“Painting for oneself, salvation from chaos”

Published: 2007 - September, Culture

You sign your works Gaspare. Why not use your family name?
“Well, because Gaspare is My name. Family names with a history can be heavy. Canvases are rather thin”.

Its is said that you are inherently gifted.
“You want to know if its God’s gift or a result of free choice? I would think its not through genious but through tenacity. On average I work ten hours per day, every day. The real gift is my innate curiosity for things concerning life. This motivates my painting, even if it has a cost involved”.

A cost?
“Like the American writer Truman Coppote use to say - when God gives you a gift, he also gives you a wip with it: uniquely predisposed for self-flagellation. Art that remains in museums is the result of a search for truth. Its a bit like searching for bulbs that give rise to some nice flowers. You dirty your hands digging, and often more”.

In the next 36 months, other than Paris Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing, London and NY, the city of Venice alson plans a major exibition of your works in the Diocesano Museum in september 2008. Why is this part of the Architectural Biennale?
“I have already been asked to participate in the Venice Art Biennale, but preferred to accept the Architecture Biennale – a theme close to my heart. During my PhD at the LSE I spent years studying cities, urban issues: no surprise the urban theme pops up often in my art. Cities are the product of the mind, they are the concrete act of a thought – and this is of interest to me. The exibition will be entitled Gaspare’s Cities”.

You have lived in almost every continent and speak many languages.
“I travelled around the world and this has opened my mind and heart to humanity. Asia and Thailand, where I was born, made me centred and balanced, it made me search for precise pure forms, gave me sensuality. Africa, especially Kenya where I grew-up, thought me to look and observe. Switzerland tought me how chaotic my country Italy is, and how uncontrolable the italian inventiveness and genius can be.The UK and London, where I spent nearly 20 years tought me to work very hard like a machine. And all allong I met many people who have affected me positively – I would not know where to start! Perhaps I would start with a Maasai worrior in Kenya who made me understand how humble we are before nature”.

Of all these people, were there some key elements that pushed you towards art?
“Every person close to me and who has got to know me well has in some way pushed me to paint whilst I was wasting on other ventures. A strong push came from the painter Lucian Freud in London told me not to be stupid and to paint. His small piercing eyes shined whilst I ate my mufin with him at Clark’s in London. Then there was Saul Bellow, the American Nobel prize of Canadian origin, who told me that isolation was good up to a certain point and that it was time to wake up and do. It seems that love is made of concrete tangible acts. I love art, so I painted, I paint and will always paint thinking of all those universes that I was lucky to be part and from which I learned. But importantly, I must say that the greatest push came from some art collectors such as the lawyers Vincenzo Spandri and Alessandro Berlese in Italy, or the investment guru Daoud Zekrya in London. They followed me and helped me most. I must say they were rather farsighted!”

Many people now look for you in Venice asking for portraits or paintings, I hear you unplug the phone and send them away because of too much work.  Where would you want to escape?
“Well, N.Y off course! I like the buzz, the razmatz, there is chutzpah as they say. There is energy, the same energy that I have when painting. There I could hide away and paint for  a while. But I would want to rest in places like the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio or the Muthaiga Country Club in Nairobi – away from it all”.

Where is art going and what is art for Gaspare?
“The good old Tom Wolf in his celebrated text on how to obtain success in art wrote that art can be reduced to a series of theories. No theory - No art. I think theories are for theoreticians who wanted to be artists. A great maestro paints and sculpts. In the 1960’s I was in Bangkok then, and between N.Y London and other capitals there where dozzens of artistic movements. I left and went to London thinking I could find some clarity in all this. And during the 1980’s the Chaos greeted me, like always. Whilst a few kept on painting works that will stay, others mostly focussed on theories and theories of theories. And so we found ourselved surrounded with Appropriation art, the Demoscene, Electronic art, Figuration Libre and the Live art, Mail art, Plastic Paint Medium, Postmodern art, Neo-conceptual art. Let us not forget Neoexpressionism, Transgressive art and Video installations. It did not interest me and I just watched these opportunit artists of moment. I use to buy oil paints and sable brushes”.

And then what happened ?
“After that it was more of the same again. Always in London, and by now weighed down by a mass of artist who defined themselves artists with a A. The 1990’s gave way to Information art, Internet art and New media art.  Then out of nowhere came the Young British Artists their big galleries and important supporters. With Saachi  The unmade bed of Tracy Emin became a work of art. I am no expert in this type of art. I just paint, I do not judge, but I think that my own bed with embroidered linen sheets is more conducive to rest and artistic fervour. However, we are now in the year 2000 era: people slowly forget Emin’s dity sheets and Marc Quin’s head made from coagulated frozen. People now concentrate on key words considerred trendy and sexy like Pluralism art (the mass wins), Software art (viva Photoshop), Sound art, Street art, Stuckism, Superflat , Videogame art and VJ art. Yes, VJ art. Do not ask me what that is – I do not know. Art for Gaspare is about painting for oneself. This is what I have always done and what has saved me so far from the chaos. But I am sure that a list of writers and critics are sharpening their pencils to box me, define me. Let them use the definition Karl Popper gave my art. I can live with that!”
Info:
FONDAZIONE GASPARE
www.gaspare-foundation.com