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Van Gogh and the construction of genius: narration as the final brushstroke of the work.
Van Gogh's genius was already on the canvas, but the world didn't see it. Only thanks to those who told and shared his work, the genius became visible. When talent and storytelling meet, a legend is born.
The “Dolce Vita” by Novella Parigini
The “Dolce Vita” by Novella Parigini Free, bold, unforgettable. Novella Parigini has transformed her life into a work of art. Dalí, Sartre, and Hollywood are merely the backdrop to a character who still defies time.
Lucio Fontana
LUCIO FONTANA Rosario de Santa Fe (Argentina), 1899 - Milan, 1968 The creator of Spatialism, a painter of holes, and a creator of slashes in the canvas, Lucio Fontana marked an era in the history of Italian art. Born in Argentina, he moved to Italy in 1917-1918, enlisting as a volunteer in the First World War. He decided to devote himself to art, attending courses at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan under the Symbolist Adolfo Wildt. Fontana However, he distances himself from the master's teachings and from the plastic figuration practiced by the Novecento group, to follow his own path, mixing painting and sculpture towards a new dimension: nothingness, the void beyond the canvas. It was the 1930s and his intention to act "spatially" in relation to architecture was already evident, working in collaboration with several architects of the new generation (Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini, BBPR, Luciano Baldessari). At the same time, he devoted himself to ceramics in Albisola, returning to a more figurative expression, dealing with plant and animal themes. This was followed by a so- Argentinean day, from 1940 to 1947, in which he deepens the elaboration of matter, colour, light, form and space, and writes the White Manifesto (1946). By now, "space art" was established: the "holes" appeared in 1949, and ten years later, the "cuts" arrived, perforating the canvas to create a cosmic dimension of space. These physical marks on the canvas correspond, in his spatial environments, to the insertion of neon light. The "ambient work" is the affirmation of total engagement with space, a unity between object, matter, and volume. Fontana initially created "black environments" with the application of Wood's black light (the first was created for the exhibition at the Galleria Il Naviglio in Milan in 1949). From the 1966 Biennale onward, the artist decided to use a "white" solution, total light. In 1968 For Documenta 4 in Kassel, he created Ambiente spaziale, an entirely white labyrinth that leads to a "cut" in white plaster. The same labyrinth, after Fontana's death that same year, was recreated in wood in 1974 for the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Caracas, to which his wife donated the original plaster panel with the cut.
Gino De Dominicis
Mystery surrounds the life of Gino De Dominicis, both as a man and as an artist, and his very death is shrouded in obscurity. A larger-than-life character, he lived beyond all rules and order, isolated from any artistic movement, choosing to remain anchored only to himself. A lover of gambling, which led him to live more by night than by day, he created a sort of legend around himself, but never allowed any of his life to be documented in books or photographs, much like his works, which he bought back only to destroy. De Dominicis developed his poetics between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, focusing his philosophy on the temporality of events, the immortality of the body, invisible objects (the presence/absence dichotomy), and the mystery of creation and human existence (expressed in his interest in the Sumerian civilization). Since the 1980s, he has devoted himself more to painting, especially tempera and pencil on wood, making certain visual elements his signature features: men with long noses, women with trunks, deformed bodies with small hands and enormous skulls, majestic shadows, almost bordering on the grotesque. His message, often so indecipherable, aims to underscore the centrality of art, which, through the work, becomes creation and mystery. This enigmatic aura is also found in the chromatic and compositional tones of De Dominicis's first figurative painting, Io a Roma (1986), characterized by a figure on the right and the obelisk of Piazza del Popolo on the left, overlooked by a full moon. Rome is his adopted city, the eternal city par excellence, which, precisely because of its immortal uniqueness, the artist has loved above all else.