Emilio Isgrò

The word rediscovered

Everything possible has been erased, perhaps,

but having transformed Erasure

into a back construction “brick”,

there is nothing left to do but build.

Emilio Isgrò

To meet Emilio Isgrò is to engage with one of the central and most vital figures of Italian and international art, and at the same time with a man of profound culture. His long trajectory, built around the gesture of “Cancellatura” (Erasure), represents one of the most lucid and sustained reflections on the value of memory and the resistance of verbal thought in the contemporary world.

In this conversation, conducted with the awareness of speaking to a prominent figure in the cultural landscape spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Isgrò generously, lightheartedly, and sharply transforms his artistic device into a lens through which to investigate memory and oblivion – the core of this issue of ADH. Erasure reveals itself as an act of protecting words, subtracting them from the hyper-visibility of an era that shows too much and looks too little, in order to rediscover, through subtraction, the deeper sense of remembrance. Isgrò invites us to reflect on the artist’s role as a figure constantly "provoked" by the world, capable of opposing a prophetic vision, grounded in the depth of tradition, the role of courage, and the strength of experience, to the statistical metrics of artificial intelligence.

The dialogue weaves between references to Mediterranean roots and the challenge of passing on to new generations the value of a patient inquiry that seeks to read the value of history and time. At a historical moment in which culture appears increasingly fragmented, Isgrò’s reflections confirm that art can bear the responsibility of instilling courage in an entire society. It is an invitation to rediscover the word and its meaning as a necessary foundation for keeping alive the very possibility of thought against the risk of oblivion.

MF

We could begin with a question that is seemingly simple, yet decisive regarding your multi-decade body of work, a conceptual milestone of Italian art -often underrated- and international art which, from its origins, reflects on the theme of memory and the oblivion of words.

What is the origin of this primary gesture of yours, Erasure?

EI

Erasure, like our mind, was born to remember, not to forget. So much so that I have always believed that Cancel Culture¹ needed to forget: the genocide of the redskins², the injustices done to Sacco and Vanzetti³, for instance, all those crimes that are sometimes committed, as claimed by that Frenchwoman – Madame Roland⁴ –, “in the name of liberty.”

MF

Erasure as programmed oblivion, as a possibility to elevate the value of memory: but in what direction, and through what strategies?

EI

By asking oneself: how can we prevent all this? By hiding our treasures, which are words. Even though ours is a fiercely visual civilization, where too much is put on display and a muscular, yet sometimes hardly muscular at all, art prevails, Erasure can be the means to enter the world of visual arts with a disturbing vision, and therefore one worthy of attention.

MF

Following this line of thought, it is clear that the logic of denying visual imagination concentrates attention on the primary meaning of the forgotten terms, on the value of sense even before that of the figure.

EI

It is clear that I do not underestimate seeing. I know very well, however, that thought is eminently verbal. Michelangelo Buonarroti and Raphael Sanzio admitted this as well; so much so that Michelangelo himself, according to the famous anecdote, threw a chisel against the knee of his Moses and asked: “Why do you not speak?”⁵. You architects yourselves feel the need to speak more than I often do; sometimes I am even afraid of speaking too much.

MF

Are today’s conditions still linked to the same premises of your early works? Of those erasures that, in the early 1970s, possessed such a groundbreaking evocative power?

EI

As we were saying, we erase to remember, not to destroy. That is an obsession, certainly not ours as Europeans, because destruction is unfortunately brought upon us by our “friends”⁶. In short, today old cultures, especially European culture, are subjected to a clear assault from the East and the West; it is therefore necessary to desire the preservation of our words. A country that lives in the sea of the three monotheisms is defended by no one⁷.

There is a need to preserve verbal thought, since however well-argued Rudolf Arnheim’s⁸ hypothesis of visual thinking was, it remains clear to us that during the Renaissance, seeing and writing came back together. The painter, the sculptor, and the architect were considered intellectuals in every sense.

Today, paradoxically, the painter has returned to being just a painter, a painter of pretty objects. I think even the figure of Marcel Duchamp should be reread in a new light; one cannot read life and art itself exclusively through the key to the ready-made⁹, but the great French artist was certainly right when he abhorred a purely retinal art.

All this is happening at a time when it is practically impossible to make ugly works, because machines, algorithms, and artificial intelligence take care of making them beautiful.

Distrusting artificial intelligence is legitimate because it sometimes surpasses human imagination itself, unless there is an artist with a visionary vocation, so to speak, who somehow anticipates it. Such artists do exist; so, today the challenge is between artificial intelligence and a new vision of art.

MF

Indeed, in this era, the digital world interacts with every sector of our lives, often through artistic expressions that speak through or utilize a machine-regulated world¹⁰. How can we imagine your eminently “analog” work today in relation to this?

EI

Are you speaking of Erasure? I am not much of an expert in electronic erasures, but I have heard that it is somehow akin to the digital, according to some, even a form of therapy¹¹. I don't know in what way, but I am obviously pleased by this. Perhaps one should add that Erasure has to do with something (ed. note: higher) called prophecy, which is not foreseen by artificial intelligence because AI is eminently a statistical intelligence. It operates with what it already has, except that “what it already has,” if badly mixed, can cause havoc.

This is why I understand the Pope’s alarm¹²; the Pope is by no means a reactionary. I believe Elon Musk¹³ is far more reactionary when he proposes trips to Mars so we can better forget the world we live in: this world can be destroyed, after all, since there will be Mars. The world is on the brink of collapse. I hope we do not reach it.

To return to the idea of prophecy, there is a character in Sophocles, Tiresias¹⁴, who at a certain point says: “Alas, I knew this, but I forgot it”¹⁵. And from there prophecy begins, because a door opens toward the capacity to remember. On the other hand, if we forgot everything, we would no longer have art; we would no longer have poetry; art, as Plato put it so well¹⁶, is founded on memory. If one does not remember, one cannot make art, and perhaps one cannot even make architecture in the strict sense.

MF

A question that is also a curiosity: in Autocurriculum¹⁷, we learned about many aspects of your capacity to intertwine numerous disciplines. From theater to poetry, from literature to art, has architecture never appealed to you as an interest?

EI

I have many wonderful architect friends, just as I have many artist friends. The problem is that architects, unlike artists, I think tend to have a somewhat deferential attitude, even though architects are the only ones among art’s frequenters who actually respect art. Those who speculate on it obviously do not respect it, they must speculate, they cannot take things seriously, they must swallow back some truth they once knew. I am friends with several architects, and I have even collaborated with them. With Mario Botta, for example, I did a project for MAXXI; he liked the act of erasing, he was fascinated by my process, by this device. We were already lifelong friends when MAXXI asked me for a piece; at the time, they were trying to pair up artists and architects. I said to Mario: “We’ve been trying to do something together for a lifetime, now is the time.” And so, a work was born, accompanied by a magnificent piece of architecture¹⁸. I also work with other architects, like Laura Andreini, who places great importance on art and the artists' vision in her work.

Evidently, not all artists are equal, and it must be said that often architects try to play at being artists even when nobody asks them to. This does not mean believing in a late-twentieth-century functionalism: let the architect-artist or the designer go wild. However, we have reached the paradox where people are ashamed even to design a good faucet that is intuitively understood by everyone. These are paradoxes; I mean that our culture is afraid of what was once called tradition, as well as of the past, spoken of pejoratively, yet there are peoples that envy our past.

MF

Indeed, today "tradition" and "past" are considered minority concepts, suspended between fear of meaning and the convention of unimportance or obsolescence.

EI

From this point of view, I am at an advantage because Erasure is seen as a strongly innovative gesture; therefore, no one suspects me of wanting to return “to the bicycle”¹⁹. But indeed, people are ashamed of this, of certain inclinations that were once the humanistic strength of the West, just as today they are for China itself and in ancient cultures. Independent of any judgment on these political realities, we are speaking of cultural realities. And I would not be surprised if old cultures were one day to find themselves on the same ground to defend themselves against cultures that are as “new” as you like, but inhumane.

MF

In this case, the political question touches only marginally on the core of the discussion; shifting the focus to an era's cultural project is fundamentally more important than individual legislative contemporaries, without thereby accepting their social value.

EI

I hide words to make them stronger and to make them remembered. But why must we see too much? To strip away the desire for what we see? That is an obsession of others, constantly flexing muscles only to lose actual wars, a paradoxical outcome. I would say we must reclaim the pleasure of culture: a publisher friend of mine once said that today there is a vacuum of ambition.

MF

Very true. But is desire then one of the greatest drivers capable of pushing us forward, capable of guiding research and inspiring a world deafened by the noise of wars?

EI

Absolutely. Desire is Erasure itself: desiring what is missing. What have I lost? This is the mechanism of Erasure, which thus becomes a device for creation, not for actual erasure. The Censors take care of that, I would say that Erasure is also a therapy of preempting censorship. When I erased the Italian Constitution, I did so to prevent others from doing it. I preempted them.

MF

Another aspect we would like to understand better is the origin of your work on textual protection. To elaborate: in Autocurriculum, you mention a document found in the under-stairs storage of your childhood home, which first gave you a powerful emotional response and prompted you to write the text Uccidere il passato (Killing the Past). Can this be considered the origin? Or is it the entire typographic environment you frequented over the years as a journalist, we think of the typographic “vive”²⁰, right? What can be kept, what remains? How can we pinpoint a first moment when you envisioned a future for this critical transformation of the word?

EI

Uccidere il passato was a play I wrote when I was fourteen, no older; then what past could I possibly have had then? Look, the real issue is that artists sometimes have to imagine that life exists, because often they don't even live it, either because they live in regret – and those who dwell in regret are not my favorites – or because they postpone it too far into the future: one must find a middle ground, the Aristotelian path of common sense. You see, when people call me a provocateur, I actually get annoyed. That is because a true artist is not one who provokes, but one who feels provoked by life, by the world, that is who is skilled. If an artist merely provokes, they belong to the consumption of art, and for that reason, it seems to me a negative judgment.

MF

That is true. Beautiful and fundamental: art as a reaction to the provocation of the world.

EI

That is, if one limits oneself to provoking. This is because we are still somewhat victims of the avant-garde. We have entered the 2000s, we are already a quarter of a century in, and we still think with a twentieth-century mindset: that is the truth. So, we have a culture that needs updating, and that is why technocrats who obviously abhor humanistic cultures at certain moments seem to gain the upper hand over all this. At this juncture, artificial intelligence will serve, much like the abacus did, to speed up calculations, even though, occasionally, it can escape control, as its own frightened creators admit. That is to say, what is happening with AI is similar to what happened to nuclear physicists: when they saw the effect of the atomic bomb, they all turned into pacifists out of fear.

MF

So going back does not mean genuinely going backward, naturally?

EI

I don't know. What I mean is, I do not fear technologies, but I fear technocracies.

Also because, thinking about artificial intelligence: if you ask it for an image of God, it will give it to you one way or another, it finds a way to satisfy you. If you ask it, say: “Who is greater, Maurizio Cattelan or Leonardo da Vinci?”²¹, the answer will be: “It depends.” It never gives you a precise answer; you can say Cattelan if you think Cattelan or say Leonardo if you think Leonardo; it is always open to possibilities. It is that slyness (ed. note: of AI) that frightens me, because that slyness is human.

Yes, because the only human thing left in artificial intelligence is slyness. Because if you ask it certain questions, statistically, after a while, it understands who is asking them.

MF

Indeed, it even apologizes very politely, sometimes expresses regret, wants to understand who you are.

EI

And so privacy goes out the window²², everything does.

MF

Another topic we wanted to discuss: this is undoubtedly a very complex, if not incomprehensible, period. During the key period of your life and development, say, between the 1950s and 1970s, how much did the relationship between art and culture matter? Because, as you write, you did not merely follow; rather, you took a stance against certain things and emphasized others. And how was the relationship with your peers-peers in a broad sense, given that you knew so many writers, poets, and artists-lived? Was it experienced as a true cultural community that we might look back on with nostalgia? It is something we can miss; today, it is certainly absent.

EI

By now, the world of culture has been literally fractured and slaughtered by those who had an interest in seeing it divided. Today, it is better to live one's vocation in solitude, sharing it, if at all, with people who are somehow more like you, rather than sharing it with everyone. Recently, in an art gallery in Padua, several entrepreneurs were attending a lecture of mine. It was an important gallery, 21ART²³, which is creating a new model to connect with collectors. Excellent Venetian entrepreneurs, very skilled, driven people who are evidently not satisfied with just their business pursuits but also want to act socially and understand. I noticed that at this moment, the figure of the artist is very much welcomed; I don't mean myself, I am just one among many, because people realize that the courage of art, when present, is the courage of an entire society. If I were to erase a sacred book, for instance, a courageous entrepreneur might find the same courage to establish a new enterprise where none currently exists and provide jobs for a hundred workers. In this case, art also serves to instill courage.

MF

A beautiful wish, rooted in truth.

EI

Nevertheless, there are provocative artists, and I know some, who are actually very talented, but they are also intelligent and realize they can only provoke up to a point. An artist who provokes without being provoked is of little use. Courage is required.

MF

There is a beautiful definition in this regard in the artist's zibaldone written by Fausto Melotti in 1981, Linee²⁴, where Melotti speaks of the nature of artistic creation: “The dramatic rapture of artistic creation is similar to the state of mind of a boy who, finding himself walking at night on a deserted street, sings to give himself courage and, remembering nothing anymore, ‘invents’ a song.”

We are at incredible levels of courage, the courage of art.

EI

Look, I knew Melotti; in fact, he even gave me a small portrait of myself he had made, “with an Isgrò-style beard”²⁵. That was a different generation. When I met Melotti, I was obviously very, I wouldn't say intimidated, but respectful in his presence. How to approach him? That generation was truly unique because they would pay compliments to me, a young boy; I was very embarrassed and somewhat incredulous, thinking they were saying it just to encourage me. But perhaps it really was true. Perhaps things are no longer like that between generations.

MF

In recent times, we have also read about all the new developments taking place in Gibellina²⁶. How much does Sicily matter in all your work?

EI

Sicily matters, and it doesn't. When I came from Sicily to Milan right after the post-war period, in 1956, I arrived already knowing everything about the city. I don't know why, evidently, I had the right information, I read the newspapers, I had a passion for an intellectual adventure, and I tried to forget Sicily. Because in those years, Sicily, along with the entire South, was on trial for Italy's economic and cultural lag. Thus, for example, Elio Vittorini, whom I knew very well and who was a great cultural agitator – a true man of culture – said at a certain point that he’d had enough because there was a need to speak of a literature suited to the Northern world, which was essentially the world of Giulio Einaudi.

Southern literature, including its excellent poets, was cast aside as something lagging behind, outdated, retrograde, almost like a dirty word. Naturally, I was influenced by these views myself; not so much, however, as to prevent me from returning to Sicily willingly whenever I could, especially when I was called back to Gibellina. It was then that I discovered my Sicilian roots, because I understood that Erasure itself was merely one of the possible fruits of the Greco-Sicilian tradition. It contained Gorgias of Leontini, Empedocles, the Pre-Socratics. To my own background, and Milano taught me this, I added Socrates. For I do not care for rhetoric, not even that of the Sophists. Rhetoric can be used, but strictly for artistic reasons.

MF

Let us ask another question that still retains a connection to the Greek term “Krino”, to sift, to choose, and thus to this entire conversation. It is a fact that Cancellatura is not tied to choosing: the Cancellatura, so to speak; it unfolds horizontally beyond a possible selection of things. On the other hand, do you believe that making a choice is the ultimate role? Are we selecting what is important, or are we merely highlighting what preceded us? 

EI

Look, I was always choosing. At times, adverbs in a full text, a single adverb meant one and only one: so, were the erasures more important, or the remaining adverb? I always wanted to leave this doubt open, so that readers could choose, so that the audience could choose. The artist cannot afford to choose but must invent a language that allows others to do so. The choice always belongs to the public, to the viewers; an artist essentially works for others, though they may have the illusion of working for themselves until they realize that, for better or worse, they are working for others.

MF

One final question that matters prominently to us: what role can all this play, from your point of view, regarding the younger generations, returning also to the fiercely debated topic of artificial intelligence and this rediscovery of culture for young people? Can it serve as a rebirth, even when they are so swallowed up by a society that seems to steer them decisively in another direction? It is complex, but is there one thing, just one direction, that you perceive as possible?

EI

I do not believe we are facing the worst youth in history today, not to flatter young people, because they should also be treated as adults, with respect, while being told things as they are.

In my experience with teaching in the past, I saw that young people change their ways the moment they discover something that inspires them. On the other hand, for the past thirty years, all people talk about every day is success and money; what would you expect them to fight for a lost cause? No one loves defeat, not even the angels²⁷.

As soon as young people perceive distinct signals, they uncover the inhumanity of the world they live in; they revolt because they want, at the very least, to improve it once they understand. The role young people can play today is to reclaim the culture that matters; otherwise, they will merely be used. And let us hope they are not all sent to war, as is happening in large parts of the world, unfortunately, because we have emerged from such situations through bloodbaths. I hope it does not come to that; I hope we stop before then.

Indeed, when I read certain political commentators, who are actually quite skilled, beginning to show fear, whereas they are usually calm and measured in describing and outlining ways out, I now see that the ways out they point to are fewer in number than one might anticipate.

One should not have blind faith in youth; that is typical of an older person wanting to feel young. With young people, I act my age. They respect me, and precisely for that reason, there is no sense in giving them a little sermon, also because what truly educates young people is experience, young people must be allowed to gain experience. There is a limitation today in Italy, as in Europe – I might dare say – which is the limit placed on human experience: it is insufficiently pursued. I hope that sooner or later Germans, French, Italians, and the English will realize that individually, on their own, they will never make it and will therefore call upon the energies of the young. What sermon can you preach to a young person when they cannot find work? They graduate here and must find work elsewhere. That is the situation, but I would not be so pessimistic about young people.

MF

No, indeed, nor are we, precisely because we understand and this is something you briefly touch upon in Autocurriculum that you have always had the good fortune -and we would like to know if this remains a theme- to continue doing things for the sheer pleasure of doing them; that is, being almost entirely unconditioned by what we know the market might demand of you, even if that poses a risk of slipping into oblivion. In this issue of ADH, we will also discuss a series of architects who sometimes emerge from oblivion only today, but who in fact found themselves in this dual position: being able to follow a demand instead of continuing along their own path out of pleasure, will, and determination. I feel that students, and the younger generation among us in this era, find it harder to maintain this position, this enviable attitude instead.

EI

Precisely because they are young and do not yet have enough experience. If I were to speak of my personal experience, I would say that at a certain point, after the first stagings in Gibellina, I saw it was a moment of crisis. I saw that the art world could turn its back on me; so I adopted an equal and opposite technique: I deliberately allowed myself to be forgotten for thirty years. I don't think everyone forgot me – so much so that when I decided to return, I returned with a major exhibition at the Centro Pecci in Prato²⁸ that served as a counterpoint to a statement of mine from the 1970s, a very well-known work – Dichiaro di non essere Emilio Isgrò (I declare that I am not Emilio Isgrò). When they offered me a retrospective at this important museum, I began working and created a piece that became the title of the exhibition: Dichiaro di essere Emilio Isgrò (I declare that I am Emilio Isgrò) because it was an immediate way of saying, “I am here.”

MF

Indeed.

EI

So allowing oneself to be forgotten is sometimes a strategy. It’s clear that at my age, it is also a strategy for self-preservation in old age; to put it with a joke, if you achieve success after eighty and beyond…

MF

It also shows great consistency with your work.

EI

The world will no longer have time to forget you; it simply must endure you.

MF

Fantastic, fantastic, it's a self-Erasure!

EI

For the rest, get in touch with Benedetta, our Benedetta²⁹, my assistant; she oversees everything.