In Gorizia an exhibition recounts 70 years of life and art of Tullio Crali, the Futurist who loved to fly – Gorizia

Gorizia – “He was like an 80-year-old child in love with flying, which he never missed an opportunity to mention in any conversation. His most famous painting, Diving into the citycame out in a week, as if painted with shots of adrenaline, following a kind of illegal exercise that he held together with his flight companions while whizzing over the roofs of the houses in Gorizia”.
Remembering the evenings around the coffee table, in the family, when her mother-in-law tried in vain to clear the table while the genius of aeropainting, with a glass of red wine in hand, talked about everything, Anna Bartolozzi Crali, talks about the great exhibition that the Santa Chiara, in Gorizia, dedicates it to Tullio Crali, her father-in-law. An anthological journey “of life and art”, as Anna defines it, which, through over 200 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, architectural projects, set designs, advertising posters, “sassintesi” and other experimental creations, traces up to 29 September a career that lasted 70 years, full of changes, never of failure, during which the painter born in Igalo and strongly linked to Gorizia, always remained faithful to the principles of Futurism, even when the movement was historically declared closed.
The artist did not accept the end and continued to work and live in a futurist way.

Tullio Crali. A life for Futurism | Photo: © Vibia Crali

“I met Tullio while I was completing my thesis in Archeology – says Anna Bartolozzi Crali -. Knowing that he was a Futurist, I feared the first meeting with him, I thought he despised me. On the other hand, the Futurists were more fascinated by a moving car than by the Nike of Samothrace. It wasn’t like that, he was always very courteous, he taught drawing and art history. He immediately invited me to address him on first name terms, putting me at ease. I began to understand his world better after his death in 2000, having to dive into this universe, among his works.”

From the first work – a drawing titled The storm (only one signed Balzo Fiamma) – a Spanish dancers passing through Dedicationthe exhibition curated by Marino De Grassi includes oils, drawings and still lifes. “Tullio Crali. A life for Futurism” focuses on the artist’s deeply Gorizia roots, but also on the works of the years between 1919 and 1929, when the Julian Futurism of artists such as Čargo, Carmelich, Černigoj, Claris, Cossar, Demanins, Dolfi, Farfa was born and developed , Fattorello, Mix, Pilon, Pocarini, Sanzin, Spazzapan, Stepancic, Vucetich, Wulz.

Tullio Crali. A life for Futurism | Photo: © Vibia Crali

The section “Crali’s first works and the explosion of aeropainting” hosts 35 paintings, in addition to the artist’s two best-known paintings: The forces of the curve (1930) e Diving into the city (1939). The other paintings follow a chronological order up to and including 1937; from 1938, the year in which Crali began to dedicate himself with great intensity to aero-painting, the large section of aero-painting opened which also embraces the five large paintings dedicated to the Frecce Tricolori, which marked a true artistic rebirth for Crali starting from 1986. If Crali aeropittore makes space through 45 aeropaintings, the “Crali futurist” section hosts 19 futurist works of a general, non-aeropictorial nature, while advertising posters, free-word panels, fashion sketches, theatrical sets, sassintesi, enigmatic compositions of sculpted rocks by the force of the sea, catalogs of period exhibitions and futurist books enrich the itinerary.

“Aeropainting does not mean representing the landscape from above, but it is the sensation that the pilot experiences when performing very daring maneuvers” continues Anna Bartolozzi Crali. The aeropainting of the early period and that of recent years are two different ways of conceiving flight. The spirit with which the artist approaches the relationship with the sky changes over the years. An initially adrenaline-filled painting is replaced by a more spiritualized aero-painting.
“Everything up there was wonderful… the wave of take-off, the overbearing voice of the engines, the surprise of the suspension at one hundred, five hundred, a thousand meters above the sea… when I found myself on the ground it was as if I had been robbed”. This is how Tullio Crali wrote about that experience that fascinated him so much. The last of the Futurists, but perhaps the most stubbornly authentic, had experienced the exhilaration of the journey between heaven and earth in 1928, when he was just eighteen, and since then he had never given up on other electrifying ventures. And then Crali had a veneration for Futurism and Marinetti.
“I never felt a similar emotion again until my wedding day” the artist said, recalling Marinetti’s response to one of his letters, in which the father of Futurism invited him to join the movement. It was 1929 and from then, until his death, the movement represented for Crali soul, energy, idea and action, a method and a mission to be completed without time limits.

Tullio Crali. A life for Futurism | Photo: © Vibia Crali

“Marinetti encouraged him – comments Anna Bartolozzi Crali -. The relationship between the two never faltered, for Tullio he was like a father. I have always heard him speak of Marinetti with words of great esteem and love. They were two hearts and one soul. Perhaps because Tullio was welcomed at a very young age and Marinetti saw in this disciple the person who could carry forward, thanks to his determination, the ideals of Futurism. Not to be confused with fascism. Tullio was a person in whom politics did not attack. Everyone bothered him, for him only art mattered.”

On display there is no shortage of paintings, drawings, still lifes and photos by other authors, colleagues of this master who, as well as on canvas, loved to put his hands between bricks and lime.
Another anecdote. “He had golden hands. He was also a bricklayer, a craftsman… I remember when he rolled up his sleeves to do a series of small bricklaying jobs on a small house he owned, even though he wasn’t that great as an electrician.”

In addition to the 1942 painting, Dancing battle of paratroopers, currently hanging in Venice in the office of the president of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia, and present in the exhibition, it is one work in particular that fascinates Anna. “When I look Squadron in flight of ’29 I feel like a fluttering in my stomach, perhaps because I glimpse Piero della Francesca” he confesses. And then the drawings in which, with a stroke of the marker, Crali managed to convey the idea of ​​something in a complete way.

Tullio Crali. A life for Futurism | Photo: © Vibia Crali

“Drawing was a field he was comfortable with. In Paris for eight years she went around with her pad of paper reproducing views and humble characters. With the drawing he managed to penetrate the spirit of the city. Tullio was interested in people. At a certain point in Paris he discovered that he was Prévert’s roommate. Once the Parisian position was over, he returned to Italy and after a few years he was called to Cairo to direct the Italian drawing school with kids from all over the Middle East and brought out the best in them with fantastic works”. Egypt had always fascinated him. “When he managed to get there it felt like he was touching the sky with his finger. He looked at the stars at night, collected stones, finally savoring the charm and mystery of that place.”

At 80, Crali managed to put on a helmet once again, set foot in a fighter jet and taxi onto a runway. “He looked like a child in front of a cake” recalls Anna.
One of the latest works, Silent forms of aeropainting, made shortly before his death, resembles a farewell. Among the soft pastel colors, Crali’s small airplane cuts the canvas horizontally. It would make one think of the farewell of the artist who slowly distances himself from life, saying goodbye to the human experience, taken up into heaven, together with his passionate art, in the embrace of the clouds.

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