Renata Fabbri

Via Antonio Stoppani, 15/c, 20129 Milan

MON CLOSED
TUE - SAT 3:30PM / 7:30PM
SUN 12PM / 7:30PM

ARTISTS:
Carlo Cossignani
Adolfo Wildt (Collezione Ramo)

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Carlo Cossignani answers questions from
Irina Zucca Alessandrelli, curator of the Ramo Collection

Give a definition of what drawing is for you.

Drawing is a direct channel, it is the absence of filter between intuition and its translation.

What is your relationship with drawing? And with the history of Italian art of the last century?

In recent years drawing has occupied increasing importance in my work, unwittingly shifting from the role of annotation to that of research. Often proving to be the most effective way of resolving a conflict between idea and feeling.
Similarly, with the exception of those avowedly accomplished, I have for a long time regarded the drawing of the last century, and drawing more generally, as a scholarly or preparatory passage. Later, it was glaring how in many cases the first intention brought to those sheets was so clear and complete that nothing needed to be added. Fontana's drawings immediately come to mind.

Why did you choose this work from Collezione Ramo?

When I was shown this drawing for the first time, I immediately thought the choice was forced.
In fact, the theme represented is a deposition, which is the same one addressed in the first drawing that later led to the cycle of works presented in the exhibition.

Over time then I realized how the real direction of these works was the discovery of fragility as an element of strength and the idea of emptiness as a substance to be given form.
Form that was often translated into female clothing although it was initially suggested by the disappearance of a male figure. Almost as if a particular element once vanished left a trace of its counterpart. I was therefore very impressed to note how Wildt in complete antithesis to classical iconography, had replaced the deposed body with that of a woman.

In addition to the symbolic one then, there are unmistakable assonances on the linguistic and in some ways even on the formal level.
In the background of Wildt's drawing, for example, a sharp, pierced shadow stands out and becomes a figure in its own right, an element that I could not help but relate back to the voids in my drawings and sculptures.

Presence and absence, masculine and feminine, empty and full.
This logic of continuous dialogue and conflict between the parts can be found in all the works presented.
Wildt included, in my opinion.
A pattern of alternation that repeats itself incessantly in the most recent series of grids, intended to define themselves as windows of passage to the backstage of a place into which the viewer is invited to enter.