Giuseppe Gallo

DANCE OF IDEAS
(The Pregnant Avant-Garde)

For years and years, I have been thinking, in my continual changes of heart, legitimate for a painter, that man has mistaken his life. At certain moments of doubt I thought that we would have been better off if we were to be born old and, reversing the process, if we were to die as a new born baby. Today I am forty-four and this idea has pursued my thoughts for many years. It is an insane idea, as most people would say, but certainly not for me.

For centuries, painting and art in general have thrived or suffered according to a hierarchy: figurative paintings: A; still-life paintings: B. Today if one goes to a fashionable restaurant and talks familiarly with the waiter, after a while he will tell you: "I am an artist". Why didn't they say the same at the time when Rothko committed suicide? I am not a conservative but I think that the so called avant-garde has been legitimized and furthermore it is tantamount to academy. I like to define myself as a painter because nowadays I believe that using one's hands is revolutionary. I sincerely think that many works of the post war avant-garde have reached the same power of the Moais in Rapa Nui and the same strength of the mystical-religious thought of the Sumerians, of the Egyptians, of the Etruscans and of the Greeks, but I believe that today one must reconsider many points, be it us Europeans, be it you Americans and South Americans, be it you Africans. I also think that our era is one of the most complete and materially civilized in the history of mankind. But why should I bother about these problems, one may wonder? Perhaps because when I draw I think, and when I think, I think of the tiny sunflower seed which has the same structure of the Parthenon, and I am happy; of the leaves scattered on the trees which obey to the rules of Fibonacci, and I am happy; of the progression of the decimal numbers, and I am happy. When I think of the divina proportione, I am happy and that when one looks at my drawings after having read these few lines without understanding what I am talking about, I am happy. I am happy to think and I am happy to think like I do.

If years ago one heard the words "as stupid as a painter", I am comforted by the hope that this expression coincides with Musil's concept of stupidity.

Giuseppe Gallo

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