Momenti della verità

WRITING AT NIGHT

My story with Giulio Paolini dates back to 1976; it is a story in seven acts, some corollaries, many external adventures (Rocca di Angera, Triennale, etc) and then letters, books, trips, museum exhibitions.

We have lost count, but our relationship is all the stronger.

If I do not dare call it friendship it is only out of respect for the artist’s right to privacy. And yet I would dare call it friendship, with the kind permission of a great man for whom the simplicity of a relationship is the acme of any connection.

Paolini’s greatest works and writings have been through our gallery and have made a mark.

Many signs superimposed on the walls which, should we put them together as we do with the pictures in a puzzle, would certainly give life to our portraits, as Borges used to say.

One day, Giulio (I’ll use his first name) gives me his work “Circo Massimo” as a gift both to the gallery that bears my name (initially dubbed BANCO), and to myself: the theatre of life, of a life populated by images that are now fading away, indistinct. (This is actually a quotation from “If on a Winter’s Night…”).

Italo was an important milestone in Giulio’s life, just as he was in mine, relatively speaking: a close friend for G., a great writer for M.

However, as there’s no two without three, Luciano Pistoi with his very first exhibitions of Giulio’s works, takes his rightful place to complete the Holy Trinity of Italian Art, able to deal on an equal footing with modern and ancient, European and American art.

The importance of G.P.’s work lies in his capacity to totally remove any trace of sentimentality while still preserving the sentiment. A cool and poetic work (I daresay cool and, therefore, poetic), determined by the sense that should be at the base of any sensibility. His work recaps, resurrects and recalls the past bringing it back to life, essentially, mentally, accurately citing the ancients…

Citatis citandis, I gathered the courage to ask my friend for one more exhibition: our seventh (closing with the number seven would be extraordinary, at least for those who believe in the magic of numbers). Without reverence, but with respect and admiration, we are aware of the importance of this continuum, which is also the hallmark of our country: a land where the miracle of art thrives again with every spring and, once the Seven of Coins has been drawn, it seems to say:

“ITALIANS DO IT BETTER”.

Massimo Minini