Why a trumpet?

 I was sitting in the audience at the theatre, the play was about to begin, when from the wings a trumpet player walked out, stopped at center stage, and played a few notes. That was the signal. I told myself: I want to do that too. Luck had it that right in front of the theatre there was a music school — but by then it was evening… The next day I enrolled immediately. I never again found a classroom like that one: I could walk in and out as I pleased, and everyone else could too. No one ever disturbed the music — it was all fun and joy. Jimi Hendrix was a guide for me: the guitar gives back exactly what you put into it, and like a good kid I dedicated one hour of my days to my trumpet. The sound of the trumpet is penetrating, wide, and enveloping, so on my mother’s advice I asked for a place where I could play my three little valves. My teacher at the school, seeing me worried because everything hurt, kept telling me not to worry: “The trumpet is played with your lips and your diaphragm.” He encouraged me to stay in tune, and so I did (even though at the time I wanted to smash the thing).

**I started thinking about travelling, leafing through photography books, knowing I wasn’t the only one doing so. Around that time, in the town where I lived, there was a huge snowfall, and the rehearsal room was about two kilometers from my house. Thinking of the ordeal, I armed myself with a shovel and, passing through the town square, I went to play after carving out a small path to get inside.

The art world is full of drugs because that’s how it is — Morrison called them doors. They’re certainly not necessary, and certainly best avoided. But what’s the result while you’re alive? A crisis, a dysfunction of the body, including the mind. I believe it’s not an issue for art curators, but for healthcare — for harm reduction, for doctors, hospitals, and friends.

Life is wonderful.**

Where breath becomes light and the trumpet tells what words cannot say.

 Andy Warhol’s exhibition grounded me; before that, everything felt unreal to me, almost illogical — in its consumption as much as in its perspectives. It’s astonishing how one of his bean cans or the silkscreen of Liza Minnelli transported me into a sensitive, tangible present. My idea of Pop Art is the raster image, the pixel, a single pixel.

Andy million pips

  Andy Warhol’s artworks are truly remarkable — each one similar to the others, yet different in its own content. I liked them so much that I even pulled a measuring tape out of my backpack to measure one, and wow, what pop art. The dimensions are pretty much the same across all his screen prints. Someone so distant managed to give me such joy. Well done, Andy Warhol.

I didn’t really think it would happen; in the last room they displayed the most beautiful pieces possible.

Andy Warhol show in Ferrara

 

I couldn’t wait for this: an Andy Warhol exhibition has opened in Ferrara, and I’m definitely going. Life is surprising, because I’ve spent so many hours online looking at his artworks, watching interviews on YouTube, reading his biography — and now his works are being shown just a short distance from my home. Life is surprising; people do amazing things.

ANDY WARHOL - Mostra a Palazzo dei Diamanti | Ferrara Arte

Mattia Moreni

Visiting museums and a few art galleries, I’ve realized something.  

Yesterday I went to see an exhibition by the artist Mattia Moreni. I joined the guided tour, and the guide enlightened me by explaining that the artist essentially moved from a material, tactile form of art—where the colors seemed to emerge physically from the work—to a flat art, aligned with the surface of the canvas.  

The constructions from this later period partly depicted communicating cyborg-like figures, created around the same time as early Windows programs such as Photoshop, and so on.  

In this section, you can also notice the disappearance of the “deprived beings” that appeared in his material works.  

And then the artist’s shoes… present from the very beginning, until they finally appear as real objects in a display case right before you exit!

To sail in the ocean

  Sure, the sky in Northern Europe isn’t as sunny as in the Mediterranean, especially in the in‑between seasons like spring and autumn. But if I’m in those places with a sailboat, I have everything to gain in terms of wind: it stays steady in both direction and strength throughout the day, and under a high‑pressure system the night is calm. Yes, the currents are strong, and sometimes—even with all the sails up—you find yourself stuck at zero knots. But there are the tide tables, and after all there’s the change of direction that pushes the boat beyond what its sails can do.

The night in the Channel

 The world has only one sky lit by the stars; for the Mediterranean seagull, the light is endless, because the sea reflects the starry sky all around his own sailboat. The mainsail lights up white, and the crosswind, swelling it, turns it into the shape of the moon. The moon is often disappointing, because it shows itself full only for a few days. In the Channel the night lasts little, and it always marvels at how fast time passes; the night, with relief, is short, and the seagull touches the sky with a finger. The North Star, at high latitudes, is so close to the horizon that if I rested my chin on that fair‑weather window, it would fall into my hair. And here is Piero the surly one, gripping the helm in his sea and thanking the moon, which red announces the arrival of the Sun. He warms everything, the tiredness of sleep disappears, and tomorrow returns.