site: Browning Gallery (Asolo, Treviso).
treatment: Andrea Tomasetig.
In Asolo, the Browning Gallery hosts the exhibition “In the wind of poetry: food and bestiary in the books and works of Alberto Casiraghy”, curated by the Milanese antiquarian bookseller Andrea Tomasetig and in collaboration with the Asolo Arte cultural association.
Alberto Casiraghy is an artist who brings together many talents. First of all, he is a typographer who composes eight-page books by hand, Gutenberg-style, with movable type (with an aphorism, a short poem or a thought and together with an original work), then prints them and sews them by hand in just a few minutes. specimens. He is also the author of surprising aphorisms that hit the mark and are not forgotten. He is also the graphic designer who accompanies many of those booklets with his original works of a surreal-Dadaist flavour, sometimes creating original object books. Finally, he is the publisher of the Pulcinoeditore editions – affectionately called chicks – which in forty-two years of activity have produced almost twelve thousand titles, to which hundreds and hundreds of writers, artists and ordinary people have contributed.
Over a hundred pieces are exhibited on the three floors of the Browning Gallery, including publications and original works, arranged in a skilful layout by the architect Leo Guerra, under the banner of a dual theme: food in its many aspects and the personal bestiary, real and fantastic, of the artist.
The world of cooking is presented in a wide selection of chicks with aphorisms, reflections and verses from writers and gastronomes. They range from the acute thoughts of the writer Aldo Buzzi (the prophetic “In periods of decadence the cult of cooking becomes excessive”) and of the scholar Alberto Capatti (“Without the pot the book doesn’t boil”) to the reflections of famous chefs, such as Gualtiero Marchesi ( “I have always compared the art of cooking to music that envelops you and penetrates you relentlessly”) and Davide Oldani, to which are added ironic literary recipes as in the case of Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
The booklets always have a double reading register: text and image compete with each other to appear better. Therefore, in addition to the sharpness of thought, the imaginative watercolor ink drawings of Alberto Rebori, the scratchy and darkly humorous engravings of Luciano Ragozzino, the wise golds of Luigi Mariani, the breads masterfully designed by Roberto deserve to be mentioned Giavarini, the sophisticated object-books by Roberto Bernasconi.
Even drinking and wine have their own space: together with the praises of wine by the great poets of the East, Omar Khayyâm and Li Po, there are two bottles with artist’s labels, the work of Casiraghy, for two illustrious recipients, the printer Giorgio Lucini and Pope Francis, remembered by his “fellow citizens” with a Grignolino d’Asti produced from a Portacomaro vineyard “in homage to the roots of his ancestors”.
Of particular interest are some object-books, where text and object, sometimes still made of paper, dialogue with each other within the same edition. Thus, printed on a paper that refers to its pasta, it is a tribute to Gorgonzola (2010), while a glass jar containing lead characters becomes food for the mind. The whole is an imaginative and original gastronomic catalogue.
The other section on display is dedicated to “animal friends” and sees Alberto Casiraghy as the only author of lyrical little books on the subject and above all of unique works in mixed media of larger format, populated with free and fantastic animals, an extraordinary Bestiary expanded into a dreamlike and imaginative dimension and for the first time gathered so copiously. It is a very varied corpus and includes harpooned whales, flying fish, goats and horses with a mysterious giant eye, statuesque cats, little lambs, birds and nests together with rhinos, zebras and other animals from “dear Africa”. But these are not naturalistic depictions, rather surprising presences in surreal contexts, which testify to their profound connection with the imaginary universe of Alberto Casiraghy.
In parallel with the Asolo exhibition, it will be possible to visit the exhibition “Art in the books and works of Alberto Casiraghy” (Bottega Cini, Dorsoduro 860 A), curated by Andrea Tomasetig, in Venice. It is an opportunity to get to know more closely, coinciding with the opening of the Biennale, the artist who made the book his instrument of choice, getting closer than anyone else – in the intertwining of typography, words and art – to the elusive goal of total art.
Inauguration
Saturday 4 May at 6.00 pm
