Roberto Cipriani (Art for the masses) 2024

I asked Virgilio Rospigliosi to choose some of his works that could best lend themselves to a sociological treatment. He pointed out five to me: three are titled "Art Gallery", the other two have the words "Era Caravaggio" and "Era Van Gogh". I imagine that the expression "Art Gallery" refers to a whole series of works contextualized outside of official museums, so any public place could lend itself to being an "Art Gallery", thus achieving the intended purpose of “Art For The Masses” (AFTM), or art for all (as evidenced by the abbreviated writing affixed to the wooden tiles painted by Rospigliosi). In fact, all of Rospigliosi's works are so many provocations, in the sense that they arouse strong attention from those who look at them and question their meaning. The very operation of presenting an intriguing work of art, arousing emotions and questions at the same time, is in itself an intellectual action of the first order, which deserves full consideration on the part of the sociologist involved in the interpretation of what the artist proposes and presumably the public perceives. In short, Rospigliosi's artistic productions not only do not go unnoticed but lead us to go beyond the superficial gaze of a quick glance and without any form of philosophical and artistic epoché, as an arrest of a superficial evaluation to linger longer, questioning the message transmitted and on the transitions-between(n) disfigurations implemented. Yes, because this is what it's all about: moving from the classic to the contemporary or, better yet, from the contemporary inspired by the classic and then moving once again to the latter to re-mean it in another way, thus making it more usable by a large audience, no longer just elitist. The transit takes place thanks to the expedient invented by Rospigliosi, who makes use of everything he has learned from the great masters of painting, brings his own with an ironic and dramatic streak, adds a typical icon of digital communication such as the QR code and brings or brings the masses back to museums and/or places of daily attendance for the first time, in order to allow a re-reading of everything from a new perspective. In practice, the idea-suggestion prepared by the contemporary artist is a pre-text that brings people closer to art and then transmutes it into something else, but no less aesthetically and culturally valid. We are accustomed to the defacement of the masterpieces of pictorial art (but not only), but Rospigliosi's poetics has something more and different, as it implements mechanisms of re-appropriation of the works that allow various reflections and broaden the horizon mental towards other, more far-reaching goals. Our artist speaks of an immaterial place as a landing point for everything that has been "weaponized" by him. In fact, immateriality is given by the real non-existence of what he prepared in the form of an artefact. If you go to the Uffizi in Florence or the Art Institute of Chicago you will not find Rospigliosi's wooden panels juxtaposed on a painting by Caravaggio or van Gogh, however anyone who already knows Rospigliosi's works could not avoid a whole series of reasoning on the relationships between the two authors and their artistic works. In practice, it is after Rospigliosi that the problematization of the whole arises, starting also from the banal market value of both works. Thus, a disenchantment of the work of art recognized as a masterpiece is achieved and it is re-contextualized in a new and different frame, which acts as a frame for both artistic artefacts, placing them in close relationship for their different and original king. -interpretation. The QR code inserted by Rospigliosi as a stamp in his pictorial work does not have the same function found in museums and galleries where it is used to trace the individual work through the use of an audio guide or another electronic tool. Here, however, the code allows us to approach the new semanticization of a famous painting or an everyday context. If the stamp serves to solemnize and legitimize a character or an event and the "stumbling stone", set like a precious gem on the pavement in front of a house, has the purpose of remembering the sacrifice of people put to death for racial hatred, the small box of electronic graphics devised by Rospigliosi performs much more than one function: it allows wide-ranging widespread use, given the habit of using the QR code on multiple occasions; connects the Rospigliosian artefact to that of other famous authors; it allows the transfer of the painting specially created in the contemporary era by making it dock and attack in a different context both spatially and chronologically; accompanies the user of the initial work-suggestion towards a handhold constituted by the electronic code, an essential means to be able to view the new work of art, as a combinatorial result of two different creations. The "completion" operation is suggested and developed by Rospigliosi but in fact it mainly takes place (this is the intent of the artist, our contemporary) thanks to the full involvement of those who, as final recipients, appropriate the transposition mechanism and benefit from it to the end. Among other things, Rospigliosi deliberately and explicitly resembles the Flemish painter Hubert van Eyck (1366?-1426), author of the famous polyptych of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, which is found in the cathedral of Ghent, Belgium, and which was completed by his brother Jan van Eick (1390?-1441). Now, the aforementioned comparison, also revealed by the connecting hyphen between Virgilio Rospigliosi and Hubert van Eyck, can be considered correct and justified if it is believed that the beginning of the procedure takes place starting from a specific work by a given author, which is then completed by whoever succeeds him in production. In other words, Rospigliosi can legitimately identify with Hubert if it is taken for granted that everything begins with him. On the contrary, if it is hypothesized that the continuer is actually the one who has the intuition of something different, even if connected to the work begun previously, then Rospigliosi's identification with Jan would be preferable, also for chronological reasons, since , for example, Rospigliosi is a successor to Caravaggio and van Gogh and certainly not vice versa. Now, this double value of each of the two identifications increases even more the relevance and semantics of the procedure invented and implemented by Rospigliosi. There is, indeed, another element that deserves to be examined. It is about the relationship between pictorial work and photographic work. Both are present in Rospigliosi's aesthetic proposal, but the painting as such is one thing and its photographic reproduction is another. Today's technologies, then, have reached a level of perfection that was not even imaginable until a few years ago, making it very difficult to distinguish an original from a reproduction. Furthermore, it is necessary to take into account the possibility of modifying every detail of a photo using the computer program called Photoshop. Having said this, it is clear that we are, in principle, faced with two compositions, both pictorial and therefore valid in themselves on an aesthetic level. In Rospigliosi's case his starting work is always a painting and never a photo. The latter occurs in the case of the reproduction of a known painting or in the placing of Rospiglioso's initial work in an overall framework different from the one in which the initial work was created. In my opinion, this continuous interlocution between pictorial art and photographic art represents an added value of what we have prepared and offered to the masses. Perhaps it is appropriate to raise some critical doubts about this lemma, since the masses are an indistinct whole, while the enjoyment of a work of art occurs mainly at the level of a single person, even if the discussion then easily broadens to broader participation. The movement from one work to the other takes place primarily on a spatial level, but temporality is also part of the ongoing phenomenology. The existential times of Rospigliosi and of Caravaggio and van Gogh are not the same nor those of Rospigliosi himself to the extent that he paints a work at a given moment and then positions it within a framework of subsequent daily life. Therefore, the operations are jointly spatio-temporal (and, if desired, also corporeal). Above all, however, the use of verb tenses that underline the transformation in progress or that has already occurred should be emphasized: the painting "Era" by Caravaggio or van Gogh, or "It is no longer than". In other words, Rospigliosi performs a sort of miracle: not only does he make his work or that of a famous artist of the past "speak", but he also manages to create a third "immaterial" work which is given by the connection between two different works. And at this point the distinction between museum or art gallery and market tends to collapse, so exactly what Rospigliosi hoped for has happened, quod erat in votis.

Valerio Dehò (Looking for Monna Lisa) 2019

Silvana Editoriale. (Complete text only on catalog)

Luca Valentini (Virgilio Rospigliosi and the art of the Pythagorean avant-garde) 2019

Approaching a work of art, in full modernity and consumer society, is a procedure that is complicated, both due to the distorted perception that the bystander now has of the concept of Beauty - now decayed is the idea of ​​internal and spiritual form of the Greeks and a Phidias - and because often the artist no longer conceives his own expressiveness in relation to a cosmic-spiritual ideal of reference, but as an explanation of his own unconscious, often characterized by not a little instinctual wanderings and inductions of the environment conditioning. This being the premise, it is possible to approach Virgilio Rospigliosi's creations in an absolutely innovative and deeply original way. There is no archaic Platonic paradigm to recognize nor a restless soul, that of the artist, to recognize, to interpret, with which to psychoanalytically interact: the center is not designated either the work or the artist. The Omphalos, surprisingly, becomes the bystander, the one who observes and who should normally be the passive receptor of the representation. In this context, however, the bystander becomes the actor, the receptor becomes the main protagonist, the work and the artist from first-rate components become real Pythagorean instruments of self-awareness of those who admire the single work. The intentional irregularity of certain figures, the intentional contradiction or the intentional nonsense of a symbol, even often in its typically archaic appeal, assume the function of Pythagorean catharsis for the onlooker, who must mobilize the presence to himself, in order not to receive a given message, to understand how much the work of art takes on a leap of one's conscience, a means that can serve to deconstruct and awaken it. This technique, according to our point of view, represents a new level of artistic avant-garde, in which the roles are precisely reversed, as is the sense of the numerical codes inserted in the sim-cards that Rospigliosi inserts in his works: not algebraic expressions placed to recall a given idea, but placed in a given location of the work, so that the conscience of the observer has a start and can be questioned. And it is not so much the question of questioning oneself that matters, but primarily the movement of the soul, which abandons the receptive, lunar and passive psychological static, to become again the producer of a subtle, independent and voluntarily active instance of its own. Similar to the famous "imagines agentes", which can be found in the Ars Reminiscendi by the Renaissance magician Giambattista Della Porta, every archaic symbol, every numerical reference, every attempted overturning of artistic rationality, represents an instrumental induction to inner interrogation. Participation, therefore, in Virgilio Rospigliosi's exhibitions can be characterized by an innovative view that is acquired there, by a renewed centrality of the observer on the work of art and its Artifex and therefore more than carrying out an external and centrifugal, a centripetal dynamic of listening to one's own conscious soul takes shape, which through simultaneous and repeated jolts, that is, work after work, questions itself. As with Nature naturante and with the magical dynamics of thought, the agent of permanence and transformation, that is the quid of essentiality, manages to interpret the movement itself and not the fictitious end it assumes, which necessarily changes, from the artist to the bystander, from bystander to bystander, the differentiation of the personal demon that reveals itself, which in the movement and in the thought that questions itself, Pythagoreanly rediscovers the cosmic unity of representation. The encounter with the art of Virgilio Rospigliosi is, in short, an attempt to approach oneself and to undermine the certainties of the phenomenal in order to probe the invisible of the Kantian noumenal.

Luca Valentini (Idea and Matter: Virgilio Rospigliosi's Pythagorean "atomideogenesis") 2018

In contemporary figurative and sculptural expressions there are rare examples of an Art understood in a spiritually unitary and superior sense, having it, like all expressions of existence that have been overwhelmed by modernist evolution, underwent a process of desacralization and separation, not more conceived as a symbolic viaticum towards the sublimation of one's own soul components, but as a mere specialization of an empty, mute erudition, without archetypes to inspire, but dominated by sentimentality, respectability, vitalist irrationalism, if not, like the last ones decades show, from the mania for the original and the need for the economic, therefore the commercial. To decipher this decline we will make our own the definition of a German art historian, Hans Sedlmayr, who defined in his criticism the artistic involution a "Loss of the Center" (H. Sedlmayr, Perdita del Centro, Edizioni Borla, Città di Castello, 1983). The symbolic and contemplative character has been completely lost, leaving the field to productions that have nothing to do with the sphere of high human creativity, which is divine and spiritual imagination and remodeling, but which have assumed purely decorative and ornamental functions. The loss of the center is, in fact, the loss of a higher reference, the loss of an archetype that one is no longer able to recognize, not for a greater complexity of understanding, but for the progressive inability that modern man has matured. in dealing with any dimension of the Sacred, therefore also with Art, which is Theosophy of the Sacred, that is, the interior and effective knowledge. The German historian briefly and effectively sentences a terrible truth: "man has lost his center ... even art therefore moves away from the center" (p. 195). The tendency towards the separation of pure spheres is examined first, that is, the deviance represented by purism which ignores its own existence as an organic and harmonious quid with respect not only to other kinds of artistic expressions, but also with respect to science, politics, religion: a laceration that invests the senses of the human spirit and the author, by way of example, refers to the "pure seeing" of Cézanne.

From this catabasis, the work, which we call "Pythagorean", by Virgilio Rospigliosi differs, detaches itself, we would almost say it is saved. In the works of the Ligurian painter we find a sense, a plot that involves and hides from visitors to his exhibitions, a participation of the art master and the user of his creations that is not configured as mere aestheticism, but as the activation of a common subtle plan. This universal sphere of feeling, as well as to see, is expressed in a code number - hence its Pythagorean value -, present in a secret location in every work, to which a whole platonic and hermetic symbolism approaches empathically, almost attracting the visitor magnetically. And the world of painting rediscovers the sense of beauty and form, the sacred sieve of metaphysics, which in the West has often been connected with the sacred numbering of the Master of Crotone, to reawaken the feeling that perhaps there is a differentiated plot in the universe. but unique, which unites the souls who know how to resume themselves on a certain frequency. The harmonic modulation, which Virgil reproduces, leads himself and those who erotically enjoy his masterful pictorial works towards the vision and listening of an ancient story, expressed through the number and the symbol, that is an act of love for the eternal. present and challenge against modern mediocrity.

Umberto Zanarelli (From matter to the unspeakable - “Guido D’Arezzo - Virgilio Rospigliosi marchant sur le canone de Bach”) 2018

Music up to now has been considered pure abstraction as it does not physically present itself like sculpture and painting. The human being, by its nature, has the need for objectification, that is, to make one's ideas tangible in order to be able to eagerly observe and preserve them. How would man react, then, if art were conceived only as a thought? The stone has already been thrown, but it will take time for him to be able to remove the veil of Maya from his face to see the door that will allow him to enter a new dimension. Talking about innovation could arouse curiosity and at the same time intimidate, but the man inclined to knowledge will certainly let himself be carried away by the whirlwind of the new. Returning to music, we can dispel the idea that it is abstraction since the monk Guido D'Arezzo was able to materialize sounds through the invention of notes and the tetragrammaton - a technique that allowed us to see the music represented. Similarly, but following a reverse path, the artist Virgilio Rospigliosi affirms that one day art will be expressed only with thought, as we read in an interview with Umberto Eco in 2013 and with this statement he aspires, after years of research and experimentation to guide us in his philosophy: “The work of art is not what you are looking at. Let's take a painting for example. The work of art is not the object itself but is the image deposited in the memory similar to the painting photographed and inserted into the memory card. Image dematerialized by the computer process activated when the photo was taken. Transformed / renamed to binary code. Intangible like thought. This modality of annulment determines the death of the artistic representation in all its physical forms ”. In other words, according to Rospigliosi's thought, the object becomes a vector assuming the role of mediator between the observer and the dimension in which pure thought is found - Iperuranium would support Plato. Thus, the object-vector recognized and encoded in our memory, reassures the observer by capturing his attention, but he, observing the object, believes he is observing the work of art when the latter, instead, through the process mathematical has already been transformed into pure thought as it is contained in the memory card. Guido D'Arezzo and Rospigliosi therefore follow a similar path but with opposite directions: the first invents a system of musical writing on which all the composers to come will be based, allowing them to materialize their ideas, Rospigliosi, starting instead from the material / object returns to the pure idea / abstraction through the cancellation of the work, a path that he follows backwards and defined with a neologism coined by the artist himself: Atomideogenesi which uniquely indicates the bringing back the matter (atom / object / work of art) to the pure idea (ideogenesis). This ritual reminds me a lot of the directionality of a Bachian canon, the one known as the crab even if in reality the exact definition is canon gangrizing or inverse canon whose characteristic is that of crossing, thanks to a particular and complex contrapuntal technique, two voices constituting a same theme proceeding in the opposite direction. Unbeknownst to him, D'Arezzo had succeeded in materializing the sound out of didactic necessity; Rospigliosi, on the other hand, carries out the reverse process through atomideogenesi, creating a point-break, an aesthetic-philosophical breaking point on which art had always been based from the dawn until today - Rospigliosi needed a reset, a new beginning whose the greatest difficulty, however, was to be able to demonstrate the objective cancellation of the work and make it a vehicle to be able to go back to its core: thought, genesis, light. To reinforce the concept of canceling the work of art that has become an object, the Rospigliosi paradox is triggered: "The image of the photographed object is inserted into the memory card and only subsequently joined to the object, concluding the work. It would be impossible to photograph the object with the memory card embedded in the support including the image. So the photographed object has no memory card. Consequently devoid of content. So where is the work? Physically there has never been. The painting that is being observed is the object "(and not the work of art!). Rospigliosi, with the same emotional impetus with which Einstein gave the world his theory of relativity, which remained so for years due to lack of means, but partly put into practice today, he self-promotes his inverse canon that it can already be considered "abstract art". And here it is necessary to pause and point out that by "abstract", in the correct use of the meaning, we mean what is not visible, real and tangible, unlike what the convention with this word has wanted to express up to now. If Einstein has not had the opportunity to see his theory applied, Rospigliosi is one step away from the understanding of others, but it will take time for his modus operandi to return to the so-called normality, assuming to establish what the norm is, given that his definition changes. depending on the historical context in which it is placed. I find that Rospigliosi has made a gesture of humility towards art by detaching himself from the human ego tending by its nature, as already mentioned above, to the objectification of his own ideas. Rospigliosi bringing matter back to the idea, returns it to the place where it resides, in that area beyond the sky, in that world beyond the celestial vault, reachable only by the intellect and not tangible by earthly and corruptible entities. I would like to conclude with a well-known quote from Galileo Galilei: "Measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not" - a precious suggestion that invites us to go beyond the blanket of knowledge so that we can explore new territories in an attempt to reach unspeakable. I believe that this new form of thinking will over time call into question all the truths that surround us. Just think when one day you will enter a completely de-objectified museum and the artist will interact with his viewer by communicating his work of art exclusively with thought.

Umberto Eco Virgilio Rospigliosi "The reasoned instinct". Interview dated 31-10-2013

Contemporary society is daily overwhelmed by performance stress. Work times accelerate, risking weakening or destroying ideas before they can even take shape. Let's put in all the information, which through the Media now travels at the speed of light. And that's it. Man finds himself lost, nervous and deprived, in spite of himself, of the patience necessary for the creative act. So it makes me think that if art is always an expression of the society that produces it, then we are really in a bad way. Fortunately, from time to time we meet quite unique artists, who represent the time in which they live, without forgetting the history from which they come. As if suspended between past and future. One of these is Virgilio Rospigliosi. During last summer, I had the pleasure of deepening his interesting artistic path. So I asked myself for some specific and direct questions.

U.E - His interest in classical art is evident. If it weren't for the extremely current messages, I would define his work anachronistic. In reality, there is absolutely nothing out of date in his work. Figurative works and abstract works that touch minimalism. Visionary videos on the power of the media. Digital photographs on the codification of man by consumerism. Always maintaining consistency, strength of expression and content.

V.R - I believe that the most important thing in a work of art is the message. Regardless of the expressive mode used. Unfortunately there is a cataloging of artists by the market and by collectors. Which have imposed certain rules. There is a division between visual artists, informal artists, video artists, photographers, performers, etc. And this division / cataloging also applies to users. For example, there are those who buy abstract works, but would never buy a figurative work. Or the other way around. The same goes for criticism. All this is absurd. The artist cannot be codified in a style. The artist has the duty to express "the message" regardless of the expressive modality he chooses to use. When I am asked to give some indication, regarding the fact that my way of making art is quite varied, I remain a little hesitant. In my official website there are a number of categories, all named according to the Modus Operandi. Unfortunately, coding one's work is sadly necessary. The art market has decided so. I think the only category or genre that has a logical sense for all art from prehistoric times to the present is: "conceptual figurative". First, because everything is figurative. Second, because everything is conceptual. Let's take abstractionism as an example. The now historian Mark Rothko, classified as an Abstract Expressionist artist, is not abstract. Because in his works tangible colors and shapes can be recognized in some way attributable to geometry. Therefore concreteness and not abstraction. Man cannot describe what he does not know. Therefore "the abstract" does not exist. Man is incorporated in a unitary language and directly proportional to his earthly knowledge, linked to biology. What is represented by the artists codified as "abstractionists" (myself included), in reality, is "figurative". The same goes for any other gender cataloging. The human being cannot materially represent something that is not part of his knowledge or his nature. The artist. The man. Although he tries in every way to make a form abstract, it will always be a form impregnated with factors linked to a concrete recognizability. Human. We live on earth and are made up of tangible and limited biological processes. Thought alone can be abstract. 

U.E - How important was the study of your predecessors? I am referring to the great artists of the past, whom you apparently know very well..

V.R - Basic. I have not attended academies. I am self-taught. I have said on more than one occasion that my artistic training owes a lot to the direct and careful observation of the works exhibited in museums. Since I was a child, thanks to my family, I used to wander around the Uffizi Gallery and the Vatican Museums. This allowed me to make eye contact with the masterpieces we all know. I made drawings and copies from life to tame intuition and sensitivity to shapes and colors. After learning the technique, I decided to start the personal journey that has led me to this day.

U.E - In many of his works messages, quotes and references from the world of mass media and advertising do not go unnoticed. And during our interview the well-known Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan quoted me several times. Why this marked interest in Mass media?

V.R - We are what we eat. And the artist has the duty to communicate to humanity what it often does not see, or does not want to see. McLuhan was prophetic. He wrote things that are still overwhelmingly current today. He understood that there would be a day when men would interact with each other without moving an inch. He understood that technology would become a second skin for man. In many of my works I underline everything that contemporary society distributes, without even realizing it. Advertising, television, the web, bring information into our homes that settles in our neurons. By codifying and paralyzing our mind. If we do not learn to manage this information, especially the negative ones, we risk becoming lobotomized eunuchs, unable to understand and want. And branded from head to toe. McLuhan was a forerunner and a very important point of reference for me. A milestone in world sociology. A genius.

U.E - During our phone call you called yourself a "scientist". There and then I made me laugh. However, I find it a fair definition. Indeed, the soul that drove illustrious scientists to make sensational discoveries could only be animated by a creative spirit. Adjacent to the sensitivity that an artist should have.

V.R -  "Art is science made clear" said Jean Cocteau. I say: "The scientist without creativity has no future. The artist without science will have no future". The input that allowed Einstein to write the "Theory of Relativity" is equivalent to the input that Michelangelo had in the brilliant idea of ​​"Genesis" on the Sistine Chapel. I believe the discovery of penicillin is art. The same goes for the invention of the microchip. Some experiments carried out by brilliant researchers, using sophisticated devices, are works of art. And they could be exhibited in museums, galleries and international fairs. They would certainly be more interesting than many exhibited works, both in beauty and in richness of content.

U.E - Is instinct or reason more important in art?

V.R - I would say a very reasoned instinct. A beautiful building with no foundations collapses. It is inevitable. As the Neo-Platonists said, you need the right balance. Personally, if I had to translate the concept into a percentage, I would say 70% right 30% instinct. I don't think the idea should be represented as soon as it comes into our mind. I think the idea needs to be filtered by reason. Obviously there are dazzling intuitions. But you need to be able to grasp them and above all manage them, so that they can be best represented. And this is possible only through rationality. Contemporary art has not yet managed to shake off romanticism. This is demonstrated by the fact that often in the collective imagination the figure of the artist is associated with the somewhat crazy character, who in the throes of a mystical and delusional crisis creates his masterpiece. Visions invented by 19th century literature. Stereotypes that could have been fine at that time, but which today risk obstructing the mind and not bringing new ideas. The masterpieces are not born only and exclusively from the fire of passion. The Neoplatonists called it "brute force". They arise from an alchemy of factors, first of all, clear thinking, based on solid and defined planning. Of course, the passion component is important, but only in small doses. Too much passion in art clouds sight and intellect. Oscar Wilde used to say: "The heart of an artist is not in the chest, but in the head".

U.E - Is art truth?

V.R - The truth is an illusion. So art is Illusionism. Often it is also a mystification. We live in an era in which anyone can improvise as an artist. This is thanks to technologies, such as digital. New forms of communication, which act as solver media in an attempt to apparently facilitate the approach to art. And this is a damage that creates confusion and misdirection, to the detriment of real artists, those who really have something to say. I am in favor of technologies in art. I myself use sophisticated equipment on a daily basis for certain works, such as videos, photographs. But I am also extremely convinced that to get to "B" you have to start from "A". You can't get to "B" by a miracle. Arnold Shoenberg has deconstructed the fundamental canons of classical music, opening the doors to the modern. But he was also aware of how a symphony was built. First you learn to walk and then you can run. I think I made myself clear.

U.E - "Have the light bulb and go to bed with the candle". "Libertè. Egalitè. Publicitè I love God r". "The papal fish and the avenging angels". "Cultural Annunciation". "Nature changed". "Culture is a crime". Titles are a very important component in his works. Narrative aspect and form are in perfect synergy. The messages are deep and ironic. Never banal. Aren't you afraid that the refinement of the title could take over the work?

V.R - In some cases, the titles must absolutely take over. The title is very important to me. I often start from that. And sometimes the rest on that. In the sense that the title becomes the work itself. A sentence, or a word, is projected directly into the brain in no uncertain terms. Like in advertising. I always carry something with me to write down phrases and words which then turn into titles. And this even before having made the painting, the photograph or the video. Of course what I write must have a relationship with the form that accompanies it and vice versa. Although deliberately creating a narrative misdirection, from time to time, it can give even more strength to the work.

U.E - Throughout history there have been many artists who used a pseudonym. She signs herself Virgilio Rospigliosi. It's actually not his real name. 

V.R - The name is just a word invented by men. A sign of recognition. For me it is a color. Let's say that the choice of the pseudonym has only an aesthetic function. I liked the sound. A few months ago I added the surname "Rospigliosi". For many years I have signed my works only as "Virgil". The choice of the pseudonym comes from the union of the name and surname of two characters from Italian history: "Publio Virgilio Marone", "Giulio Rospigliosi - Pope Clement IX".

U.E - I have the impression that contemporary art focuses more on quantity rather than quality. Just think of the art galleries that are born like mushrooms, or the trade fairs, which will soon begin to sell fish as well. Will there be a future for the new generations of artists?

V. R - The future of art is in the "Pixels". Everything has already been accomplished. The twentieth century has ignited the stages, and has put contemporary art in difficulty. We are still all children of those who have opened the doors to the modern. And I am referring to great masters like Marcel Duchamp, just to name one. Most of today's art no longer knows which fish to catch. Artists who tend to provocation and the (often banal) scoop to attract attention. But now it is heated soup. Just enter a social network like Facebook, or on the web, and we find photomontages of ideas that are sometimes paradoxically brilliant. Made by strangers without artistic ambitions, and who without realizing it make shoes for many professional, well-known and famous artists. Perhaps contemporary art is fruitful. Perhaps the real novelty consists in an intelligent and filtered recovery of the past, through today's philosophy and technology. Probably in the future the computer means will be the "definitive" substitutes for canvases and brushes. There will be a time when art will be pure thought. And there will be no need to materialize it either. The communication will take place telepathically or in some other way unknown to us. But I think we will have to wait a little longer. Digital has become an important mode of expression. And I am convinced that sooner or later it will totally assert itself. But for now it is not yet able to replace the old painting. Let's say that, for the moment, Painting and Digital are following a parallel path. I agree on the use of technologies in favor of art. It is enough that at the base there is culture and above all important ideas. Because without those, the "artist" doesn't work.

Alessandro Riva (The strange announcements of Virgilio Rospigliosi) 2013

Virgilio Rospigliosi, a sui generis conceptual artist (but he prefers to call himself an "illusionist"), outside the classic circles of the more trendy contemporary, but loved (not surprisingly) by Philippe Daverio, with whom he collaborated on several occasions, as well as by intellectuals and critics outside the box such as the late Giorgio Soavi and even the elusive Umberto Eco. 

But what are these "Annunciations"? Simple provocations? Allegorical games, perfectly in line with the language of the ironic conceptual, of which Rospigliosi could rightly define himself as one of the many more or less illegitimate children and godchildren? "I made more than one Annunciation," explains the artist. “And in all of them the message is the same. Even the most extreme artistic representations and the most extreme attempts that contemporary art offers us are directly attributable to conceptual operations that started, and often remained still, in Duchamp. The fracture, the change in the way of thinking and practicing art were activated starting from him. I created a metaphorical conversion: instead of the genesis of Christianity, I depicted the genesis of contemporary art. The icon of Christianity that prays to the shocking and revolutionary work, the urinal; the primitive and desert landscape that surrounds them accentuates the relationship between the main subjects. It is an awareness of the greatness of a work that has influenced the whole of the 20th century to date ". Yet, the work, in its ironic charge, seems to want to lay bare another question, a real cancer of contemporary art: the eternal sanctification and acclamation of the latest provocative ideuzza, of the mockery as an end in itself. , which has become the decoy of a self-referential system and in constant search for unconventional and increasingly "shocking" "novelties" with which to cover the desert - cultural and ideal - that characterizes much of the work of the artists praised by the system today. Yes ", confirms the artist. "The problem of today's art is precisely that of taking itself too seriously. Today it is easier to find art in advertising or in the media than in art galleries ".

Daniela Del Moro (In the structure of the Vision) 2009

"...Virgilio makes a further and decisive step forward in the philosophy of his thought of art: the words, his "titles" become the substance of the images, of his visual space, so if the image is in opposition to the idea of matter, then itself must become matter: a revolutionary conceptual strategy for overcoming the dichotomy "substance-image", "word-object" ... "

(Complete text only on catalog)

Alberto Agazzani (Other contemplations) 2009

L.I.B.R.A 2010. (Complete text only on catalog)

Alberto Agazzani (Contemplations) 2009

Christian Maretti 2009. (Complete text only on catalog)

Philippe Daverio (On the occasion of the 57th Michetti Prize - Laboratorio Italia) 2007

Vallecchi 2006. (Complete text only on catalog)

Philippe Daverio 3x17 Italian Pavilion. Venice Biennale 2007

Rizzoli 2007 (Complete text only on catalog)

Giorgio Soavi (There was a Dutch Ligurian) 2004 

Every time I go down from Montemarcello to Sarzana I always go to see him. The first time I entered his studio was mid-September 2003. I remember it as it was now. I didn't even introduce myself, I just went in. I was struck and attracted by a painting on a light background, resting on a high iron mezzanine. It represented a winged insect, painted with maniacal skill. I had never seen such a thing. I asked him the price and he told me that the painting was not for sale. So I showed up hoping that my old name might have worked a little. Unfortunately or fortunately he already knew who I was. Smiling, he said that he had read something of mine and that he liked it, but the painting was not for sale. I began to look around and realized that there was not only that work. I was in a wonder room. Representations bordering on paradox. Strangling animals without a zoomorphic location, hybrid biomechanical assemblies, agglomerations of glass bottles painted like a Dutchman from the 1600s. Damp and moldy solid wood chests with torn, embroidered and greasy tablecloths on top. Fruit tied with string and vegetables nailed to the wooden table, forced to assume fetishist poses. Immovable insects in containers full of formaldehyde. Small sheets of paper crumpled and meticulously stuck on top of other sheets. Sometimes large and sometimes very small writings that indicate the path for reading the work, and positioned on decontextualized elements. I looked up and saw other paintings, even nailed to the ceiling. And hundreds of studies, photographs, drawings and short descriptions for videos and installations to be made. It felt like being in another world. Every square centimeter was occupied by one of his works. Above an antique wooden chair was a painting very similar to the one that caught my attention at first. Same size, same colors and same subject. I walked over to get a better look at it and was speechless. It was the same painting. Speculate. Masterfully painted. It's on sale? He said yes. I didn't know whether to laugh or what. I asked him why that painting was and the other was not, since no eye would notice the difference. He didn't answer me. So I dropped it and concentrated on the purchase asking how much it would cost me. Five euro. I thought he was making fun of me. I repeated the question. And again, five euros. I didn't know what to say. I asked him if he would like to have a nice exhibition in Milan presented by me. We would both have made a great impression. He, with all due respect, told me no. He claimed that doing a good exhibition in Milan would bring him some money right away and that was it. And he didn't care. I started laughing and pulled the five euros out of my wallet. Before leaving I wanted to know the reason for that ridiculous figure. And his reply was the motive for this short letter and testimony. He said that he had immediately sensed my attraction towards that work, and that he had often noticed me stopping to contemplate it in front of the window of his study. And that was enough for him. He had me put the second painting back on the antique wooden chair, and I took home the one I first saw resting on the high iron loft. We will definitely meet again. Thanks Virgil.

← Categories works

Theoretic →