Inadequacy
Concepts such as art and life must mix with each other since there is no reason for maintaining a separation between human work and the human itself. The art of life is a form (creative energy sexual), who said that? That is why the most intriguing art is the one which talks about life, which unravels different experiences, recollects the details, curiosities, and points of view.
In the realm of life it is imperative to reject the idea of a perfectionism that can be reached (in response to such expectations, the only art that we can think of is that of the cinema). The nature of error is the essence of being Human and the block upon which we’ve all fallen at one time or another: impulsive judgement, haste, fear and anger, the constant desire for safety and control, wrong choices. Don’t tell me you have not made any of these mistakes?
Open: new perspective from which to see
If we fall, we hurt ourselves more or less intensely and tend to look at the cause of our fall, and to think that the mistake was a result due to the expectation we have of ourselves and other people. The injury is the actual point that we are able to discover the truth. From there, we stop taking refuge in the illusion of perfect (which should be the case if it would not be a problem) and take a look at the things that are damaged: we examine it and then look at our own self-image.
Fontana cut with the awareness of breaking, opening, or tearing since destruction is often the most powerful creative action, and especially in a society where, from an early stage, we’re immersed in a powerful, imprinted systems of values and beliefs. It’s not a coincidence that Fontana declared in 1963 during the course of an interview Nerio Minuzzo:
“The critics have always maligned me, however, I never was concerned about it. OAI went on regardless and I never took anyone’s salute. Over the years, I was called “the guy that has the holes’, with a little pity. However, today I can see that my cuts and holes have created a taste, are accepted and have even found practical applications. In theatres and bars, they have ceilings made of holes. Because , today that even people on the street understand the new ways of life. It’s the artists however, who are the only ones to understand less ‘.
When Fontana talks about streetspeople, he is evoking the idea of imperfection in which the hole is a form like every other one in which the becoming of life takes place. Fontana isn’t afraid of dirt nor of the brutality of the creative act and throws tar at a plaster sculpture of a man , and names it “Black Man”.
A few years later, the cut becomes the conquest of space, in the sense of an overthrow of painting and sculpture, through a new spatiality that contains them both and a break with verticality, in favor of the possibility of crossing.
This pulsation, which is triggered by exhaling and inhaling the canvas is reminiscent from a distance, in a more intellectual and bourgeois version, of the work that Gina Pane would later do on her skin: the gesture is nevertheless the timeless main character in this context, where art is destined to be destroyed. The cuts and wounds are the path, boundary and exchange. The artist opens the canvas in two and proclaims the canvas’s finiteness. the holes are transformed into black holes that give the illusion of depth and reveal the vastness that we never understand.
We are waiting for new discoveries that we do not yet know
Fontana called the cuts “Waits,” the openings from which new and different things arise which we don’t have a clue about.
When we make a mistake, when we hurt or hurt another injuring or hurting another, we need to wait for a time before the reaction. First the shock of the mistake and the failure to be overcome, and then figuring out what steps to take to make up for it or to get it out of the way; then we wait for the effects of that fracture, that mistake, which could actually be an amazing source. Or not.
Few understood (and are able to comprehend) this philosophy because they are constantly judging what reality and the human condition should be, too used to the dual nature that is the nature of canvas. We keep fighting every inch of our being the correct methods, the correct method of presenting and being as a person in the society, that we turn to standards that end up defining the concept of normativity.
It’s impossible to find anything more confusing. Convinced that we know everything that we do, we compare our standards to every other organism and ecosystem in the world However, we view it from a narrow and biased viewpoint that has nothing to do with reality. Anthropocentrism as well as personal interpretations of the other which are almost never the correct ones.
Accept: no perfection in the sense of absolute perfection.
This is also true for our society, which demands to be the best at all costs, without pondering the fact that, instead of improving standards, we could accept more of what is, just the way it is. Do we accept pain? Do we accept death? Accept the bodies of others? Do we accept diversity? And, most importantly, once we accept, do you dignify?
In most cases is it that we are able to hide what does not coincide with the ‘perfection’ of our very own planet or the entire universe. This causes us to be shocked, angry, disgusted and pushed aside, then put under the rug and then we show the very imperfection that we actually are, but do not accept.
Understanding one’s own limitations is crucial as is recognizing the interconnectedness of everything in the global system. Either we are ALL placed in a position where we can give our best or there is no incentive or competition worth the effort to be put into it, unless for the purpose of fuelling inequality. It’s all very well and good that some after long hours have achieved it, like those who were so fortunate. But in the broader context, always pushing the boundaries just a bit further the definition of ‘a perfect’ in an impermanent setting; there is no ‘Perfection’ in the absolutist sense.
Could this ever exist?
Cut and let the truth be revealed
It is possible to say that Fontana attempted to do so, since from the very beginning Fontana rejected the simple routes to success, and opted instead to try out the untested and unpredictability, which is to say, he renounced the pretense of being the only one, he followed the research path which led him to discover some facts..jpg)
For me, and my personal opinion, Fontana is the one who tears open the veil and lets the light shine through, even if the black sails are obscured behind the cuts. An artist of spatial art and one of the early pioneers of this art, it is not understood solely as a work but as a gesture which is a gesture that revolves around and in the context of actions on space, performance as the activation of narrative, which is a large part of what is practiced in the present.
To me, his cuts reveal all of this, opening up new perspectives to art as well as new perspectives about the world and new questions. The wound that he has caused is more than pain: the wound reveals mortality, shortness, uncertainty and fragility. The wound makes us think, makes us question, and this practice is vital to stay grounded. As hard as it is to endure and as hard as, in a perfect narrative of existence, it would be great (and appropriate) to gain knowledge only by positive reinforcements. As long we as a species are unwilling to avoid the suffering of others as well like our own, we are condemned to the unresolved and unfulfilled reality.
So let’s enjoy the cinema and its happy endings its beauty and perfection that is taken for granted and which we mistakenly end up taking as a template for our lives since the visual arts on the other hand are the product of suffering, and any artist who wants to convey a bit of truth, had to go through the pain.