Filippo Marignoli

"Vertigo"

Museum Carlo Bilotti

15 September-21 November 2010

www.museocarlobilotti.it

by Sara Pelliccia

Looking at Filippo Marignoli’s Vertigo at the Museum Carlo Bilotti in Rome is like taking a dip in the magic sea of the Hawaii - an explosion of blue and green colors suggesting endless esotic landscapes captures the viewer’s eye until that point provoking the sensation of vertigo. The originality of his canvases, which cannot be classified within a specific Contemporary art trend, recreates the unusual artist account of a talent outside the norm, who loved embarking on a nomadic adventure which took place between Rome, New York, Honolulu and Paris.

Divided in two sections, the exhibition opens with his later works, the innovative series “Vertical Landscapes”, Marignoli painted in the 70s/80s. This collection of acrylic paintings, noted for its rigidity and abstract notion of vertigo, is characterized by a unique perspective, which emerges effectively in the white walls of the museum. In them, the artist depicted wonderful islands fluctuating in a “verticalized” sea surface that lead the viewer’s gaze to the bottom of the canvases creating, in this way, a sense of falling abysmal nature of life. The incredible creativity and genius potential which marked the French period, was a direct consequence of his passionate marriage to a Hawaiian princess, Princess Kapiolani Kawanakoa who induced him to gather international experiences and draw inspiration from the innumerable natural landscapes which fascinated him. Ecran, located at the entrance of the show, inaugurates the series in which land and sea meet in the flatness of the horizon. Although the painting gives a sense of bewilderment due to the interplay of different graduations of blueness and greenness, the artist makes the canvas with a viewpoint, a thin line that travels the lenght of the surface, and in so doing, gives us a rope, a map, a lifeline to guide our journey in the fantastic world of the Hawaii and his native land, Umbria.

The show continues with the paintings of the so-called “Informal” period, an avant-garde art movement, which originated in Europe in the middle of the 20^th century. These are mostly canvases in a large format in which every rule of form and composition is denied in favor of the spontaneous act. A collection of “Untitled”, produced when he was in Rome, shows monochromatic weavings which articulate and loose themselves in multiple signs, emotive, yet sometimes dry, capable of suggesting nervous fragments of bridges, squares, and cities. Marignoni’s tendency to the Abstract painting becomes more evident in his productions of the 60s where the influence of American Expressionism is strong. In the Untitled of 1965 the blocks of colors are circumscribed and perceived as monochromatic masses which emphasize in an original manner the eternal dialectic color/space.

The last section of “Vertigo” can be interpreted as a sort of survey of his entire production. In the intimacy of the small upstairs room, drawings, sketches and paintings representing vertical and horizontal landscapes are located in the middle of two significant self-portraits which paradoxically open and close the artistic journey of Marignoli. The first one was produced in the early years and reveals the influence of Italian art in general, and in particular, of Modigliani. The second one is not only the last painting of the show, but also the last work of his artistic career. A sense of introspective dramaticism pervades this canvas, which seems to recall Bonnard’s divisionism; through his self-portrait, the old and sick artist observes like in a mirror the decadent image of himself who is about to challenge the last vertigo of his existence, death.

Vertigo is, basically, a inquiry into the world of natural landscape, which Marignoli explores through different styles and sensations. A mixture of gaiety joined with a sense of anguish makes his works pulsating entities, capable of expressing the inner dualism of the artist. The fascination of the geographical distances becomes the metaphor of his insatiable desire for freedom in art and in life, while his insistence on the use of vertical lines and geometrical patterns are symbols of the artist’s attempt to penetrate the depths of life and dominate his fears. Marignoli’s innate restlessness was, indeed, the driving force of his art and the means through which he managed to go beyond the early artistic experiences of the Informal period to create a totally new language which was expression of his passions, ideals, and “vertigos.”