Graziano Spinosi|Piziarte Arte Contemporanea|Graziano Spinosi

Graziano Spinosi "WIRE 21", 2000
Filo di ferro, Intonaco su tavola
100 x 140 cm
Rimini,
collezione privata

"Ma non c'� ostentazione, in tal senso, non sfoggio intellettualistico, non presunzione di idealismi tautologici� Anzi, la lingua di Spinosi � una lingua semplice, distinta nella sua formulazione, la senti e la accogli subito nel cuore come il canto di una musica che conosci pur essendo nuova, una musica che � simile a una ninna-nanna che conforta e non inquieta oltre la misura del lecito. Un po' come una fiaba, che a tratti pu� intimorire, ma alla fine di sicuro rassicura.
Qualche volta, poi, vi � il garbo di una discreta formulazione ironica. Ma affettuosa, gentile, anche amorosa. Non � questo il caso delle Patocche? Omaggio dichiarato a tutti gli artisti che Spinosi ha prediletto nel corso della sua passione d'artista. Opere amorose, eppure, mi si perdoni la parola troppo tonda, consustanziali all'artista di cui dichiarano l'appartenenza. Queste scarpe, pantofolose e un po' da "albero degli zoccoli", povere per quel gusto di materiali da recupero, sostengono il peso del corpo d'opera degli artisti omaggiati. Basti ricordare quelle di Van Gogh, le straordinarie di Artemisia Gentileschi, le pittoriche di Savinio, le fantasmagoriche di Yves Klein� E via dicendo.
Anche qui, nelle Patocche, Spinosi dispiega a volte il suo filo - che sia un filo conduttore � ormai chiaro e fuori discussione - che pu� divenire spinato, di raffia, di rame o da cemento armato, egli sembra avvolgervi le idee, i ricordi, i sorrisi come le lacrime di un tempo e della vita. Dunque un filo, un semplice filo, cos'� mai un filo? Con il filo le donne di tutti i tempi hanno cucito e costruito metafore, hanno dato il senso della vita e, Parche, hanno filato e infine tagliato. Quindi ecco cosa � un filo: metafora della vita, del tempo che gli umani si sono dati, e, sul versante negativo, dei lacci e laccioli da quali, spesso, � tanto difficile liberarsi per poi prendere, infine, il volo necessario alla crescita, alla nostra evoluzione.
Ma Graziano Spinosi non tesse celle. Non so come egli riesca a non dare mai, con il filo di ferro, il senso della prigione. A dare, al contrario, un senso di libert� naturale, di territorio degli alberi e delle loro cortecce e degli uccelli e dei loro nidi. Natura non priva di mistero; anzi: tutta ricolma dei propri misteri: culla, nido appunto, boschetto adorno in cui trovare rifugio in ascolto di suoni del vento. Vento che ha in s� il segreto dei segreti e io lo immagino aggirarsi tra gli alberi di Spinosi, penetrare tra filo e filo, diffondere suoni di non chiara origine, sibili, schiocchi, sinfonia di strumenti a fiato. Ecco: poesia, dunque; ma per quale fonte essa scaturisca e prenda a scorrere non sapresti dire. Cos�, d'improvviso, un movimento subitaneo di esordio e ce l'hai davanti, chiara e leggibile, evidente in maniera impudica, eppure inesplicabile."

Arnaldo Romani Brizzi
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To Where the Thread Stretches

What I believe I should stress - in this world held together by the quasi-magic thread represented in Graziano Spinosi's paintings and sculptures - is the trace of an unexhausted relationship with the memory of himself and his own heart. This is unexhausted because it cannot be otherwise: it is the origin, the umbilical cord, the bond of affection and kinship, but it is also ' thread, the chance of an escape route towards safety and the way back home. What we do not know is whether 'home' in this case is the roof under which we live and sleep, or the heavenly one to which we shall all return. This is because the thread then becomes a structural element that is part of a formal mystery, in the sense of the form that Spinosi gives to his sculptures, works, creatures and daughters. It is a mystery that makes you want to ask about the origins of these forms - that is, whether they derive from the work of enchanted animals or from the secret thoughts of the man who made them. It would hardly be pertinent to trace the thread of Spinosi's creativity back to any of the abstract art movements because this would regard only the exterior aspect, not the substance, the true heart of the work, which is something quite different. What I am trying to say is that there is sentiment in his work that is at variance with merely superficial results: the materials used vibrate with energy that clearly rejects any formulation involving apparent immobility. Spinosi does not aim to cause confusion. The works entitled Wire are combed fabrics, not carded ones: order appears to penetrate formlessness, establishing its clear, precise rhythm in what is virtually an eighteenth-century musical score. Every now and again there may be just a suggestion of rust, although this touch of colour is but a question of detail, a simple vibrating string like an aeolian harp. If then the thread becomes a bar, the music is that of a piano, a little sonorous perhaps, but perfectly balanced. Spinosi has already had this thread inside him for years, as may be seen in one of his Libri (Books), either 1 or 2, of 1982. Although this was made of string, not of wire, it - especially Libro 1 - set up the same visual rhythm, with that sense of 'combing' to which I referred previously. It also created - just as the wire does today - that sense of attachment, a desire for exclusivity and precedence, an umbilical cord that will only be severed under constraint. And this, I believe, is the idea underlying the Nidi (Nests). I spoke of a 'home', but I also meant a container - a container par excellence, a womb, a marsupial's pouch, the symbol of a place where one can stay, or where one may curl up with others. The Nidi have a lofty location: they attempt monumental force, but preserve surprising intimacy; they keep to the format and they are contained in legs that appear to be branches in search of a place where they can put down their roots and stay for ever. At times they seem ready to give birth, to unburden themselves of a weight harmoniously contained. The trace of the hand is almost absent; the imprint that Spinosi leaves on his works is that of perfection pursued and obtained. But, take note, form and not formalism is the distinguishing feature that is necessary for a correct interpretation of his obstinate objectification. These sculptures - Nidi and Foresta (Forest) of the present or Sensi (Senses) of the past, Libri or Nature morte (Still Lifes), and also Pennelli Santi (Holy Brushes), right up to the numerous Patocche (Shoes), to which I shall refer later - aspire to mimesis and seek to be objects. But this, too, is what appears at first. Then, after a closer examination, you realize that his narrative involves the pleasure of modelling and trying out different materials - it is, in other words, a form of sculpture, although he avoids traditional materials, preferring those of the avant-garde. In this respect, there is no ostentation, no intellectualistic showing off, no presumption of tautological idealism. On the contrary, Spinosi's artistic language is a simple one, distinct in its formulation: you feel it and you accept it immediately in your heart like the song that you already know although it is new, a song that it is similar to a lullaby that comforts and does not disturb beyond measure. It's rather like a fairy tale, which at times may frighten, but in the end reassures. Sometimes there is the grace of a discreetly ironic formulation that is, however, affectionate, courteous and also amorous. Isn't this the case with the Patocche? These are explicit tributes to all the artists that have inspired Spinosi during his artistic career. Amorous works they may be, but they and the artist who created them are - if I may be excused the pretentious word - consubstantial. These shoes - slipper-like, with echoes of Ermanno Olmi's famous film, The Tree of Wooden Clogs, and humble because they are made of recycled material - bear, in a figurative sense, the weight of the work of the artists to whom homage is being paid. It is sufficient to mention those of Van Gogh, the remarkable ones of Artemisia Gentileschi, the pictorial ones of Alberto Savinio and the phantasmagoric ones of Yves Klein - but there are many more. At times, even in the Patocche, Spinosi unwinds his thread - which, as should be perfectly clear now, is the leitmotiv of his work - and this may, on occasion, become barbed wire or be made of raffia, copper or reinforced concrete. And with it he seems to wrap up the ideas, memories, smiles and tears of our past lives. So it's a thread, a simple thread - but what's a thread? Right through history women have sewn and constructed metaphors, giving a meaning to life and, like the Three Fates, have spun the thread and, in the end, snipped it. This, then, is what a thread is: a metaphor for life, since the time when human beings first created - and this is a negative aspect - bonds from which it is often very difficult to free themselves in order to evolve and become mature. But Spinosi doesn't weave cells. I don't know how he always manages to avoid creating a sense of imprisonment with wire. On the contrary, he conveys a sense of natural freedom, of a land with trees and their bark and birds and their nests. Nature in this case is not without mystery. Indeed, everything is full of its own mysteries: the cradle, the nest, the copse bedecked in which one can take refuge and listen to the sound of the wind. This wind contains the secret of the secrets: and I imagine it blowing through Spinosi's trees, penetrating between the threads, diffusing sounds of which the origin is not clear - whistles, smacks, a symphony of wind instruments. This is poetry, therefore; but I do not know from where it springs forth and begins to flow. So, suddenly, there's an unexpected movement and there it is in front of you, manifest in a brazen, yet inexplicable, manner.

Arnaldo Romani Brizzi, Roma, gennaio 2001

Graziano Spinosi "WIRE 44", 2000
Barre di ferro, Intonaco su tavola
80 x 60 cm
Berna,
collezione privata

Graziano Spinosi "WIRE 86", 2001
Filo di ferro, Intonaco su tavola
50 X 35 cm
Roma,
collezione privata

Graziano Spinosi "NIDO", 2000
Filo di ferro, Intonaco
altezza 230 cm

Graziano Spinosi "NIDO", 2000
Filo di ferro, Intonaco
altezza 200 cm

Graziano Spinosi "NIDO", 2000
Filo di ferro, Intonaco
altezza 215 cm

Graziano Spinosi "NIDO", 2001
Filo di ferro, Intonaco
150 x 66 x 55 cm

Graziano Spinosi "NIDO", 2001
Filo di ferro, Intonaco
126 x 40 x 40 cm