Chronicle
of Friday May 27th, 2005
First
afternoon of sultriness. I have to finish thousand small things, the postcards,
the brochures, to separate all the works of mail art received and listed. I am
alone. Di doo... di doo... it is the phone! Alberto Vitacchio with Carla are the
first to arrive at the hotel. Driiin! Someone is ringing at the door, here are
Gunther and Colette from Geneva. Luckily she understands Italian and with
Gunther I dust my very rusted French. It is an exchange of messages, what I do
and what they do. Shared friends and artistic experiences, facts and
circumstances of so many years of mail art, magazines, fanzines, our landscape,
their city. Colette explains to me the performance that they want to show. I had
written “informatic” while the sense was information, a criticism from the
inside that starts from an essay on the “Information theory”. The dear
friend Grazia Perini arrives to give me her work for the show. And here the half
trouble happens to my elevator with the risk of not being able to move from the
house, luckily it is soon fixed, but the incident is tiresome enough to embitter
the minds. So when Claudio phones me to combine the exit and to go and mount the
show, I feel seriously worried. But after some time, when he finally arrives to
pick up the materials, except for some sarcastic wisecrack from the part of my
father everything is loosened up again. I go afoot with Lorenzo while they
depart with the car. On the road we meet Gunther and Colette, we enter together
the main room where the chaos still reigns. Alberto and Carla are there, they do
not know Gunther and Colette so I introduce them. They speak in French. But here
is Emanuele Gagliano. We have to assemble the structure for the works. Luisa
Marinelli also arrives with her boyfriend. Once built the big canvas and the
nets, everybody helps to hang the 200 artworks on this year’s theme “Beyond
the limits”, arrived from 20 countries. With many artists it is now a kind of
appointment, when I receive the envelope or the postcard from authors that have
participated in the last four or five editions, I recognize it and I am curious
to open it and “meet” again the artist and the artist’s way of working,
and it is as if I personally meet him again.
Apart
from some problems, such as the confusion that arise from not having sorted the
works before, with the collaboration of 8, 10 people we quickly finish. And here
is Marchiani with his companion, the French painter Davitti. In the meantime
Claudio has prepared with a series of wood benches the small entrance room: a
beautiful installation, dominated by the open cloth for Creativa by Tonia
Copertino, specially created to be completed here during the meeting, the
photographic book by Rita Vitali Rosati, the panels created by Irene and
Camilla, the art brut and our books! Then off we all go to bed.
Saturday
May 28th, 2005
The sun
is up at 6,20 am, it filters from the roll-up blind and it lights up my room. I
am awake, a thousand thoughts turn around in my head: what are we doing, we put
into motion dozens of artists and have them come here to meet in this small
village!?! All around, the birds launch their calls, the roosters sing, Rignano
is indeed still a small village in the middle of the countryside! From the early
morning the telephone starts to ring: the posters, the lighthouse, in short, the
problems with the Town municipality, with those who were in charge to help us.
And it is thanks to the intervention of the Councillor that some problems are
resolved. Alessandro Merini phones me. He doesn't find the place, he is
somewhere going round. I go to the appointment with the students of the prof.
Mannucci. The poets Francesco Mandrino, Bertola and Vitacchio are also there,
Mandrino begins the reading of the poems that I have chosen, with a quick
explanation and a series of questions from the boys. A pupil reads the poems
written by a companion, naturally gifted. Then is the time of sound poetry,
introduced by Vitacchio with a few hints on its history, its developments and a
few live demonstrations, the students are amused, they remain infected by it and
everybody experiments with the voice! I go down, and in the corridor among the
works exposed I meet Franca Monzani and Renata Strada, Fulgor Silvi and Merini
who is excited for the encounter as well as me. Then I meet Morandi and Strada,
Umiliacchi and Giampaolo Salvadori who takes care of the audio equipment. A
little touch to the works and I go back home.
It is
time, I wake up, we take the last things and go to Creativa. It is a little past
3 pm, Claudio as usual is going crazy, who wants this, who wants that, and where
should I put my things, I should perform later, sooner... it is not easy! It is
a festival of colors, Merini has stretched his sheets with poems along the net
in the entry. Sitting there is Eliselle with two friends, Buccella will not
come. Here is Isabella Branella who arrived alone by train with a cart full of
paintings. Around the square the tables are already in place with the
self-productions, books, magazines, fliers, videos. Inside, Silvi is moving with
a long table with many little plastic soldiers glued on top. Maurizio Piccirillo
introduces himself , he is the poet that wanted for a long time to participate
and for a problem or another had not succeeded yet, he is together with
Raimondo, half of ISDP, with him Paolo Bottari and Mauro Andreani fixing the
video equipment. Everybody else talk and exchange memories, they introduce each
other, they wait to see the others performing: this is the purpose of the
meeting. Laura Cristin from Udine is preparing her scenography, we speak of her
DaSHEren, of her art activities... With Branella we find a place for her
paintings at the end of the exhibition corridor, next to the series of 50
envelopes that contain the 100 transformations made together. There is
Massimiliano De Luca, he can finally have our books, and another De Luca,
Massimo graphic arts teacher from Pistoia, friend of the De Cesarios of whom he
brings us the regards. The members of the SLANs group arrive, Claudia Bortolotti
immediately presents me the new issue of “The nettle” (“L’ortica”) and
a book of poems and paintings by Sandra Mazzini. As usual the opening is a bit
laaate... It is almost 4 pm. We are all in the room. Claudio introduces this 6°
edition, our desires, our commitment and that from the Culture Councillor Lucia
Bencistŕ with us today for the inauguration. It is my task to introduce and
present the artists. The evening is opened by Maurizio Vitiello, that at first makes a
true spot for the newspaper “il Brigante”, with which he collaborates, and later
illustrates to us his visual paradigms regarding Caravaggio, Burri, Fontana. It
is a beautiful speech between lights and shades, matter and action from the past
to the present in a single circle.
Eliselle
reads us a story between pulp and eros. Even if well conceived, by now we
realize that the reading of a short story doesn’t give much to a lively
audience, excited by the experiences that are born and consumed during the
meeting. We go out, Fulgor Silvi is sitting in the center of the square with two
chairs and his little plastic soldiers. He wears welder glasses, he observes...
up, down, sideways... he moves slowly. Then he searches two persons, Claudio and
Marchiani, and makes them sit down, he makes them wear glasses and hold the
stick with the little plastic soldiers, he ends the action by hanging around
their neck a signboard with the words “Praise of the absence”. After a small
poetic speech from Merini, I meet the poetess Silvia C. with whom I have been in
contact for three years, she has finally come, with her friend Valentina.
Stefania Corrocher arrives with a basket of sweets and vinsanto, she seems
Little Red Riding Hood and we laugh about this. I meet the poet Franco
Santamaria, we speak of his book, when to introduce it, but we have to wait for
his friend. Emilio and Franca Morandi are in full swing with their Conspiracy,
distributing their Banknotes. The Stradas gather up all of us, poets, audience,
artists, and they put us in line to read a word each, what comes out of it is
exactly the kind of homage that they wanted to make to the sound poets Bertola
and Vitacchio, a paradoxical cacophony of medical-clinical words. Inside the
building Gunther and Colette Ruch sitting in the faint light begin their very
musical and metronomic sound performance. Blocks of two words are repeated with
a revolving rhythm. This creates a sense of suspension. Then a series of two
words in opposition. Outside! The SLANs have created costumes and scenographies,
it is a peculiar and emotional instant for this group that tries to bring to the
square and recite passages of poetry. Merini takes the word, but later I will be
forced to stop him because he seems unable to conclude, it is a wave of memories,
poetry, emotions, adventures. Inside Andreani is ready. He starts a projection.
He moves around. He photographs with the Polaroid and throws the photos on the
floor. Then he kneels down in front of the photos, he takes up one of them and
observes it, on the wall two observing eyes are projected. He obliterates the
photo and the eyes on the wall double. This happens for all the other photos.
And on the wall the eyes become hundreds, thousands. Outside Bertola and
Vitacchio wait for us with their performance against the war, that is full of
voices, gestures, sheets, races, cries. Intense, dramatic, theatrical and
enthralling. But after such a deep laceration what can we do? Corrocher brings
her sweets of poetic silence and the vinsanto, she distributes it: it is a
light, happy and welcomed pause! The poet Paolo Ragni has arrived and has fixed
the computer, we can introduce the book by Santamaria "Echi ad
incastro" (“Puzzle of echoes”). I introduce it and I read the letter
with comments that I had written some time ago. Ragni reads two poems and one
essay of his regarding the book. At this moment Giancarlo Da Lio intervenes to
pay me a tribute, for the commitment with which I organize every year Creativa,
and presents me with the medal of the Republic of the artists. I thank him, but
I say that the medal must be shared with Claudio. Santamaria thanks Ragni for
coming to read two of his poems. Inside Paolo Conti is ready on the stage with
his three handmaids dressed in white. They cover him with various layers of
white cloth, and they tie him with some orange ropes, at the end he resembles a
packed statue, then he frees himself and he goes outside. Everybody is in the
square, it is our turn, I play the digital sound generator, Claudio the electric
guitar, the filters and sings. The first piece “The end” flies smoothly and
then “The awakening of the instinct”, with the danced interpretation by
Irene, from caterpillar to butterfly, I can't see very much but when I spot her
upright on the points of her toes flapping her wings it is a big emotion. It is
Yzu’s turn, reciting from the stage, with mask and baton, his sour and sharp
rhymes. He starts a route through the square, the exhibition room and the mail
art corridor to arrive in front of the 15 dramatic canvases, almost monochrome,
painted by Branella exactly to illustrate his verses. He stops, he points to the
canvases, and through the radio-microphone everything can be followed also from
the square. Then he resumes the walk to end up on the stage. I have exhausted my
time. I immediately return home, where I have the bitter surprise to discover
that I have wet myself. I am nervous, angry, I am hot, my parents do what they
can to calm me down. Then with their attentions and the fresh air that comes
from outside I recover. I am late, nevermind! Claudio phones me and I tell him
to begin the Promenade. I reach them in the precise moment when they are
entering the first square with "Poetry in progress". A traffic warden
precedes them, behind him the multicoloured procession is opened by the Stradas
playing old pianolas and in front a masked figure holding a tall banner to the
wind, hats of every shape, two persons in white overall. We occupy the square
with the fountain of Neptune, we take a seat. From the terrace, where some boys
are having a party, at first a totally different kind of music originates, then
curiosity wins them over. They are all leaning out from the handrail, the music
volume has been lowered. Sheren starts her action, she washes the cloths in the
river Arno, or in the village fountain, the water is the same!!! At first
hesitant then incited by all of us she plunges into the fountain, makes a full
round tour and with her dresses, the blue veils and the jets of water the action
becomes suggestive. We cannot perform here the readings, too many noises that
confuse us. Resuming the Promenade, we arrive in the Municipality square. We
form a semicircle. The lighthouse is turned on and our lancer mounts guard in
front of the town hall. Nearby are the two carriers of little plastic soldiers
in white overall with mask. Alberto Rizzi begins by reading some of his recent
poems. After him comes the Group SLAN with the second part of “The zipper of
time”. Between breaks of prerecorded songs and group actions the poetic thread
is unwound. Gianni Donaudi by now mythical poet of Creativa cheers us with two
satirical/ironic poems. Morandi with Franca, after having turned on the cassette
blaster from which dissonant sounds originate, trace two circles with chalk,
then they stretch in turn inside of it tracing the outline of the body with open
arms and legs wide apart, each filling with flour the voids in the form of the
partner’s body. Yzu with an iron beats on the handrail and recites the act of
accusation for Piazza Fontana, umpteenth joke of the Justice in Italy. Then he
lays on the ground and with a few words he remembers Giuliani killed in Genoa.
Mandrino with the support of Sandra Mazzini recites four poems from his
“Boulevard”. The Stradas make us sing and then dance in time with our chant.
It is a progressive crescendo, despite the motorbikes and the cars that keep
passing by, for us it is a pure meeting cemented by art and a gift for those who
have eyes to see and ears to listen. The town Mayor and the Culture Councillor
are also there, I wonder what they will think inside of them of this disrespect
toward all these guest artists, arrived in Rignano from so far away? Bertola and
Vitacchio perform a short sound poetry text and Leonello Rabatti recites a
trilogy of verses with gestures of great simplicity. Merini, upright on his
crutches, offers us his great love for poetry and women: he recites imprivising
with pauses for anecdotes and explanations. Flavio Casella closes reciting a
poem on poetry. It is not late, but the hot afternoon has put to the test
everybody. Some profit of this occasion to go and see Florence by night. The
illuminated Old Bridge. We greet our wishes and I go to bed in a hurry.
Sunday
May 29th, 2005
With Patrizia I prepare all the necessary material, the postcards, the brochures, the books, the CDs, while I write the first part of the chronicle. At 10,30 am we go with Lorenzo and the van. Today a cycle ride organized by Avis will also be held (when you say careful planning!), so we must take an alternative and tortuous route, to what tests are put the already mistreated lovers of the arts?! When I arrive Claudio tells me that Mariella Bettarini, the poetess that animated the Florentine culture in the Seventies, had been there. Pietro Viti (happy to be here and to make his performance) greets me together with Bruno Capatti (who whispers in my ear: I can’t wait to perform!), Gianni Broi introduces me to Liliana Ugolini, Merini and all the others: an hallo, an embrace, two words. And then we go inside to start the video-projector and to begin the discussion. Meanwhile the new guests arrive one after the other. There is a dark one with curls, I ask him his name, he is Ettore Le Donne and has come from Montesilvano curious to see what is going on. An inspection to the show (I should not say it, very beautiful!). Branella gives to me her gifts, to be opened at home, she has to go, what a pity! I ask to Umiliacchi if he wants to speak about the fanzines, but he thinks (I believe he is wrong) that the people gathered here are not interested. Then I call Claudio and I tell him to introduce the theme of Creativa. We try to explain what we have done and what we would like to do, for instance to prolong the meeting and to create an Archive in the town Library. There are various interventions. Rizzi says that he would like to be more in the street among the people. Morandi says that he recognizes the particularity of Creativa, and that this must be defended. Casella brings a contrasting voice saying that the festival will collapse if the number of participants will increase even more, a true thing that we will have to take into account seriously. Others say that they would like more audience participation, but all recognize the great difficulty of involving the public. Capatti defends this way of meeting, so akin to the mail art spirit and to his desire of communication with others. Viti says that he would like to capture the public combining something of local and typical. It is Tiziana Baracchi that rises up and strongly defends Creativa as it is, since she has traveled in long and in wide the festivals of the world and she believes it is a true miracle that such a relevant festival could be born in Rignano. I reply thanking her for her kind words and I say that, yes, we make all that is possible, but also the ideas of the participants help us to plan and to build the future editions. We close the curtains and we project the animate and sonorized postage stamps by the Russian artist Natalie Lamanova, everyone is surprised by so much ability. We also project the document on Ecart, the most important Swiss artistic group, but Gunther, because of the bad audio, asks us to interrupt. We would like to project the video by Rizzi, but by now it is impossible since everyone is rising up… Conti approaches me and tells me that he can’t see his artwork, then I go in the corridor of mail art and I immediately find it! Eugenia Serafini reaches me together with her husband for a photo together, there is also E. Le Donne and Mandrino. A group photo is taken and we start to talk. But the cooks are already calling for us. In line, we reach the self-service. I climb with the help of Umiliacchi, by now we know the technique. Inside, Antonio Sassu stops me for the Synesthetic project: I wear the black shirt with writing and they take a photo. At the tables, we eat pasta with wild boar sauce and various other foods, apple pie and vinsanto (sweet wine). But as agreed with Claudio, we also continue the poetic activities that give us the sense of being together. And he brings out the cantata in octave rhyme composed for all of us components of Creativa, it is almost a natural success, with bursts of laughter for the shrewdest rhymes. Donaudi follows with replica of his anal poetries. Mandrino starts with a semi-improvised story but when he is lost in a plot without end he is interrupted by public interventions. Casella tells us a joke and Gianfranco Giudice concludes, winning himself an ovation by singing two stanzas of an old popular ditty from Arezzo.
The
Poetic meal finishes, we return to the meeting. Outside we linger with the
Synesthetics remembering marvelous anecdotes of the past years and thinking
about future improvised sound performances. Also Piccirillo would like to
participate, considering that he plays drums. Outside the heat is also today
infernal, we try the shelter of the gym where the air is fresher. Songs come
from the square, Claudio, Giudice, Donaudi sing old popular and anarchist songs.
Meanwhile the Dada ensemble has begun their fashion show “pseudo-dada-futurist-surreal-creativa-neverserious”.
Now and then we see strange characters with wild dresses passing by, they parade
in silence picking up comments of every kind! But for the others there are
problems, Conti, will make dirt, Capatti wants to do it in the square, others
need the p.a. system... therefore we go out in the HEAT! Conti, for his
performance "Beyond the limits", has arranged in line the three girls
dressed with the white tunic and begins to paint them of white with a big brush.
Even the face and the hair. Poor girls! But the sight is amazing! They seem
three chalk statues. When Conti traces a line with the brush in front of her,
the first girl falls down with her hand beyond that line, the other girls follow
in due course. Conti stresses the contour of the hand, on the whole it is a
statuary apparition! It is then the turn of Capatti with "Meditation",
he has positioned a bed in the center of the square. Mandrino reads the passages
from the Gospel, John 19-20. Capatti bares himself and stretches on the white
sheet, covers himself, he shakes, he moves as if tormented, while pre-recorded
music is played. When a riiiiing is heard, he lifts up and runs away completely
naked! The empty sepulchre! We all move inside where the air is fresher and
Ugolini and Broi are about to recite "Puppets". With masks and paper
puppets they recite in a jerky style the text of the same Ugolini, hanging a
puppet to the neck of the spectators and what follows is a vortex of different
masks being put on and thrown out. Viti distributes the text of his performance
"Identity", Ugolini reads it. He begins by tracing with earth the
lines of a rectangle, he divides it, he finds the diagonals and goes over again
all the lines with an adhesive ribbon. Viti takes a dollop of tied up cardboards.
He unties them and let the fall in the rectangle, then tries to position the
various pieces. He bends, he picks up the pieces, he binds them and all together
we say: “May the flowers bud”. Outside the SLAN group is ready for the third
part. It starts to rain! Is it possible?! Yes! It is only a few drops and
therefore they recite all the same. Meanwhile inside the Synesthetics have
prepared two lines of parallel chairs, at the back against the wall upright on
the chairs are three Synesthetics, the fourth chooses from the public the people
that will be asked to stand up on the chairs. Then he takes a movie camera with
a stretcher, squatting among the chairs, the others pick him up by the feet and
drag him around while he keeps filming. Broi with the help of Ugolini introduces
his work on identity, starting from the history of a death row inmate, unjustly
charged of murder. In the first part he gives a clownish explanation of the
identity for the children, in the second part he tells of the tragic judicial
"mistake", in the third part he tears apart into pieces his own
magnified photos and distributes them to the public. Bertola and Vitacchio
recite with a great sense of parody, sound research and showmanship, a brief
passage from the “Heart” novel by De Amicis. Outside the rain has stopped (only
three red-hot drops!!!). Sheren makes his performance, group photo, relatives,
dressed up as sirens. Fearless the 5 Dadas continue their fantastic defilče,
passing with veils, plastic dresses, papers, pipes. The Santini Del Prete are
already dressed in their railroad workers uniforms, they put Piccirillo on a
platform reading with a megaphone, Claudio is inside producing distorted sounds
with the guitar and they take persons from the audience and bring them on stage,
including me. Once the stage is filled, they tie us with a strip that reads
"do not cross the art line", they give us their manifesto of non-art
and we read it all together. The whistle of the train controller closes the
performance. Inside, Eugenia Serafini recites with passion “Eva that eats the
moon” in the faint light illuminated by us holding three small candles, while
a carillon is playing. Casella surprises us improvising a story about an old
teacher from Naples. Yzu prepares his sounds, strong, delicate, rhythmic. Worn
the mask he recites the other poems illustrated by the paintings of Branella.
The Stradas bring us back to a lighter note with a rigmarole sung and played on
the guitar by Giovanni, while Renata hangs the little geese mentioned in the
rigmarole that never ends! Arrives the painter Luca Alinari, we introduce each
other, I invite him to see the shows, he wants to say hallo also to Maurizio Vitiello but
he is nowhere to be found! We give us appointment for the next edition, Raimondo
Del Prete introduces me to the art critic Patrizia Landi, we speak of this
magmatic adventure called Creativa, that she knew but never had the chance to
visit, of the possible future developments, of the artists that we see moving
around happy! Emanuele Gagliano enters with the helmet covering his face, a red
fire extinguisher in hand, the music starts and he recites the poem for Carlo
Giuliani, he finishes questioning us, questioning himself and leaving the
extinguisher on the ground he covers it with the cloth and the helmet...
Meanwhile, Leonello Rabatti closes the evening with a portion of his poem from
the day before. It is time now for goodbyes, already begun since the
mid-afternoon! For all involved it is a joy, sure to maintain the contacts and
to be able to renew the meeting next year!
Franco
Piri Focardi - English translation by Vittore Baroni