During the past five months after the presidential election in Iran, the world has seen, heard and read about the situation in the country and the birth of the Green movement. Thanks to Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, sequences of peaceful demonstrators being beaten up by truncheons, fired by tear gas, and shot by fire-weapons from the roofs of official buildings have been quickly spread over the world. The green movement was therefore boosted by the new communication channels. What happened to those who were arrested and jailed was however not that evident. Although facts have been collected through a large number of witnesses who testified about the circumstances, about the tortures and about the countless number of bodies they had seen, no one has captured these painful scenes in pictures.

Green movement’s paintings, is the name of a video by Soheil Tavakoli which illustrates the post election events in Iran. A series of 25-30 digital paintings are combined together to build up the story. Tavakoli uses a minimalist style in his work where the subjects are reduced to their basic elements. Although the details in the scenes (faces, buildings, etc.) have been taken away, paintings are rich in color and content. The proportions of buildings, rooms, and figures are all well preserved. The minimalist base of Tavakoli’s work can be explained by the fact that he is an architect. Graduated from Beheshti University in 1996, he has been working in several different architecture firms inside and outside of Iran, see here. Tavakoli’s artistic expression is fresh and not calculated.

The story of the post election events contains illustrations from the street demonstrations, and beating of people by the police and military forces. The most heartbreaking illustrations are however from the prisons. For someone who has never been into a prison, it is difficult to imagine. It is difficult to imagine the prison walls, high up to the dark, it is difficult to imagine the never ending anguish screams. For someone who has never been into a prison it is difficult to imagine her own heart beat accelerate to the top each time hearing the footsteps of the guards getting closer. Such feelings are well captured by Tavakoli’s illustrations. These includes how it looks like inside the prisons, jammed in small rooms, and how they are blindfolded tortured to confession. The illustrations also include tearful rape scenes. These scenes are so realistic, so lively that you feel to be swept by an ocean of mournful waves.

Although the illustrations are well done, the manuscript is not well written and feels weak. For someone who does not know about the events, it is difficult to follow the story-line. A proper intro is missing. And the ending feels diffuse. Also some of the illustrations are repeating both in the beginning and end of the video with no real connections to each other, like the crowd of people at historical places. The sinking ship is probably a metaphoric symbol for the end of Iran’s coup government, but it is not clear how it fits right there. An unfortunate piece in the story, is the picture of Ahmadinejad (appointed president) hanged in the first page of news. Unfortunate, because the nature of the green movement in Iran is peaceful and against violence. If Tavakoli’s objective with the video was to tell the story of the movement, he should have instead pointed out the path of the peaceful, civil protests.

Tavakoli has also released the 2nd part of the video. The style has been kept the same and illustrations follow the same minimalist style as in the first video. What is different here, is that Tavakoli has tried to create a connection between the illustrations and by that to build up an story. The illustrations at least follow a logical sequence this time. The problem is that neither in this video, Tavakoli has been very successful in creating a good storyline. Moreover, the only element which connects the two videos is the artistic style of the illustrations and not the story as such.

All in all Green Movement’s Paintings is a good work from an artistic point of view. The video is accompanied by Michael Kamen’s Don Alfonso which perfectly expresses the nature of the story. Tavakoli is going to release the he 3^rd and the last video in this trilogy. To make it work, Tavakoli however should work more on the manuscript. He should also listen to the peaceful calls of the protesters in Iran and advocate justice by fair and effective prosecutions, even for those who beat, torture and kill the people of Iran. This is the only way to promote free and democratic values in a country where undemocratic rulers have been on power for centuries.

In addition to this, Associazione Culturale GoodDesign and HM Studio have together with 4tomorrow launched Poster4tomorrow, an open competition inviting the global creative community to create and submit work against repression of freedom of expression.

Poster4tomorrow is also the name of a started artistic movement with the objective to protest against injustice in the world. The movement is endorsed by Amnesty International and Reporters Sans Frontières.

You can submit your poster before November 15th at

http://www.poster4tomorrow.org/

Michael Dudok de Wit was born 1953 in Holland. He started his artistic career after graduating from West Surrey College of Art in England, first in Barcelona and later on in London. He directs and animates award-winning commercials for television and cinema. Michael also is a writer and book illustrator and a teacher of animation at art colleges in England and abroad.

Michael Dudok de Wit’s works are simple. A simplicity almost bordered to the edges of purity. This evident simplicity is not only present in his illustrative work, but also in technique and story. In addition he is extremely conscious when choosing music in his works.  A combination which creates a strong spiritual quality. His attention to using light and shadows in his illustrations is unique.

The Monk and the Fish (1994)

The story is about a monk who goes fishing. A playful fish eludes the monk uses everything to catch the fish. The film was nominated for Oscar, BAFTA film award belong others. It was made using a cel animation technique which nowadays is often assisted by computers. The illustrations were all made in the traditional way using brush, Indian ink and watercolor. The music score, based on La Follia by Corelli was created by Serge Besset.

Father and Daughter (2000)

A father bids farewell to his young daughter and leaves. As the daughter grows up, becomes a young woman, creates her own family and becomes old, her longing for father’s return never ceases. The wide Dutch landscape and its seasons, together with the life of the daughter and her never ending longing for the father creates a simple but sad story. A story which ends in a spiritual journey to the afterlife.

Father and Daughter won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, the Grand Prix at Annecy, and dozens of other major awards.

The Aroma of Tea (2006)

The story of The Aroma of Tea is very simple. A small rounded shape starts its journey by a separation. The shape travels its long way through narrow, crooked roads to an ending in the union. A purposeful and rhythmical union with a large sphere of white light. Dudok de Wit uses tea and a brush to create this film. Some of the elements in the illustrations look like oriental calligraphy where smooth brush movements create a hidden message.

In an interview in The Master of Cinemas, the interviewer asks if the young animators will loose the skills of traditional animation as the use of computer animation is increasing. Michael Dudok de Wit replies:

“No, I don’t think so. There will always be those who pick up a pencil or a brush, I’m sure and there will always be an audience because it’s too beautiful and too rich to forget. I draw a parallel with music, where electronic and digital instruments and tools have created endless possibilities, yet acoustic instruments have not lost their popularity. And a blend between the two can also be very beautiful. It’s just the same with animation. Hand drawn animation will remain loved and will continue to evolve, while computer animation will generate fantastic new stuff.”

So yesterday morning, me and my movie maniac friend Joyce, started our one day trip to Venice from Modena. After 2.5 hours of drive and 15 minutes train, we reached Venice where we found out that we still had a long way to go to the Biennale. The first movie was supposed to start at 3 p.m and we were running out of time. I really didn’t want to miss any of the movies we were supposed to watch. After a while of running around and asking for directions, we found out that we had to take boat number 51 to get to the island where the film festival was. As we were standing in the line to catch the boat, I saw right behind us a man wearing a red T-shirt and a Cinema badge around this neck. “He should know all about the festival. He should know how long this boat trip would take and he should also know how far away from the quay, cinema La Grande where we were supposed to watch the 1st movie, was located”, I told myself. When I started my questions, I didn’t even imagine that this would turn out to become the most interesting meeting of the day!

Eloi Bela Ndzana, our film director saviour from Cameroon

The man I just had started to ask direction about was, Eloi Bela Ndzana whose 4 documentaries had won the special prize of the City of Venice this year! Eloi graduated from the film school in Cameroon in 1997. Since then he has been actively working with the state own television of Cameroon, had several projects with the French cultural center and at the same time also has worked as a teacher at the same school as he graduated from.

During the 35 minutes boat trip to the Biennale, Eloi talked warmly and openly about his films. Une école pour les Baka, was about the Baka people, an ethnic minority living in the area between Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and Central African Republic. Baka:s who are among the oldest inhabitants of this region, have been able to keep their semi-nomadic lifestyle for thousands of years. As their forests disappear in exploration, animals and plants which Baka rely vanish as well. The documentary is about a school project for teaching the Baka:s on how to handle the world outside of their forest, its threats and opportunities it might bring. Ma journée d’école, is the name of Eloi’s 2nd documentary in the festival. It is about 3 families representing each one class of the society: high, middle and low. In particular the documentary is about the children and their dreams for the future. Although they have similar dreams (to become high educated engineers, doctors, etc.), they do not have the same conditions and tools to make their dreams happen. The movie is about the dark reality that many children in the world’s poorest economies are facing.

As Eloi kept on talking about his other two short documentaries, I couldn’t stop thinking about how many dreams, how many wishes, how many talents, how many genius minds go lost because of poverty, because of corruption, because of mismanaged political, social and economical systems. How many wars in the world will start because of these unfair living conditions, and how many more children with same dreams will end up in the front lines to stab, to shoot, to bomb, to kill other children at the other side of the front… I walked up from my dreams when the boat hit the quay where we had to get off. We had less than 12 minutes from the start of the movie, and we still had one bus to catch! Eloi followed us to the bus stop, and then run us through a short cut to the festival area to “Sala Grande” and waved us off at the entrance.

Sitting inside that huge cinema and while still hearing my lungs working, Prove per una tragedia siciliana by John Turturro started. The story was about the importance of Death in the Sicilian culture. The content of the story was not far away from what I was thinking on for only a few minutes ago, during that boat trip from Venice.

There are hundreds of thousands examples of how art has been used by rulers, by politicians, by tyrants and by dictators to manipulate the message they want to convey! In this blog some of these examples will be given.

Napoleon and the Empire Style

A classical dictator always underestimates the power of its people. Surprised over a natural resurrection of the people and driven by fear of loosing its power, the dictator then turn over a night to a blood thirsty tyrant. Napoleon was the one who put France once again back on the map of the world powers after a violent revolution. Although he had a great thirst for power, he was not a classical dictator. He was a sharp, intelligent politician and above all strategist who planned his moves all in the smallest details and was always 10 steps ahead of everyone else including his enemies.

Napoleon was probably the first head of state who systematically instrumentalized propaganda as a tool to carry on his politics. He mobilized intellectuals and scientists and established reforms in higher education system, in political departments, institutes, tax and banking systems. He also published his own bulletins in which he described in triumph his victories.

When Napoleon returned from his Egyptian campaign in 1798 he launched a program of intense scientific research which became known as Egyptology. The Egyptian campaign also very much influenced the world of fashion and art in general with motifs such as winged lions, sphinxes, lotus blossoms and scarabs. His propaganda machine seemed to work both inside France and outside in Europe. Soon spread Egyptian motifs all over Europe. After the successful Egyptian campaign, Napoleon repeated this strategy a number of times.  In the world of art, he mobilized an army of artist to establish the Empire style. The Empire style which was inspired by the glorious ancient Greek and Roman empires, included animal and fantastical figures, such as lions and symbolic references to Napoleon’s reign. The Empire style was established as the same time as Napoleon crowned himself the Emperor of France. The style continued in fashion until c. 1830. A various form of the Empire style was adopted in England, the United States and Germany.

Empire Style: Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Mussolini and the Roman Style

Napoleon’s successful propaganda strategy became the rule of thumb and was used by many leaders. Dictators as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and many others used this in their political agenda.

Foro Italico in Rome

After World War I, Europe was left in a chaos of economical and political clashes. In Italy in 1922, Mussolini was appointed prime minister. Many Italians saw him as a strong leader and the only one who could bring back the order to the country.

Mussolini launched several campaigns in parallel for persuading the public in supporting the Fascist party’s program. In one of the most successful campaigns he promoted the cult of sport meaning that a fit country was a strong country.

Foro Italico, a magnificent sport center was built in 1930s in Rome. The complex with its splendid sculptures and mosaic decorations was supposed to promote the fascist cult of athleticism.

As the same time as Mussolini promoted athleticism, the style in which this message was conveyed was the Roman style. The Roman style was of course referring to the glorious imperial age of Rome and was meant to elevate the legitimacy of Mussolini’s Fascist regime. This was exactly the same strategy that Napoleon had founded for more than a century before!

Gino Boccasile - Fascist propaganda posters

As the alliance between Italy and the Nazi Germany became more and more important for the Fascist regime, Mussolini called the artists to stir the public opinion by hateful and racist designs. Gino Boccasile who supported this idea designed and produced material with racist and anti-semitic content. The leftmost poster here, shows a Nazi soldier reaching out a helpful hand and is texted by “Germany is truly your friend“, while the right one illustrates an Afro-American soldier in a gorilla-like posture,  seizing a Venus statue for 2$. The idea was to show that Americans were uneducated and had no appreciation of history or cultural values.

Hitler, Classicism and Degerating Art

Before Adolf Hitler started his career in the army and later in politics, he tried to earn a living by producing art. Hitler was an accomplished artist in many ways, but was rejected when he two times tried to attend to Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

When Hitler joined the army during the World War I, he continued to paint in his spare time and contributed drawings to the military newspaper. After the war, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment during which he wrote Mein Kampf. The book was meant to be a self-biography. It became rather an exposition of his ideology and most of all a handbook in propaganda. For building up a powerful ideological weapon, Hitler utilized the propaganda well. His strategy was similar to Napoleon’s but it was more advanced. One of the key communication channels he used to reach his audience was the art.

Sculptures by Arno Breker

Hitler understood the importance of symbolism very well. The theme of Mother Earth was as an example used as a symbol for eternal values of classicism and traditions. It was a symbol of heroism and purity. It communicated the “German Spirit”. Another example of a symbol which communicated the same message, was youth.

Arno Breker was probably the most talented of the Nazi artists. He had an excellent technique and was nominated as official state sculptor. Breker made a series of naked warriors by which health, strength, competition, collective action and willingness to sacrifice the self for the common good was glorified.

The swastika sign was another example of symbolism which Nazis used as propaganda. It was Hitler’s idea to turn the sign to Nazi Germany’s brand identity, which it successfully did.

In Mein Kampf he stated: “As National Socialists, we see our program in our flag. In red, we see the social idea of the movement; in white, the nationalistic idea; in the swastika, the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work.” The swastika emblem became the symbol of Nazi Germany and was distributed in Europe and the rest of the world widely.

Nazi's swastika flag

Hitler rejected modern art definitely and called it “degenerating.” In Mein Kampf he further discusses the modern art:“As little as one could imagine about sixty years ago a political collapse of the greatness now arrived at, just as little was a cultural breakdown thinkable as it began to show itself in futuristic and cubistic representations since 1900.  Sixty years ago an exhibition of so-called dadaistic ‘experiences’ would have seemed simply impossible, and the sponsors would have been sent to the madhouse, while today they even preside in ‘artists’ unions.”

The concept of degeneracy was embed in Nazi policy in 1937. Adolf Ziegler (head of  Reichskammer der Bildenden Künste) ordered to confiscate any art deemed modern from museums and art collections. During several exhibitions, these works were exhibited to the public. The intention was not to show the spirit of the modern art, but rather to show how the “Jewish spirit” tried to penetrate the German culture and the pre-defined values by the Nazis!!

While artists like Klee, Beckmann, and Kollwitz were concerned to be degenerating, other pro-Nazi artists and sculptors such as Breker, Thorak and Kolbe were promoted.

Stalin, Social Realism and Avant-grade Art

The Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian Imperial regime in 1917. Their leader, Lenin believed that art under the new socialist regime “would serve the millions and tens of millions of laboring people…” rather than the elite. Communist leaders supported the use of modern and avant-grade art styles at the beginning of the revolution. Artists like Filonov, Malevich and Kandinsky were first tolerated but were banned in 1930s. The Stalinist regime turned against abstract art and called it for “bourgeois art”. Art should according to their ideology only express social realities. Many of their works were confiscated.

Malevich (left) and Kandinsky (right): Avant-grade art in USSR

In 1932, Stalin promulgated the “Art and Literary Organizations’ reconstruction” decree during which social realism became state policy. Abstraction was officially sanctioned in 1934. Gerasimov, Brodskii and Mukhina were some of the artists who followed the official direction. The oil on canvas down to the left was done by Gerasimov and shows Stalin and Voroshilov at the Kremlin. To the right, you can see the monumental sculpture of a worker and a farm girl by Mukhina.

Artists who strayed from the official line, either had to leave the country (such as Kandinsky), isolated themselves from public (as Filonov and Malevich) or were sent to the Gulag labour camps in Siberia (such as Nikolai Getman).

Next part

Although the great dictators of the 20th century all tried to direct the way artists wished to express themselves, and although they tried to use the outcome of the artists’ works as propaganda, they really didn’t succeed. They didn’t succeed to cleanse out their nations from “unwanted individuals”, from the “bourgeois”, from the degenerating factors. After World War II, the modern art flourished enormously and broke through in new forms and ways to express itself. After World War II, contemporary art became the winner of the game, and classicism was almost declared to be dead!

The next and the last blog on art and dictatorship will be about what has happend after the World War II, and how the post-war dictators tried to use art in their propaganda machinery.

The film starts with a short sequence of Tehran, the 15 million crowded capital of Iran. It is 7 in the morning. Although, the heavy traffic of Tehran has been woken since a couple of hours back, the peak has not really reached yet. Not until now! It is 7 in the morning, it is when many schools start in Iran. It is when trains, taxis, school buses, private cars, and motorbikes are all fully engaged. It is when everybody and every single vehicle in the town gets mobilized for one single mission: to transport the hundreds of thousands of the school children to their schools, to their classes, to their desks.

The story is simple. It is about how a typical day starts in a typical primary school with a typical morning ceremony. Girls are lined up in 5 lines. Their uniform consists of a white scarf and a purple long arm pinafore worn over a pair of trousers of the same color. They are playful as any other children at their age. Little Azin who probably is 7-8, plays with her scarf. She looks to be lost in her thoughts when she is being told by a female voice in the school’s loudspeaker to put her scarf back. As the school girls’ playful and lively games go on, the voice in the loudspeaker calls them to be quite and to listen.

It continues: “Once in a month we will visit your classes. During these visits we will give you a disciplinary grade!” The voice keeps on going with instructions:

• Do not bother each other
• Do not run in the school yard
• Do not through garbage
• …

The film director makes a clear statement here. This is a school, a place to learn. This is not a place to play! It is not a place to explore. It is not a place for refining the imagination, the curiosity. It is a place for listening carefully. It is the place to follow the instructions. It is a place to learn by being told how to learn and what to learn.

As the same time as the instructions are being given, half awake children are knitting their eyes, while the others still playing with their scarfs. The voice in the loudspeaker is keep talking: “Those who follow the rules will be rewarded. They might become mobsers!” Mobser is a class monitor in Persian…

As the disciplinary rules and the clear articulation of the consequences goes on, I can’t stop thinking about their future, on the way they will behave in the future society they will live in, on their future relationships, on their future children. I can’t stop thinking whether the instructions are meant to stimulate their inner control mechanism or to control and manipulate them, and their lives? To adjust their actions, their deeds to certain pre-specified conditions…

Next scene shows exercising children, waving with their arms and hands. Full of joy, full of happiness, full of energy and full of life! They scream all together: HURRAH . In contrast to the purple colored lively children, the scene switches to the daily traffic of Tehran again. But this time the focus is on the adults. In contrary to the school children, men and women are all in black, the color of sorrow, the color of death. In the radio a woman is pledging for happiness: “Pay attention to this philosopher’s saying: Never forget to smile, cause anyone can fall in love with it…”. The camera catches 3 short sequences where passengers in the cars are holding their heads in their hands with their elbow supporting on the car doors. In a number of cultures, this is a symbol of sadness. There is strong irony in the sequences of scenes: colors, happiness, rules, childhood and adulthood, black, sadness…

Red traffic lights follow by the voice in the school yard’s loudspeaker: “Don’t eat in front of the other children who fast. If you want to eat, do it in a way that nobody else sees it…”. Children are eating everywhere…

Last scene starts with the sound of running children between cars. At the same time the other children in the school yard start going into their classes. Doors to the school are all shut now. Two children are late to the school. They are behind the doors and are begging to come inside. I hear the owner of the voice in the loudspeaker talking to them. She refuses to let the late the late children in. A long sequence of begging continues.

At the end she lets them come in. They are punished for being late in the traffic, for not being accurate enough. They are punished for not following the rules. They are punished and have to stand close to the wall with one foot up each. I am not an expert in psychology, but I believe that punishment simply teaches children that if they break the rules they will suffer negative consequences. It does not teach children to be responsible or to take into account the thoughts, needs or experiences of others. This last sequence is a painful sequence to watch. It is a sequence when you can hear how the two children’s self-esteem and self-respect breaks down into small pieces and fragments which probably will take years to put together again.

The Morning Ceremony, captures a lot about Iran and country’s schools in a nutshell. The movie is also about a change everybody has gone through it: from the childhood to adulthood.

Forugh Farrokhzad, Iran’s most significant female poet of the twentieth century wrote this beutiful poem which I would like to share with you here.

Age Seven (By Forugh Farrokhzad, translated by Leila Farjami, full poem here)

Ay, age seven
Ay, the magnanimous moment of departure
Whatever happened after you,
happened in a mesh of insanity and ignorance…

After you, where our playground was beneath the desk
we graduated from beneath the desks
to behind the desks
and from behind the desks
to top of the desks
and we played on top of the desks
and lost
we lost your color
Aah, age seven.

After you,
we betrayed each other
after you,
we cleansed your memories
by lead particles and splattered blood-drops
off of the plastered temples of alley walls.

Art has been used by dictators, tyrants and rulers as a political tool to communicate the message of the leaders to the public. But most predominantly, art has also been used against the dictatorship: as a tool to communicate “the” hidden message to its public.

In the following posts, I would like to discuss about the relationship between art and dictatorship. For now enjoy Chaplin’s monologue in The Great Dictator from 1940!

I have met people who are constantly in search for inspiration. Inspiration somewhere else. Somewhere else they live, somewhere else they work and somewhere else they create. I have met authors who have travelled to distanced destinations to shut off themselves from the outside world, to write in silence and harmony. I have met artists and painters driving miles after miles to “that perfect place” to find aspiration to paint. And I have met musicians making pilgrimages to the Meccas of music where some of the great musicians once upon a time lived, worked and died. Is there an ideal place to be when creating? In which conditions our endless highways of senses, our thousands receptors for perception and our millions gray and white brain cells of imagination agree to work together and create?

This is the first article out of three about the creation process. And this one is about looking for inspiration in the astonishing Tuscany.

Walking in the footsteps of Dante in Tuscany

Why Tuscany? Isn’t Tuscany the place where a vast number of artists, writers, and musicians visit to be inspired? Isn’t Tuscany where they want to walk in the footsteps of Dante, Botticelli, Michelangelo or Raffaello? Isn’t the name of Tuscany equal to heavenly sceneries, equal to the dark red of the wine fields and equal to the glossy green of the olive trees? Tuscany is the place where the soul unifies with the joy of existing and therefore a natural choice for finding out about inspiration.

Gianpiero Togni

I was in Tuscany for the first time in my life for almost three years ago. Out of a sudden we ended up at an agroturisomo called Le Muricce in Greve di Chianti, the center of the Chianti Classico wine district. At the door, a medium tall middle aged man with a non-ending smile appeared. “Sono Gianpiero”, he said when presenting himself. Gianpiero had been driving Le Muricce together with Elio for the past 17 years. Le Muricce was a 4 hectares wine and olive oil farm at the top of a hill on a road lined with tall, bending cypresses on the way to Lamole. The interior of the farmhouse was tastefully decorated with antique furniture and flowers, lots of flowers. But the most interesting was hundreds of paintings which decorated the walls. All the paintings were signed by GPT, Gianpiero Togni.

As tourism industry is one of the key drivers of the economy in Italy, thousands of businesses are dependent on it. Artists, therefore tend to adapt themselves to the market needs, i.e. what the tourism industry is asking for. As an example, in Tuscany, a vast number of painters paint scenes of the colorful Tuscan landscape and make a business out of it. In case of Gianpiero things were different.  None of the paintings which I found on the walls of that beautiful farmhouse was illustrating the Tuscan landscape, nor wine fields, nor olive trees! All of them had a personal artistic touch for how Gianpiero moved the brush and created. But also they were carrying a hidden code. A hidden code that was difficult to crack.

This time, when for the third time, we were going to Tuscany, I decided to interview Gianpiero on his art. I was keen about the mystery behind his paintings. And I was keen about why he hadn’t followed the route of all the other artists in the area. All my questions were interpreted by my personal translator, Kristina :-\

Gianpiero passionately talking about his art

We met Gianpiero in a separate part of the farmhouse, where he lives and has his studio. The walls were all painted with a warm red colour, and were full with paintings. He started to talk about his hobbies in general. He told us that he had been playing piano, biking and running marathon for many years. He showed us some of his medals from Berlin’s and Rome’s marathon races. He started to paint as a child. But his interest for art blossomed when his friends were attending to the art programme at Instituto Europeo di Design. He joined them in their classes in sketching and painting. Since then Gianpiero had been always painting.

I asked where he had learned the techniques from. “I have always loved to experiment”, he replied. In his paintings he uses oil, he uses pastel, he uses watercolour, silver, gold, and he uses spatula! Through them he creates amazing combinations with motives brought out from his imaginations, the stories he has heard or read about. Like in the painting below. He uses oil on glass. The painting shows a complex architecture of arcades, built on top of one another in all different directions. Already in this stage my engineering logic asks me how this could possibly be doable. On top of the building a man is lying down with his face covered by his arm. Another man is watching him and a dog is standing still, like it is waiting for something to happen. I wonder why the man is covering his face, why the other one is watching him and how all of them three have ended up there! How are they going to get down to the safety? I am not so sure what message Gianpiero wants to convey. But certainly the painting raised a lots of questions in my head…

Oil on glass

We kept on talking, and I asked him more about his motives. “I don’t like to paint trees, or flowers… dead nature”, he said.  And it was true. I had a hard time to find a scene of nature in his works. The only painting which I found was the one below. And although it was illustrating the nature, it was a scene full of anger, full of movement and full of life. The scene is a bloody battle between the contrastful colours. The heavy dark blue clouds are telling a story about a stormy evening. The sea has turned up and down to white foam in a way which makes you feel sea-sick. And the yellow-red coastline with its thousands of furrows tells you how it has been treated during all the years. All the elements are in a fight. A battle is going on, and using spatula creates a 3-dimensional feeling. Makes it even more dramatic. This painting is full of life… 

Spatula and oil

Gianpiero showed us his other works: a serie of paintings where Alexander the great was a key figure, marathon race in Rome and Berlin, horse riding men and more… Our conversation came to its end when Elio asked us to join for lunch. Homemade “Pappardelle ai porcini” and a fantastic Tuscan meat stue.

Homemade pasta by Elio

Gianpiero’s inspiration

It was clear that source of Gianpiero’s inspiration was the course of different events in his life. What he had been read heard or exposed to started a lots of brainwork in his head: dreams, imaginations and fantasies. These events come to emotions which travelled throughout his mind and body and created. And during this creation process, Gianpiero produced a series of 20-30 paintings and drawings in a row, all inspired from the same motive.

Let’s come back to this subject in the next couple of weeks. First I have to do my homework!

Already as a small kid, my father taught me to clean up my plate, always. And I had to clean it up, no matter how full my stomach was. He said, “Many people have put their souls in the food you’ve just eaten. Put their souls in to your plate of rice, in to the yolk of your omelette, and in to the sweet red tomatoes in your salad. Many people have worked hard, including your mother and I, to bring this plate on this table. And many people, in our city, in our country, and in our world are right now starving to death because they have nothing to eat. Many children at your age, girls and boys. They are dying everyday because all the social, economical and political problems. They are dying everyday because earth’s natural resources are shrinking, because population is increasing and because people like us over-consume. Keep this in mind as the words of your old man whenever you leave food on your plate.” So I finished my food and cleaned up my plate, always. Even though I didn’t understand all he was talking about, natural resources, increasing population, over-consumption …

I took the two bags with all the leftovers and went out from my flat. Walking down the stairs, I still heard his voice echoing in my head. “There was not much to do”, I told myself. I was going to travel in a couple of days, and there was no way I could keep all the food. I had already left some in my fridge. I came out from the building, and took a left to walk to the dumpster down my street. Although it was spring, it was quite chilly outside. After a couple of steps I suddenly saw a shade. In the dark, close to the dumpster, there was something lying on the street close to the pier. I took a couple of more steps. And there he was, lying down on a dirty piece of cardboardbox, rolled in his sleeping bag. I felt being hit by a wave of oceans. This was not the first time I had seen a homeless man. But this was the first time I felt how the contrast between my world and his was so enormously sharp, so enormously deep.

Modena’s old town

Modena was founded sometimes in the 3rd century BC. A middle size town in the northern part of Italy. A city where some of world’s most famous cars such as Ferrari, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati are headquartered. Modena is also famous for its old university, its adventurous tenor Luciano Pavarotti and its delicious balsamic vinegar, aceto. The city together with Parma, Reggio and Bologna, constitutes Italy’s heart for commercial food production. It is therefore no wonder why Modena is a wealthy town full of expensive shops, sport cars and fur wearing ladies and expensive jewelry. The old town is hosting many beautiful arcades, churches and buildings. Residence and governmental buildings often with impressive architecture. Impressive architecture with often even more impressive doors with amazing door handles. Designed centuries ago, they are still in a great shape and functionality.

A roof

That night, after giving away the rest of the food in my fridge to the homeless man, I thought why he had ended up there. Was he unemployed? Was he immigrant? Was he drug abuser, alcoholic? Had he lost his child or wife, went mad and ended up on the streets? No matter what the real reasons behind are, the fact is that people are living out there. Out in the park cross the street, out at the train station a few blocks away and out close to the dumpster down in the street, under the small drops of the annoying non-stop spring-rain. They suffer from hunger, they suffer from diseases and they suffer from being subjected to violence.

There was a time in my life when I was sold to the idea of revolutions. A time when I strongly believed that it was only a revolution which could bring positive changes to a country and its people. Which could bring justice and equity. A time when revolution was THE answer to ALL the unsolvable questions for the mankind. I gave up all my beliefs when I realized that changes could only be sustainable if the roots of changes were well established in to people’s heads. I also realized that the establishment of these roots could only be achieved if the nature of changes was incremental, and not drastic, revolutionary.

Maniglie di Modena…

…is the name of a photo collection on Modena’s door handles, which I have done. The collection containts 50 pictures. All the photos are now being put together to a poster, which I intend to sell for around 50€. Out of this 30€ is print cost, and the rest goes directly to one of the organisations working for Modena’s homeless. Let me know if you would be interested.