PASOLINIA CASA TESTORI

Aggiungere silvana editoriale

con il patrocinio del Comune di Novate Milanese

Mostra promossa daAssociazione Giovanni Testori OnlusCasa Testori Associazione Culturale

A cura diGiovanni Agosti

CoordinamentoDavide Dall’Ombra

Gruppo di lavoroDavide Dall’OmbraAlessandro FrangiPetra Aprile

Casa editriceSilvana Editoriale

Immagini della mostraRoberto Marossi

AllestimentoLA Modelli - Andrea Lo Pinto

ComunicazioneGrace - comunicazione d’autore

Assicurazioni Ciaccio Broker

Con il contributo di

Sponsor tecnico

La realizzazione di questa mostra non sarebbe stata possibile senza la collaborazione di:

Marianna Agliottone, Guglielmo Alessio, Roberta Ammazzalupo ed il suo cavalletto, Stefano Arienti, Francesca Battello, Davide Berardi, Alessandro e Carlo Bernardini, Carole e Mario Biagiotti, Liala e Paolo Bonfanti, Aldo Bonzi, Rossano Breno, Ste-fano Candiani, Carlo Alberto Carutti, Giancarlo Cattaneo, Carlotta Crosera, Sonia de Flumeri, Oumar Djigo, Simone Facchinetti, Diego Ferrari, Alessandra Galasso, Leonardo Guerra Seragno-li, Giovanni Frangi, Lorenzo Guzzeloni, Fabio Iseppi, Matteo Maino, Marylène Malbert, Marco “Zizi” Marcassoli, Francesca Martinoli, France-sco Moro, Museo Storico di Bergamo, Corrado “Chiarugi” Parigi, Francesco Pedrini, Giuseppe Pero, Marco Perotto, Mara Piras, Natasha Pivelli-ni, Gabriele Poeta Paccati, Barbara Polla, Marina Pugliese, Luca Rapis, Gian Paolo Ricci, Francesca Sant’Ambrosio, Angela Tarallo, Maria Francesca Tassi, Claudio Zecchi, Andrea “Zibi” Zimbaro.

Andrea MastrovitoEASY COME, EASY GOCasa Testori,Largo Angelo Testori 1320026 Novate Milanese (MI) 19 aprile - 1 luglio 2012 Questo libro è dedicato ...

La mostra si inserisce tra le iniziative della XIII settimana della cultura

Pasolini pittore negli anni Quaranta

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Andrea Mastrovito has a boundless faith in this simple gesture, as demon-strated not only by the thousands of ways he draws, but also by the themes he addresses. His cycle of drawings entitled Manual for Young Artists is the best example. The title corre-sponds only by chance to the Italian edition of the series of interviews of Damien Hirst conducted by his friend Gor-don Burn, which in English was called On the Way to Work. If nothing else, though, the coincidence confirms an approach based on great confidence in his own potential. The Manual for Young Artists by Andrea Mastrovito consists of an initial series of works in pencil on simple sheets of A4 paper. At first they might es-cape the attention of those who know Andrea only through his more eye-catching works with their bright colors. But it all starts here, on these humble sheets of paper where the art-ist, still young back then (now, at 32, he is still “younger than Jesus”, but he is no longer young. No. Decidedly not), outlined his artistic vision in a complete way for the first time. A tes-

Pasolini pittore negli anni Quaranta

Sergio Momesso

tament for the world to come, a docu-ment that demonstrates Mastrovito’s ability to create EVERYTHING with a pencil: first he draws himself and then, in the finest Pygmalion tradi-tion, he outlines a gorgeous lover and sets out to kiss her before he has even finished the job. All the drawings are self-portraits of Andrea, always de-

picted in some act of creation. In fact, “create” and “procreate” seem to be the buzzwords of the youthful art-

ist: we see Andrea who spatows flow-ers ripping pages from a book that fall to the ground, blossom and create small flowerbeds that line the path of the artist-gardener. But the somewhat megalomaniacal dream of the artist-creator also appears in a much more explicit way, when we see Andrea having sex with a huge tiger. Even art-ist’s excrement, if it comes from Mas-trovito, has no need of Manzoni-style canning to become precious: in An-drea’s drawings an army of penguins advances in single file from below the squatting buttocks of the artist, pa-tiently taking their rations one by one and humbly trotting them around as

Andrea Mastrovito ha un’immensa fiducia nel semplice gesto di tracciare una linea

Andrea Mastrovito has a boundless faith in this simple gesture of drawing lines

brano le parole d’ordine del giovane artista: si vede Andrea che semina fio-ri strappando pagine da un libro che, cadendo per terra, fioriscono e creano piccole aiuole che segnano il sentiero dell’artista-giardiniere. Ma il sogno un poco megalomane dell’artista-creato-re si manifesta anche in modo molto più esplicito, lì, dove si vede Andrea copulare con una tigre enorme. Perfi-no la merda d’artista poi, se viene da Mastrovito, non bisogna inscatolarla alla Manzoni per renderla preziosa: sui disegni di Andrea un esercito di pinguini marcia in fila indiana sotto le chiappe abbassate dell’artista a pren-dersi pazientemente, uno dopo l’altro, la propria razione e a portarla umil-mente in giro come si trattasse di un decoro da suscitare invidia. Nasce tutto da questi disegni, che nel-la mostra a Casa Testori sono il pun-to di partenza. Quasi ogni disegno di questo ciclo ha guidato l’artista allo sviluppo di altri lavori, ripetendo la stessa piccola storia raccontata con la matita su carta in un linguaggio diver-so. Mastrovito è un maestro delle va-riazioni e il Manuale per Giovani Arti-sti con il senno di poi si è rivelato una fonte inestinguibile di innumerevoli leitmotiv per il – oramai – non più gio-vane artista. Nonostante l’età matura di Mastrovito il termine leitmotiv po-trebbe essere fuorviante: mentre nella musica classica da Carl Maria von We-ber in poi il leitmotiv consisteva in un tema musicale, una breve melodia, un accordo o una figura ritmica che nel corso di un opera veniva più o meno regolarmente ripetuta creando in tal

also time. Andrea Mastrovito has a boundless faith in this simple gesture, as demon-strated not only by the thousands of ways he draws, but also by the themes he addresses. His cycle of drawings entitled Manual for Young Artists is the best example. The title cor-responds only by chance to the Ital-ian edition of the series of interviews of Damien Hirst conducted by his friend Gordon Burn, which in Eng-lish was called On the Way to Work. If nothing else, though, the coincidence confirms an approach based on great confidence in his own potential. The Manual for Young Artists by Andrea Mastrovito consists of an initial series of works in pencil on simple sheets of A4 paper. At first they might escape the attention of those who know An-drea only through his more eye-catch-ing works with their bright colors. But it all starts here, on these humble sheets of paper where the artist, still young back then (now, at 32, he is still “younger than Jesus”, but he is no longer young. No. Decidedly not), outlined his artistic vision in a com-plete way for the first time. A testa-ment for the world to come, a docu-ment that demonstrates Mastrovito’s ability to create EVERYTHING with a pencil: first he draws himself and then, in the finest Pygmalion tradi-tion, he outlines a gorgeous lover and sets out to kiss her before he has even finished the job. All the drawings are self-portraits of Andrea, always de-picted in some act of creation. In fact, “create” and “procreate” seem to be

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the buzzwords of the youthful artist: we see Andrea who spatows flowers ripping pages from a book that fall to the ground, blossom and create small flowerbeds that line the path of the artist-gardener. But the somewhat megalomaniacal dream of the artist-creator also appears in a much more explicit way, when we see Andrea having sex with a huge tiger. Even art-ist’s excrement, if it comes from Mas-trovito, has no need of Manzoni-style canning to become precious: in An-drea’s drawings an army of penguins advances in single file from below the squatting buttocks of the artist, pa-tiently taking their rations one by one and humbly trotting them around as if they were enviable decorations. Everything comes from these draw-ings, which form the starting point in the exhibition at Casa Testori. Almost every drawing in this cycle has guided the artist in the development of other works, repeating the same little story narrated with pencil on paper in a different language. Mastrovito is a master of variations – and the Manual for Young Artists, in hindsight, has turned out to be an unflagging source of numberless leitmotivs for the – at this point – no longer young artist. In spite of Mastrovito’s maturity, the term leitmotiv might be misleading: while in classical music, from Carl Maria von Weber on, the leitmotiv consists of a musical theme, a short melody, a chord or rhythmical figure that during the course of the piece is more or less regularly repeated in such a way as to become a fil rouge

modo un fil rouge anche in strutture musicali molto complesse, il metodo di Andrea riporta più ad una reinter-pretazione della stessa partitura con una strumentazione e con voci diver-se. Nella musica pop questa tecnica è molto diffusa: spesso musicisti esor-dienti dimostrano il loro virtuosismo interpretando pezzi musicali già affer-mati, cioè le hit di altri, presentate in nuove cover versions. Quindi Mastro-vito è meno allievo di von Weber che dei Blues Brothers, che hanno fondato la loro carriera sulla reinterpretazione del repertorio Rhythm and Blues degli anni Cinquanta? No, Andrea Mastro-vito non ha bisogno di attingere a cre-azioni altrui – con eccezione dei con-certi fotocopiati dei Queen. Lì però crea letteralmente delle cover versions, in quanto utilizza delle fotocopie dei musicisti con cui copre se stesso e la sua band, dando una svolta inaspet-tata a questo termine tipico della mu-sica pop. Del resto Mastrovito pro-duce (quasi) esclusivamente cover, cioè reinterpretazioni, delle proprie invenzioni che raramente nascono dal mondo della musica ma piuttosto nel-le biblioteche. Non solo per la passione per i libri, la casa di Giovanni Testori rappresenta un ambiente perfetto per il lavoro di Mastrovito. Come annota Andrea, il padrone di casa è nato nel suo stes-so giorno, ma cinquantacinque anni prima. Mastrovito ha colto l’occasio-ne d’essere ospite in questa Casa per entrare in un dialogo molto intimo con Testori che per un certo verso si è rivelato una sua anima gemella. La

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BASSA

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Supporti trasparenti

Andrea Mastrovito has a boundless faith in this simple gesture, as demonstrated not only by the thousands of ways he draws, but also by the themes he addresses. His cycle of drawings entitled Manual for Young Artists is the best example. The title corresponds only by chance to the Italian edition of the series of interviews of Damien Hirst conducted by his friend Gordon Burn, which in English was called On the Way to Work. If nothing else, though, the coincidence confirms an ap-proach based on great confidence in his own potential. The Manual for Young Artists by Andrea Mastrovito consists of an initial series of works in pencil on simple sheets of A4 pa-per. At first they might escape the attention of those who know Andrea only through his more eye-catching works with their bright colors. But it all starts here, on these humble sheets of paper where the artist, still young back then (now, at 32, he is still “younger than Jesus”, but he is no longer young. No. Decidedly not), outlined his artistic vision in a complete way for the first time. A testa-ment for the world to come, a document that demonstrates Mastrovito’s ability to create EVERYTHING with a pencil: first he draws himself and then, in the finest Pygmalion tra-dition, he outlines a gorgeous lover and sets out to kiss her before he has even finished the job. All the drawings are self-portraits of An-drea, always depicted in some act of creation. In fact, “create” and “procreate” seem to be the buzzwords of the youthful artist: we see Andrea who spatows flowers ripping pages from a book that fall to the ground, blos-som and create small flowerbeds that line the path of the artist-gardener. But the somewhat megalomaniacal dream of the artist-creator also appears in a much more explicit way, when we see Andrea having sex with a huge tiger. Even artist’s excrement, if it comes from Mastrovito, has no need of Manzoni-style canning to become precious: in Andrea’s drawings an afaith in this simple gesture, as

demonstrated not only by the thousands of ways he draws, but also by the themes he ad-dresses. His cycle of drawings entitled Manu-al for Young Artists is the best example. The title corresponds only by chance to the Italian edition of the series of interviews of Damien Hirst conducted by his friend Gordon Burn, which in English was called On the Way to Work. If nothing else, though, the coinci-dence confirms an approach based on great confidence in his own potential. The Manual for Young Artists by Andrea Mastrovito con-sists of an initial series of works in pencil on simple sheets of A4 paper. At first they might escape the attention of those who know An-drea only through his more eye-catching works with their bright colors. But it all starts here, on these humble sheets of paper where the artist, still young back then (now, at 32, he is still “younger than Jesus”, but he is no longer young. No. Decidedly not), outlined his artistic vision in a complete way for the first time. A testament for the world to come, a document that demonstrates Mastrovito’s ability to create EVERYTHING with a pen-cil: first he draws himself and then, in the finest Pygmalion tradition, he outlines a gor-geous lover and sets out to kiss her before he

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Uomo che si lava

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Andrea Mastrovito has a boundless faith in this simple gesture, as demonstrated not only by the thousands of ways he draws, but also by the themes he addresses. His cycle of drawings entitled Manual for Young Artists is the best example. The title corresponds only by chance to the Italian edition of the series of interviews of Damien Hirst conducted by his friend Gordon Burn, which in English was called On the Way to Work. If nothing else, though, the coincidence confirms an ap-proach based on great confidence in his own potential. The Manual for Young Artists by Andrea Mastrovito consists of an initial series of works in pencil on simple sheets of A4 pa-per. At first they might escape the attention of those who know Andrea only through his more eye-catching works with their bright colors. But it all starts here, on these humble sheets of paper where the artist, still young back then (now, at 32, he is still “younger than Jesus”, but he is no longer young. No. Decidedly not), outlined his artistic vision in a complete way for the first time. A testa-ment for the world to come, a document that demonstrates Mastrovito’s ability to create EVERYTHING with a pencil: first he draws himself and then, in the finest Pygmalion tra-dition, he outlines a gorgeous lover and sets out to kiss her before he has even finished the job. All the drawings are self-portraits of An-drea, always depicted in some act of creation. In fact, “create” and “procreate” seem to be the buzzwords of the youthful artist: we see Andrea who spatows flowers ripping pages from a book that fall to the ground, blos-som and create small flowerbeds that line the path of the artist-gardener. But the somewhat megalomaniacal dream of the artist-creator also appears in a much more explicit way, when we see Andrea having sex with a huge tiger. Even artist’s excrement, if it comes from Mastrovito, has no need of Manzoni-style canning to become precious: in Andrea’s drawings an afaith in this simple gesture, as demonstrated not only by the thousands of

ways he draws, but also by the themes he ad-dresses. His cycle of drawings entitled Manu-al for Young Artists is the best example. The title corresponds only by chance to the Italian edition of the series of interviews of Damien Hirst conducted by his friend Gordon Burn, which in English was called On the Way to Work. If nothing else, though, the coinci-dence confirms an approach based on great confidence in his own potential. The Manual for Young Artists by Andrea Mastrovito con-sists of an initial series of works in pencil on simple sheets of A4 paper. At first they might escape the attention of those who know An-drea only through his more eye-catching works with their bright colors. But it all starts

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Sacri e allegorici

here, on these humble sheets of paper where the artist, still young back then (now, at 32, he is still “younger than Jesus”, but he is no longer young. No. Decidedly not), outlined his artistic vision in a complete way for the first time. A testament for the world to come, a document that demonstrates Mastrovito’s ability to create EVERYTHING with a pen-cil: first he draws himself and then, in the finest Pygmalion tradition, he outlines a gor-geous lover and sets out to kiss her before he has even finished the job. All the drawings are self-portraits of Andrea, always depicted in some act of creation. In fact, “create” and “procreate” seem to be the buzzwords of the youthful artist: we see Andrea who spatows flowers ripping pages from a book that fall to the ground, blossom and create small flower-beds that line the path of the artist-gardener. But the somewhat megalomaniacal dream of the artist-creator also appears in a much more explicit way, when we see Andrea hav-ing sex with a huge tiger. Even artist’s excre-ment, if it comes from Mastrovito, has no need of Manzoni-style canning to become precious: in Andrea’s drawings an army of penguins advances in single file from below the squatting buttocks of the artist, patiently taking their rations one by one and humbly trotting them around as if they were enviable decorations. Everything comes from these drawings, which form the starting point in the exhibi-tion at Casa Testori. Almost every drawing in this cycle has guided the artist in the devel-opment of other works, repeating the same little story narrated with pencil on paper in a different language. Mastrovito is a master of variations – and the Manual for Young Art-ists, in hindsight, has turned out to be an un-flagging source of numberless leitmotivs for the – at this point – no longer young artist. In spite of Mastrovito’s maturity, the term leitmotiv might be misleading: while in clas-sical music, from Carl Maria von Weber on, the leitmotiv consists of a musical theme, a

short melody, a chord or rhythmical figure that during the course of the piece is more or less regularly repeated in such a way as to become a fil rouge even in very complex mu-sical structures, Andrea’s method leads back more to a reinterpretation of the same score with different instruments and voices. In pop music this technique is very widespread: of-ten up-and-coming musicians demonstrate their ability by reinterpreting already famous songs, namely the hits of others, produc-ing so-called “cover versions”. So is Mas-trovito less a student of Weber than of the Blues Brothers, with their emulations of the R&B hits of the 1950s and 1960s? No, An-drea Mastrovito doesn’t have to rely on the creations of others – apart from the photo-copied concerts of Queen. But in that case he literally creates “covers”, because he uses photocopies of the musicians with which to cover himself and his band, in an unexpected twist on this typical pop music term. Actu-ally Mastrovito (almost) exclusively produces covers, i.e. reinterpretations, but of his own inventions that rarely come from the world of music, but issue instead from libraries. Not just due to this passion for books, the house of Giovanni Testori represents a per-fect setting for the work of Mastrovito. As Andrea points out, the owner of the house was born on the same day he was, but 55 years earlier. Mastrovito has embraced the oppor-tunity to be a guest in this house, to establish a very intimate dialogue with Testori, who in some ways has turned out to be a kindred soul. The shared birthday has led to a new work in which the artist, shooting upward, generates an ornament of lights that depicts the constellations in the sky over Lombardy on 12 May 1978, representing himself not only as the creator of the firmament, but also of a common destiny… Two rooms on the first floor are devoted exclusively to Testori: in the studio of the then-young writer Andrea has reproduced the paintings Testori liked to have around him, using the technique devel-oped for the work Pindemonte at the Ana-lix Forever gallery in Geneva in 2009. The paintings come from incisions of different

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Autoritratti e Narcisio

At first they might escape the attention of those who know Andrea only through his more eye-catching works with their bright colors. But it all starts here, on these humble sheets of paper where the artist, still young back then (now, at 32, he is still “younger than Jesus”, but he is no longer young. No. Decidedly not), outlined his artistic vision in a complete way for the first time. A testa-ment for the world to come, a document that demonstrates Mastrovito’s ability to create EVERYTHING with a pencil: first he draws himself and then, in the finest Pygmalion tra-dition, he outlines a gorgeous lover and sets out to kiss her before he has even finished the job. All the drawings are self-portraits of An-drea, always depicted in some act of creation. In fact, “create” and “procreate” seem to be the buzzwords of the youthful artist: we see Andrea who spatows flowers ripping pages from a book that fall to the ground, blos-som and create small flowerbeds that line the path of the artist-gardener. But the somewhat megalomaniacal dream of the artist-creator also appears in a much more explicit way, when we see Andrea having sex with a huge tiger. Even artist’s excrement, if it comes from Mastrovito, has no need of Manzoni-style canning to become precious: in Andrea’s drawings an army of penguins advances in single file from below the squatting buttocks of the artist, patiently taking their rations one by one and humbly trotting them around as if they were enviable decorations. Everything comes from these drawings, which form the starting point in the exhibi-tion at Casa Testori. Almost every drawing in this cycle has guided the artist in the devel-opment of other works, repeating the same little story narrated with pencil on paper in a different language. Mastrovito is a master of variations – and the Manual for Young Art-ists, in hindsight, has turned out to be an un-flagging source of numberless leitmotivs for the – at this point – no longer young artist. In spite of Mastrovito’s maturity, the term

leitmotiv might be misleading: while in clas-sical music, from Carl Maria von Weber on, the leitmotiv consists of a musical theme, a short melody, a chord or rhythmical figure that during the course of the piece is more or less regularly repeated in such a way as to become a fil rouge even in very complex mu-sical structures, Andrea’s method leads back more to a reinterpretation of the same score with different instruments and voices. In pop music this technique is very widespread: of-ten up-and-coming musicians demonstrate their ability by reinterpreting already famous songs, namely the hits of others, produc-ing so-called “cover versions”. So is Mas-trovito less a student of Weber than of the Blues Brothers, with their emulations of the R&B hits of the 1950s and 1960s? No, An-drea Mastrovito doesn’t have to rely on the creations of others – apart from the photo-copied concerts of Queen. But in that case he literally creates “covers”, because he uses photocopies of the musicians with which to cover himself and his band, in an unexpected twist on this typical pop music term. Actu-ally Mastrovito (almost) exclusively produces covers, i.e. reinterpretations, but of his own inventions that rarely come from the world of music, but issue instead from libraries. Not just due to this passion for books, the house of Giovanni Testori represents a per-fect setting for the work of Mastrovito. As Andrea points out, the owner of the house was born on the same day he was, but 55 years earlier. Mastrovito has embraced the oppor-tunity to be a guest in this house, to establish a very intimate dialogue with Testori, who in some ways has turned out to be a kindred soul. The shared birthday has led to a new work in which the artist, shooting upward, generates an ornament of lights that depicts the constellations in the sky over Lombardy on 12 May 1978, representing himself not only as the creator of the firmament, but also of a common destiny… Two rooms on the first floor are devoted exclusively to Testori: in the studio of the then-young writer Andrea has reproduced the paintings Testori liked to have around him, using the technique devel-

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