Mario Raciti
Biography
When, in 1952, I enrolled in Law instead of Brera, although I wanted at all costs to "be a painter", I was already beginning to follow that "transgressive" line that will follow me in my then professional, real painter. A little anarchic, not adequate to the current canons (I used the brushstroke "à plat" in time of analytical painting!), I did not follow the making of the moment like others, I did not feel art as a form (I did not resemble, as many said, to Novelli or Twombly because of the white and pencil); I approached the poverty of writing (in the 1970s) more for spiritual rarefaction than for executive pragmatism ("too poetic to belong to the new painting, yours," Fagone told me). I pursued other chimeras, it was a journey he took to a not where, in a visionary atmosphere of tension and dissipation. I have always thought of my painting, which travels and varies in the deep psyche of the traveler, as to a coming-of-age novel, in the manner of Henry of Ofterdingen of which Klaus Wolbert mentioned for my work the "blue flower", which is a romantic symbol. So, if, for some, they are "borderline", if others, like Barilli (on Unity), still consider me an informal "like a Japanese suicide bomber still fighting on an island without knowing that the war is over", (but how long it has been since the old informal, almost as that of "painting"): I know only that, mindful of the art of all time, I invent among the rubble of today "a last painting", and it is the fault of my inexhaustible, pressing dream, if I am Kandiskianly needed by a form that is that and you can not in the light of the current regulations. And in this sense I feel "modern" (and not "modernist"): because I live dramatically the impossibility of painting to be there as a presence ("He was not an artist", I quote Gualdoni, "Mario Raciti would like a happy painting..."), but as a visionary track, as veiled elsewhere, waiting for a truer tomorrow, today painfully impossible. "THE FIORI OF PROFONDO" is the latest evolution of my painting. After the fantastic figures of the 60s, the "Presence absences" of the 70s, the "Mythologies" of the 80s, in the 90s were born the Mysteries that evolve in 2000, in the "Why" (dramatic "why" of Christ on the cross). Currently, reliving the myth of Proserpina, who, captive in Hades, yearns to communicate on earth with her mother Demetra, goddess of the messiahs, giving birth to flowers on the planet in spring, I open the drama to hope, Hope, today veiled by the deprivation of a human contact, hope for a new life.
Mario Raciti
Contributions.
"The flowers of the deep" are born from the mythology that we summarize in a nutshell. The characters are Demeter, goddess of the earth's messiahs and fertility, his daughter Persephone, had by his brother Zeus, Hades, lord of the kingdom of the dead. In Roman mythology the names are Ceres, Proserpina, Jupiter and Pluto respectively. It happens that while Persephone collected flowers with her friends, she was kidnapped by Hades, according with Zeus, and brought underground in the realm of the dead. When her mother Demeter saw that her daughter was not coming home, she asked herself to look for her for nine days all over the earth, but no one could help her as the kidnapping did not assist anyone. Caught in desperation, he decreed that the fields dry up and therefore that the earth could not bear fruit and cereal for the livelihood of mankind. In practice, a period of famine began, but Zeus, sensitive to the laments of mankind and the gods themselves, ordered Hades to return Persephone to his mother. Hades consented, but as he loaded it onto a coach for the journey, he made Persephone eat pomegranate seeds and in this way, as was customary among the gods, he tied it to himself forever. Demeter's joy at the return of his daughter was great, but she soon realized the deception so that to somehow repair the situation that was certainly not what he wanted, he agreed with Hades that Persephone would spend six months with Hades and six months with his mother. In the six months that Persephone lived in Hades the land did not bear fruit giving rise to the autumn and winter season, while in the six months that Persephone lived on earth this became productive with the appearance of flowers and fruits thus giving rise to the spring and summer season.
Tags: Mario Raciti - The Flowers of the Deep - Mythologies - Demeter - Persephone - Hades - Zeus
Mario Raciti - Informale (Informal)
The Informal was born after the Second World War involving both European and American artists. It can be considered the point of convergence of previous artistic experiences such as Cubism. Expressionism and Surrealism. The name itself shows that informal art is a formless art and therefore stands out from both figurative art and abstract art. In fact, figurative art is based on the representation of what is seen, while abstract art is essentially composed of geometric figures. Informal art to develop a work also uses unusual materials, just think of the jute bags and plastics of Burri or the matches of Aubertin. Informal art is also characterized by the use of forms that have a clear three-dimensionality, typically the works of Bonalumi and Castellani,which allow to play both on their distribution on the canvas floor and on the alternation of lights and shadows depending on the incident light. As mentioned, the Informale was a worldwide movement of which the German naturalized French Hans Hartung, the Swiss Schneider, the Zero Group were part; Pollock and De Kooning in the United States, group GUTAI in Japan with, among others, Shozo Shimamoto and Kazuo Shiraga.
Tags: Informal - Aubertin - Bonalumi - Castellani
