Who is the artist. The opinion of Fabio Castelli

"Art is research, those who do not research are not artist." Anonymous

At the opening for the press of the MIA Photo Fair I immediately wanted to hear the opinion of the Director Fabio Castelli on a topic which I believe is of interest to all the readers of "ORPHO".

Soon, I will return to talk of the authors who participated at the most important Italian photographic fair held in Milano between March 10th to 13th, 2017.

Fabio Castelli, Creator and Artistic Director of the MIA Photo Fair.

Tony Graffio: Director, I would like to ask you a single question, but very difficult. What does distinguish a photographer from an artist?

Fabio Castelli: Well, this is one of the fundamental themes of this dichotomy between the world of art and the world of photography. Many artists are offended when they are called photographers and many photographers feel offended when they are called artists.

TG: Really?

FC: Absolutely. I give you an example. If a war photographer is called artist this is like questioning his ability to describe reality. Actually, maybe he was able to show reality at the risk of his own life, so it is understandable his aversion to the idea of ​​being called artist. More and more classic photographers, maybe a little old fashioned, do not want to accept photography as a contemporary art language. It's easy to recognize them because they are people who are very attached to the mediums by which they have lived since they were very young. For them it is very difficult to change this approach, but it is clear that over the years also photography will be recognized by everybody as a language of the contemporary art.

TG: The problem for a photographer is always to be recognized as an artist ...

FC: This is a problem that affects all the arts: the painter, the sculptor, who makes performances or who draws collides against this difficulty. Regardless of how we express ourselves, it is difficult to be recognized as artists. Probably, time is the only major means able to show whether an author is an artist, in any way he expresses himself.

TG: Thank you very much.

The self-portrait as a young artist of Armando Marrocco

Armando Marrocco, 76 y.o. Artist

The artist's vision is always something important, something that stands out from the common way of seeing. Many photographers and aspiring artists today are looking for how to realize the world's largest photography, the largest camera in the world, the largest ambrotype, or cyanotype and, therefore, the larger contact print, in short, everyone is trying, in some way to emerge.

When you can not be recognized as the best in the world, or the greatest expert, or the best artist, photographer, printer, or what you want, we resort to some "big" action that affects the public, or at least those used to browse regularly the Guinness World Records Almanac to see if they may be able to find themselves on it, or not.

Fortunately, a large photograph doesn't make a great photographer, as even a great work doesn't produce a great artist.

The artist is the one who has a history, who knows the languages to express his ideas and has something to share with the people, through his skill in a practical or technical field.

He is capable of arousing the true feelings and to interest the public into what he has to say.

Armando Marrocco is a complete artist who has competence in various fields of art ranging from sculpture to the act of performing body art. When I told him that I am a photography enthusiast, I saw his eyes light up and I saw him quickly get out by his office and returning in a couple of minutes with a seemingly blank canvas under his arm.

"Photographers are no longer used to do experimentation and they do not fully exploit the medium they use. Look what I did 40 years ago!"

This phrase has intrigued me, evidently he was sure he could make a strong impression on me. After a first look at his self-portrait, I found only a small writing at the bottom of the picture that seemed to be the title of the work: "Self-Portrait".

There and then, I think maybe the author felt in some existential crisis, when he was creating such a framework, or maybe he wanted to express a kind of emptiness, I do not know, I look at the picture, but frankly I do not find much that's great.

Self-portrait

It's Armando who directs my gaze toward the center of the canvas and helps me to locate a darkest point, I'm going to guess something when Armando Marrocco hands me a magnifying glass, and I see a face with a mustache which I imagine could be his face 40 years before.

I am faced with a "fresh" and genuine self-portrait that actually surprised me and put me in a good mood because it made me understand what it means to search, to try, making mistakes and to be able to realize an idea with the language of photography.

At the same time, this gave me the opportunity to learn more about an artist, thanks to the fact of having been able to see him through his own eyes, as he saw himself. Tony Graffio

The little face with a mustache on the canvas

As Armando Marrocco describes his self-portrait

"I have done this on a canvas pre-emulsified; I wanted to realize my self-portrait, but I had to throw out several of these paintings because I used to expose my face within the texture of the canvas and then you could not tell who was who, or not it was this character, because the image was deformed.

You know well that to achieve this photograph is not easy. You must shield very well the enlarger to evoid blades of stray light. I had several scraps, then slowly, slowly I was able to get the result that I set myself.

In addition to the maximum extension of the bellows of the enlarger, I had to resort to the use of many extension rings to make result the image of the size of a dot.

I asked for the maximum that I could have to the photographic medium."

Size of the negative used for printing: 24X36 mm

Canvas Size: 80X80 cm, year of production: 1974/1975, present value: 15,000 euro.

This self-portrait has been realized also on larger canvas.

The same photograph of the self-portrait took from the cover of the Calendar Marrocco, a book of artist, he published in 1975, with texts by Toti Carpentieri and presentation of Pierre Restany

To read the same story in italian language