allegato scansionato - Archivio Crispolti Arte Contemporanea

00A_Saggio CrispoltiOKk2:02_Saggio Campiglio 12-03-2009 14:57 Pagina 21
Il sacco di Roma, 1965-1967
Galleria Comunale d’Arte
Contemporanea, Arezzo
The Sack of Rome, 1965–67
Galleria Comunale d’Arte
Contemporanea, Arezzo
What I mean by this is that a dialogue between critic
and artist entails an internal dynamics of growth that
cannot but be innovatively evolutionary if the parties
involved are to grow independently, also in unforeseeable
ways: the artist in terms of further perspectives and
stylistic modes of his or her exploration; the critic in
terms of prompt, involved, dialogical intelligence with
respect to the unfolding of those perspectives and stylistic
modes. Naturally, there will be some moments of
greater participation and others of debate or even friction,
but without the dialogue being substantially interrupted.
If anything, it may lose intensity or equally
gain it in different and more favourable circumstances.
This is in fact what has happened to me for over half
a century in the case of Vacchi’s work, whose capacity
for orientation and relevance have in any case depended
solely on the intensity of its motivations and certainly
not on external factors, developing in its wholly autonomous
imagination to shape the course of its own
destiny. Responding precisely to the drives of a creativity
that is not only autonomous in increasingly
original terms but also introjected mentally and psychologically,
almost in an intuitively analytical sense,
this oeuvre has developed all the way up to the dimension
of the last few years, originally described as
“self-devouring” by Vacchi himself.
The dialogue between critic and artist can of course also
break down for good, as happened to the undersigned
in the case of Burri’s work after a period of deeply
involved conviction with respect not only to the work
produced before the meeting some time between 1956
and 1957 (from the works with tar and mould to those
in sacking) but also to the subsequent development of
his work in the late 1950s and early 1960s (from the
first works in plastic to those in iron, wood and transparent
plastic as well as the environmental “cretti”). 9
This happened traumatically in connection with Burri’s
disturbing change in direction represented by the new
cycle of non-representational paintings presented at the
Orsanmichele church in Florence from the end of 1980
to the beginning of 1981, which I considered submissively
defeatist as regards intensity of imaginative expression
(a view that later became fairly common). Paradoxically
enough, this marked a further stage in the
consolidation of opportunistic official recognition of
the importance of the Umbrian artist—who in any case
is to be considered great—recognition that in reality is
far from being an effective yardstick of creativity. In
such cases, the dialogue collapses because its original motivations
have disappeared over time. At the same time,
the motivations of the dialogue cannot be extrinsic. In
other words, dialogue cannot be initiated and devel-
Enrico Crispolti
oped and then endure solely on the basis of externally
contingent factors, such as some presumed convergence
or divergence of the external relevance of an artist’s
work. In short, this would be like saying: I am engaged
in a dialogue with you now not because I agree with the
perspectives and expressive modes of your possible artistic
destiny, but because I regard, here and now, the appearance
of your work as in line with a more or less officially
recognized situation of presumed topical relevance,
with which it is in any case expedient to be associated
(whether as a critic or as artist).
If on the other hand it is motivationally grounded, this
type of relationship constitutes for both parties—but especially
the critic—involvement in a venture that is
probably not ephemeral in that it is aimed at the unfolding
of its own existential, cultural and creative identity.
In fact, artists certainly seek to attain identity
through their work, which is then always and inevitably
called into question so as to avoid the risk of drying up
through repetition. And this motivates their very independent
destiny toward the shaping of a distinctive
identity that is autonomous and not externally mediated,
reflected or hetero-directed. But critics also work
at clarifying their identity through a dialogical understanding
of the rationale of the work of the artist, or
rather artists, with whom, in their own course of research,
they are deeply engaged in dialogue, with whose work
they identify in various respects, whose existentially and
imaginatively propulsive motivations they share, in short.
It is in striving to attain existential, cultural and creative
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