On occasion of the exhibition Strazza, Opere 1960 - 2006, at the Museo Civico Umberto Mastroiani of Marino, from 21 October to 7 December, in collaboration with Massenzio
Arte and the patronage of the Comune of Marino and the Province of Rome, Manuela Fine has interviewed the painter and engraver Guido Strazza on behalf of the readers of Sguardi.info.
The Museo Civico Mastroianni, formerly the church of Santa Lucia, built around 1102, and deconsecrated in 1669, is a perfect venue. With an essential structure retaining some gothic in its pointed arches, it welcomes and exalts the abstract works of Guido Strazza.
Surrounded by his pictures, the fruit of a long career, the master begins to tell his story and that of his art, starting with the reasons that leads him do dedicate himself to painting.
My passion for art was prompted by a need, and not really an ambition. In fact, since I was a child I have loved painting and painted, but I did not study art,or go to an academy. I studied engineering and my career was quite promising.
One fine day, however, this passion of mine became a necessity. I burnt my bridges and chose
painting and engraving as my career. There was no definite event that prompted this decision. I simply reached a natural saturation point. Realising that I could not do two things at once, I gave up engineering.
From that point on my artistic activity has been research, investigation and experimentation with signs.
Why signs?
Because a signs constitutes the first movement of art; it is the brick of any building and, through engraving, I have been able to observe it as it grows, or better, while it is transformed from a plan into concrete fulfilment. In fact, the connection between this activity, of engraver, and that of painter is very deep and my painting, like my engraving, collects signs, presences on canvas that in the course of time have assumed different shapes and meanings.
During my artistic career I have experimented continuously and come to understood that the real innovation in artistic language always takes place within a tradition; it is a development of what already existed; not even the historic avant guard were all original. Therefore it means having the courage to renew while remaining partly bound to existing artistic movements.
If we consider ancient art, we see that there are two ways of approaching it: you can adopt the academic method, which means the simple imitation of works, or the analytical method, which means trying to understand why artists have been induced to make certain choices.
In the second case, it is possible to pick out and develope some characteristics which contribute to revolutionising ruling canons and creating significant artistic innovations.
One example among many is Mark Rothko who, in the realm of abstract painting, achieves a perfect union of geometry and colour.
The first is understood as something linearly definite and the second as a state of life energy, and all this thanks to uncertain colour outlines within vast tonal spaces that lead to an essential aspect of art: the communion between order and non order.
The search for a sign has also led me towards this aspect of art, and in the relationship between sign and space in which it is positioned I have rediscovered a union of rigour and intuition.
The intentions of art, however, change with time and the cultural climate to which I belong is different from that of present day society.
So, if I had to indicate a predominant subject in the art of younger generations, I should think of
contemporaneity itself;
I mean to say that, while in the past the artist sought the possibility of
creating an immortal work, today there is an opposite tendency.
The world of art produces objects to be sold and follows the laws of the market which apply to other commercial products.
This revolutionary concept of art came with the advent of pop art. Andy Warhol, producing works which represent popular personalities and everyday objects reproduceable in series, annuls the distinction between beautiful and ugly. He transforms works of art into objects to sell.
I do not share this approach to art but it represents, philosophically, another point of view, another expressive possibility that, like all others in the immense panorama of art, can give life to something extraordinary and surprising.
