, would you put a gondola on my head?
- But you look like Julius Caesar.
- We don't even talk about it!
After a heated dispute, Pablo Picasso agrees to put the centurion helmet on his head, in exchange for going to the Trevi fountain like Marcello Mastroianni, let's go ... broooommmm!
Fortunately everything goes smoothly, but next time I’ll take the 500, Pablo Picasso drives like a bullfighter, we sit down at the table.
- Pablo, if you hadn't been an artist, what would you have done in your life?
- Bueno, good question, I would have been undecided between the policeman and the barman, two occupations to be in contact with people. Logically, I left it to fate, we cannot hinder fate, each of us has a task, mine was to be an artist.
Two beautiful girls go by and Pablo looks at them.
- Pablo, good things are better than bad things.
- Claro, it's a question of sensitivity. That formidable ability we have to be attracted by everything that emanates harmony and poetry. Life is fascinating, spectacular, and humanity has the good fortune to live surrounded and immersed in the wonder of nature. Art has the duty and obligation to manifest everything that surrounds us through fantasy and technique, everyone must do their own to make our existence poetic.
- Pablo, not everyone has this sensitivity and, in any case, something less beautiful is always present.
- Diablo! And we artists must separate the bad images, selfishly built from the hands of man, from what is the universal language, directed towards a good way of life that makes humanity happy. It is true that we must also highlight brutality and miserable human weakness, as if we were a book open to all, we artists, messengers and apostles of creation.
- When you made Guernica were you very angry?
- No, more than angry, look me in the face, touch here, squeeze without fear of hurting me.
He takes my hand firmly and makes me touch his left biceps. Pablo Picasso has exceptional musculature.
- I was a fury, I made that painting moved by a beastly inner strength, each touch of brush a blow against the absurdity of inhumanity. It was like shooting an anti-war film, a dramatic black and white film with no other colours, it was useless to show blood and flaming colours, have you ever seen a black and white film?
-Yup
- In the contrast between those two tones there was the maximum of expressiveness, if I had used the colours it would have been a work like all the others and, instead, I had to impress the people, the same ones who rule the world without thinking about the sufferings of the innocent people. Unfortunately, some, too tied to the interests of a few, have not understood the lesson and armies are still playing war.
Cabrones! ... Barman bring me a gazzosa ... cabrones all!
- But everyone?
- Yes, all cabrones!
Pablo sips the gazzosa and lets out his anger, I try to make him talk of personal and romantic matters.
- Have you had a lot of love affairs?
The answer is a clear affirmative gesture, narrowing his eyes like a fawn in love.
- I liked women a lot, I looked at them!
- And music?
- I worked too hard, I didn't have time for music, but I liked it, oh yes, if I liked it. If I had been from this era, I would have liked the Beatles, a little rock, a little romantic, even if they didn't show it. They were muy loco like me, and besides, with all that hair, they were also nice, but I confess that even without their baronet helmets I had a certain charm.
- You traveled the world.
- Oh yes, but I could do more, it was a long way. You know, sometimes I felt master of the world but, in the end, you realize that you were just passing through and this thing made me a little sad. Luckily I have always worked a lot and canceled negative thoughts with my creativity, but I have no regrets. My art was a fantastic personal language and universal language, I did what I wanted as a child, I had fun and, even if you struggle to savor the pleasures of life, then you enjoy poetry and you feel at peace with yourself. Too bad that you remain only a pawn on the board, but with a heart swollen with passion. Of course it's worth living! When he is strong and sincere, El corazòn makes you see the light of existence without limits!
- Pablo, which work are you most fond of?
- Walter, what question is it? It's like asking if you love mom or dad more, I loved all my works. It was a continuous search and exchange of love with them, in each of them I left a part of me, I can't say that I loved one more than another and do you know why?
- Yeah, why?
- Because my works were me and I was them, so it's like saying that we lived in symbiosis and I was a little selfish, huh! I loved myself very much!
- Would you have liked to be a futurist?
- No amigo, a movement of confusing colours, brilliant but confusing, and then these futurists were too dreamy, reckless, obsessed with myths. The speed? Modernity? The super ego of the man who rules the earth, the seas, the sky? No amigo, I hold poetry tightly, don't you see how much poetry inebriates us with its sight and its perfume?
- Pink period?
- Yeah, I saw what the others couldn't see and I was happy to have painted it. Ask me about Dali.
- Pablo, what do you think of Dali?
- Ahahahah ... I'm glad that I stole him a lot of women, I always beat him on time, but I valued him and he esteemed me. Great scoundrel, with a small format work he has crossed the barrier of time and has become famous and immortal.
- The persistence of memory.
- Yeah, a small enigmatic and visionary picture, only a great artist like him could make it ... Now we have to go, did you bring the money to pay the bill here at the bar?
I open my wallet, I have five euros, a few saints and an expired bus ticket between the cobwebs. We hadn't told you but while we were talking, we had six coffees, five sugary donuts, a box of Tuscan cigars, a sambuca, a soda and a whiskey.
- Ahahah ... I think we're in trouble now, come on, let's go.
- Without paying?
- It is claro, start the Vespa, I jump on and off we go to see the Sistine chapel and, later, the Trevi fountain, for swimming.
Vroooommm !!
Readers of the blog kissed by the rays of the sun of culture, yes, Pablo Picasso and I fled with the Vespa and did not pay the bill at the bar. It was not our fault... I forgot ... The bath in the Trevi fountain can only be done by Picasso and I, if you want, follow us with your imagination.
L'arte astratta secondo me
Molta gente, parlando di arte astratta, pensa che sia bella e piacevole ma di non facile comprensione. Molti pensano che chiunque possa essere in grado di realizzare opere di quel genere. Si dicono molte cose ma in realtà l'arte astratta nasce dalla fantasia di ognuno di noi. Ognuno di noi vede tutto quello che abbiamo intorno con una logica ma poi, con la fantasia, può inventare ciò che di fatto non esiste. Ed è proprio la fantasia un motivo di gioia per tutti noi.
Provate a pensare agli scarabocchi dei bambini, sono vere opere d'arte, perché naturali. I bambini sono liberi da condizionamenti, quindi, quando disegnano, sono autentici e spontanei e il loro linguaggio espressivo diventa arte.
Oppure pensiamo agli uomini della preistoria, pensiamo ai disegni rupestri nelle grotte di Altamira in Spagna. Gli esseri umani hanno da sempre utilizzato il linguaggio grafico per comunicare, non è importante che il disegno sia fedele alla realtà, oppure simile, oppure totalmente diverso, tanto da lasciare all'osservatore la possibilità d'interpretare un'opera considerata astratta. La bellezza dell'arte è nella sua manifestazione e nel vedere questo linguaggio come una parte essenziale della nostra vita.
Che vita sarebbe senza la bellezza dell'arte? Arte astratta, o figurativa, in una parola sola: "arte". Secondo me, l'arte astratta è sempre esistita ma è con il movimento francese degli Impressionisti che qualcosa è cambiato nella storia. Da quel momento l'arte potè anche essere considerata da un punto di vista diverso. Come è successo per tutti i nuovi movimenti, la rottura con gli schemi del passato ha generato una scintilla creativa.
La scomposizione della luce, con effetto su tutte le forme, grazie agli Impressionisti, ha fatto nascere delle opere d'arte nuove. L'osservatore non vedeva più solo quello che esisteva realmente ma, attraverso la fantasia, poteva toccare con mano le impressioni che abbiamo davanti gli occhi in ogni nostro momento. Impressioni che, essendo velocissime, ci sfuggono. Gli impressionisti, con una tecnica astratta, erano riusciti a fermarle sulla tela. Quindi ci trovavamo di fronte a un nuovo rinascimento che non si sarebbe più fermato.
L'arte astratta è veloce, spontanea, dinamica, anche se può sembrare irrazionale, le sue forme sono comunque equilibrate. Con un solo colpo d'occhio può emozionarci, farci sorridere, farci sognare, farci riflettere. L'arte astratta non ha limiti. E' vero, è molto difficile per un artista inventare qualcosa di nuovo, perché tutto è stato già inventato, ma è proprio questo il bello, trovare strade alternative, sperimentare. E, grazie alla fantasia, nulla è impossibile.
Many people, speaking of abstract art, think that it is beautiful and pleasant, but not easy to understand. Many things are said but, in reality, abstract art is born from the imagination of each of us. Each of us sees what is around us with a logic but then, with the imagination, can invent what does not actually exist. And fantasy is a reason for joy for all of us.
Try to think of children's doodles, they are true works of art, because they are natural. Children are free from conditioning, therefore, when they draw, they are authentic and spontaneous, and their expressive language becomes art.
Or think of the men of prehistory, think of the rock drawings in the caves of Altamira in Spain. Human beings have always used graphic language to communicate, it is not important that the drawing is faithful to reality, or similar, or totally different, so as to leave the observer the possibility of interpreting a work considered abstract. The beauty of art is in its manifestation and in seeing this language as an essential part of our life.
What would life be like without the beauty of art? Abstract, or figurative, art, in one word: "art". In my opinion, abstract art has always existed, but it is with the French Impressionists movement that something has changed in history. From that moment on, art could also be considered from a different point of view. As has happened with all the new movements, the break with the patterns of the past has generated a creative spark.
The breakdown of light, with an effect on all forms, thanks to the Impressionists, has given birth to new works of art. The observer no longer saw only what really existed but, through fantasy, he could touch the impressions we have before our eyes in every moment. Impressions that, being very fast, escape us. The impressionists, with an abstract technique, had managed to stop them on the canvas. So we were faced with a new renaissance that would never stop.
Abstract art is fast, spontaneous, dynamic. Even if it may seem irrational, its forms are however balanced. With a single glance, it can excite us, make us smile, make us dream, make us reflect. Abstract art has no limits. It is true that it is very difficult for an artist to invent something new, because everything has been already invented, but this is the beauty of finding alternative ways, experimenting. And thanks to the imagination nothing is impossible.
"Art is a harmony parallel to nature" Paul Cezanne.
"I work from the inside out, just like nature" Jackson Pollock
Cinzia Diddi e Serena Baldaccini insieme a Nicola Giotti: parola chiave arte e Solidarietà
Uova aerografate con dipinti di Picasso e di Josè Van Roy Dalì. Omaggio anche a Fabrice Quagliotti.
I pezzi unici saranno messi all’asta, in un ideale gemellaggio, da “Insieme si può” fondo di raccolta istituito dalla Stilista Cinzia Diddi in Toscana e dalla “Associazione Gabriel" a Bari per raccogliere fondi da donare agli ospedali di Firenze, Prato, Pistoia e Bari
Queste le parole di Nicola Giotti.
Se qualcuno mi chiedesse se ci sia o meno un aspetto positivo in questo Covid 19, che sta flagellando il mondo, saprei cosa rispondere senza esitazione. Direi senz’altro di si. Quello che fa la differenza è, infatti, la corsa alla solidarietà, quella vera, quella che non ha confini. Quella che ci rende tutti cittadini di un unico cielo.
L’aerografo di Giotti, da Giovinazzo, si sposta a Nord con due donazioni: la prima è un uovo speciale che riporta il ritratto di Josè Van Roy Dalì insieme alla sua musa, Serena Baldaccini, holder del blog magazine Stay Star music blog and more. L’immagine è stata prestata dalla stilista fiorentina Cinzia Diddi e da una collezione di prossima uscita di T-shirt Limited Edition, dedicata al maestro.
L’uovo di Nicola Giotti verrà messo all’asta e devoluto a “Insieme si può”, la raccolta fondi attivata dalla stessa Cinzia Diddi, coadiuvata da Serena Baldaccini, con l’obiettivo di raccogliere fondi per acquistare macchinari e dispositivi di protezione a pazienti e operatori sanitari di strutture ospedaliere di Firenze, Prato, Pistoia.
Ma per questi tre ospedali e per “Insieme si può”, il contributo di Nicola Giotti non finisce qui, perché ha realizzato anche un secondo uovo, aerografando l’immagine di Fabrice Quagliotti, leader dei Rockets. E’ inutile sottolineare che l’uovo sta già spopolando soprattutto tra i fans della band.
Per saperne di più e per offrire il proprio contributo basterà cliccare sul link: www.gofundme.com/f/b5gb4-insieme-si-puo
E se si tratta di donare Nicola Giotti, pasticcere in Giovinazzo (Bari) - e autore di un magnifico libro dal titolo “Metamorfosi”, a ricordare una famosa mostra di Picasso – è in prima linea. La pubblicazione, racconta la sua arte: l’aerografia, una tecnica particolare, attraverso la quale riporta su uova di cioccolata dipinti dei maggiori artisti del Novecento. Vere e proprie opere d’arte alcune delle quali Giotti ha voluto offrire alla solidarietà. Serviranno, attraverso due aste eccezionali, messe in campo in Toscana da “Insieme si può” e a Bari dalla Associazione Gabriel, per acquistare, da Nord a Sud, presidi ospedalieri, che in questo periodo non bastano mai. In una sorta di ideale gemellaggio, il cui fil rouge è rappresentato da questi “pezzi unici”, realizzati da Nicola Giotti.
Scendiamo a Sud con la collezione dedicata a Picasso, che consta di cinque uova a rappresentare altrettante opere dell’artista riprodotte con la tecnica indiretta speculare lucida, concepita da Giotti e donate dall’artista-pasticcere alla Associazione Gabriel di Bari, odv per l’umanizzazione delle cure in oncologia. Si tratta di opere di particolare pregio e di grande livello artistico.
La Gabriel, attraverso una asta, patrocinata dal Comune di Giovinazzo - alla quale si può partecipare collegandosi anche alla pagina Facebook “Progetto Gabriel di umanizzazione delle Cure in Oncologia”- raccoglierà fondi (iban:IT51R06909606100000077956) per l’acquisto di mascherine e presidi ospedalieri da donare all’IRCCS e al Policlinico di Bari.
Antonella Daloiso
Intervista con l'artista: Andy Warhol... e pure con uno scrittore
Arte al bar: "Il cenacolo" di Leonardo da Vinci
«Fu tanto raro e universale, che dalla natura per suo miracolo esser produtto dire si puote: la quale non solo della bellezza del corpo, che molto bene gli concedette, volse dotarlo, ma di molte rare virtù volse anchora farlo maestro. Assai valse in matematica et in prospettiva non meno, et operò di scultura, et in disegno passò di gran lunga tutti li altri. Hebbe bellissime inventioni, ma non colorì molte cose, perché si dice mai a sé medesimo avere satisfatto, et però sono tante rare le opere sue. Fu nel parlare eloquentissimo et raro sonatore di lira [...] et fu valentissimo in tirari et in edifizi d'acque, et altri ghiribizzi, né mai co l'animo suo si quietava, ma sempre con l'ingegno fabricava cose nuove.» (Anonimo Gaddiano, 1542)
Allora, carissime Bice e Alice, a Leonardo, nel 1494, venne offerto di lavorare al convento di Santa Maria delle grazie, c’era da decorare il refettorio per i pasti dei frati domenicani e al nostro artista venne lasciata la parte di fondo per realizzare l’ultima cena. Per Leonardo salire sull'impalcatura e lavorare su una parete di circa 5 x 9 mt, con una luce modesta, era l’ultimo dei problemi. Io lo vedo, Leonardo, con lo sguardo pensieroso, lo vedo studiare l’impresa, lo vedo ragionare sulla tecnica ed essere dubbioso sul lavorare con un intonaco fresco. Non a tutti piace sentire l’umidità che ti gela il pennello e le budella, e poi bisogna sbrigarsi, avere sempre la tinta a portata rapida di mano, sperando di sbagliare il meno possibile perché si rischia l’impasto della materia colorata come una pappa, lui no, lui studia il colore, studia la forma, riflette con calma, si intercala nella storia che ha davanti, si sente parte di essa e, come la mano d’opera di un vecchio artigiano è lenta e saggia, la parete umida potrebbe freddargli il cuore e la mente, e poi quest’ultima cena è divina e lui vuole renderla tale, quindi sceglie di sperimentare e di lavorare come su tavola, ma provando una materia che lui pensa potrà resistere su quelle mura che, confinando con la cucina, faranno traspirare vapore e calore. Scelta fatale perché con i secoli, anzi quasi da subito, si rivelerà sbagliata, ma questo capolavoro immortale, grazie a squadre di miracolosi restauratori, definitivamente tornerà a splendere e, dall'aldilà, Leonardo di gioia riderà.
- Walter, comunque questa cena non sembra drammatica.
- Bice, hai ragione.
- E non sembra neanche l’ultima.
- Brava Alice, ora vi spiego il mio punto di vista. La parete è di fondo, quindi Leonardo sceglie di realizzare una prospettiva che allunghi fino ad un orizzonte lontano, per dare ampiezza e profondità all'opera, di fatto le pareti dipinte ai lati del tavolo dell’ultima cena sembrano essere il prolungamento della mensa, come a sfondare il muro oltre la cucina nel retro, e tutto parte dal centro dell’opera, con la testa di Gesù Cristo ma alle sue spalle c’è un particolare importante, per me determinante.
- Quale?
- Gianni, metti un sottofondo musicale.
- Vi va bene Caravanserai dei Santana?
- Ottimo. Allora, secondo me in tutta questa opera quello che accende la luce e illumina la fede sono le tre finestre di fondo.
- E perché?
- Alice, attraverso quelle tre finestre, la luce che nasce all'orizzonte è la luce divina che apre le porte della speranza, o meglio, dichiara la certezza che c’è qualcuno superiore a Gesù Cristo e, lasciando che si compia il destino del proprio figlio, illumina l’umanità con il suo amore, per dimostrarci che non ci lascerà soli. Questa luce che entra dalle tre finestre colpisce la parete di destra e, scendendo sulla tavola ricoperta di una candida tovaglia bianca, compiendo quasi una curva, idealmente ci abbraccia, perché, se da un punto di vista tecnico il chiarore di queste tonalità - riferendomi all'alternare da parte dell’artista di toni chiari e scuri - è uno stratagemma della tecnica pittorica per permettere la profondità dell’opera, dal punto di vista ideologico le tre finestre e la tovaglia bianca sono la luce divina che viene diffusa su tutta l’umanità. Avete notato il pane disposto troppo ordinatamente, i bicchieri tutti riempiti rigorosamente a metà, piatti e vettovaglie disposte con aritmetica disposizione?
- Eh già, non avevano fame?
- Potrebbe anche essere che Gesù Cristo abbia iniziato a parlare prima di cenare.
- Carissime Bice e Alice, secondo me per Leonardo la cena era solo un dettaglio, gli accessori non avevano importanza, non c’è ricchezza negli abiti e neanche nell'ambientazione dell’interno, egli non doveva esibire la propria bravura attraverso la cura dei particolari. Leonardo da Vinci non doveva dimostrare nulla a nessuno ma, guidato da chissà quale forza interiore, descrivere semplicemente la verità che colpisse il più possibile nel profondo dei cuori tutti coloro che avrebbero ammirato il suo capolavoro, un capolavoro espresso in una maniera nitida, senza fronzoli.
- Come Giotto nella sua opera Approvazione della regola?
- Bravissima Alice, Giotto era a suo modo modernissimo e, girando per l’Italia, ha ispirato molti pittori, ma adesso torniamo alla nostra ultima cena.
- Eh no, perché ultima cena?
- Bice, tranquilla, non in quel senso, dai, non mi interrompere.
- Vabbè, se lo dici tu.
- Allora, voglio dirvi che in questa opera tutto sembra essere super ordinato, tutto fermo, e la concentrazione è maggiormente rivolta alla figura del Gesù Cristo al centro. In realtà la scena è molto dinamica, un movimento frenetico che, da ambo i lati, si diffonde come un vortice di passione e di emozioni verso il protagonista del momento. Gli apostoli, come nei fotogrammi di un film, recitano la propria parte, perfino un coltello nella mano di un irascibile è pronto e proteso all'azione, la gestualità emotiva è evidente, mentre il Cristo salvatore è serenamente rassegnato a una storia che ha da venire a breve. Quest’ultima cena è solo l’inizio di una nuova vita per chi deve credere e avere fiducia nell'unico amore universale e, come una ciliegina sulla torta, mentre si compie il destino alle spalle di tutti, entra dalle tre finestre la luce, raggi di luce dolce e piena di calore vitale.
- Questa luce sembra illuminare di più il volto e il mantello di una figura posta alla destra del Gesù.
- Brava Alice, occhio di lince!
- E ci credo, a forza di stare con i gatti!
- Allora, volete sapere chi è quel personaggio?
- Sentiamo un po’, chi è?
- Siete curiosi, eh? Allora, io immediatamente in esso ho visto un volto di donna: la corporatura è minuta, gli occhi chiusi rivolti in basso. Tra l’altro è l’unica figura che sembra estraniarsi dall'azione, mantenendosi con il viso proteso in senso opposto a Gesù, quasi ad allontanarsi dal dolore della situazione in corso. Il Cristo guarda alla sua sinistra? La donna guarda alla sua destra rassegnata, intorno a lei tutte le mani, le braccia i volti degli apostoli sono muscoli d’acciaio? Lei no, solo un immagine di tristezza e rassegnazione, che sia la Maria Maddalena? Eppure questa donna secondo me…
- Secondo te, cosa?
- Eppure, secondo me la luce irradiata dal suo volto significa qualcosa.
- Scendiamo a volo di gabbiano sulla tua teoria, sentiamola.
- Significa un messaggio di fede, significa la luce che illumina l’importanza della donna, la vita nasce dalla donna, nasce dall'amore, ogni nuova vita che nasce è il miracolo di questa nostra esistenza, la rivincita della vita sulla morte e la donna è la parte essenziale. In questa ultima cena la presenza di una donna illuminata da una luce divina non poteva mancare, simboleggia la chiusura del cerchio, la nostra ragione di esistere e di godere di questo paradiso in terra. E' l’ultima cena ma all'indomani conquisteremo l’eternità. Allora, che ne dite?
- E con il virus come la mettiamo?
- Oggi c’è un bel sole e il cielo è pulito, con la fantasia possiamo abbracciarci e stringerci le mani, sorriderci l’un l’altro e ben sperare che questa storia a breve finisca.
- E il sereno in tutto il mondo tornerà… Stasera a mangiare la pizza si va?
- Buona idea, anche se per ora solo con la fantasia, che è meglio rimanere in casa. Amici lettori della signoradeifiltri, anche la fantasia può diventare realtà e questo ce lo ha insegnato nei secoli la storia. Ora non ci resta che aspettare con pazienza il nuovo giorno che verrà. Per me le tre finestre alle spalle del cenacolo di Leonardo esprimono fiducia, e per voi? Ora, nel ringraziarvi e nel salutarvi, vi do appuntamento al prossimo incontro artistico che avverrà nella bottega dell’arte. Avremo nostro ospite un giovane artista, arrivederci a presto e, insieme a voi, sarà sempre un piacere.
