6 x 1 1POLIEDRO

6 artists interpret the life and worksof 11 extraordinary women of Sardinia

Texts by Cecilia Mariani • Photographs by Nelly Dietzel

5 A Dedication

7 Magnificent Hauntings.Of Sardinian women, artists and things, as seen through the eyes of SEUNA LABCecilia Mariani

10 H 501. Anna Marongiu

14 H 502. Olimpia Melis Peralta

18 H 503. Edina Altara

24 H 504. Verdina Pensé

30 H 505. Maria Lai

34 H 506. Francesca Devoto

40 H 507. Marisa Sannia

44 H 508. Maria Carta

48 H 509. Grazia Deledda

56 H 510. Luisa Fancello

62 H 601. Coroneo

74 The Artists

76 The Authors

Index

project design, direction and managementby Antonello Cuccu

For the 11 sets at Residence Grandi Magazziniartwork stands by Artigianato&Design designed by Antonello CuccuPlexiglas® by Neon Europa, Tecnoplast assembled by Artigianato&Designpre-spaced stickers, Forex® and PVC by Photoservice

Project developmentAll the artworks in this book were exclusively created by 6 artists of the SEUNA LAB collective from Nuoro, Sardinia, in 2014

Catalogueintroduction by Agostino Cicalòhistorical/art criticism texts and captions by Cecilia Marianiphotographs by Nelly Dietzelgraphic design by Antonio Foisediting by Anna Pau, Franca Fois, Nicoletta Magnabosco

AcknowledgmentsMany people contributed to this amazing project. A warm thank you to every single one of them, and particularlyto Pietro Cicalò, manager of Residence Grandi Magazzini.

Printed by Longo Spa

© Copyright June 2015POLIEDRO, Nuoro

ISBN 978-88-86741-5

The Grandi Magazzini apartment hotel was created in 2011 and is located on theupper floors of what was once the first department store in Nuoro, which was

opened by Pietrino Cicalò in 1962.In 2014, the building was extended with 11 new rooms. Meanwhile, a show at TRIBUintroduced us to 6 artists of SEUNA LAB, a space in the heart of one of Nuoro’s oldestdistricts where artists are free to create their own artworks.The 11 rooms needed to be completed with something that was not a mere accessorydecor. The artists of SEUNA LAB readily accepted the challenge of creating a range ofartworks (for a final grand total of 36) based on a single artistic path for the variousspaces: 6 young artists have then given their own interpretation of the life and worksof 11 extraordinary women of Sardinia. And throughout this adventure, which beganfirst of all by studying documents, they have worked alongside photographer NellyDietzel and historical/art critic Cecilia Mariani – as well as Antonello Cuccu, the creatorof the whole project design – in order to convey the meaning of their artworks throughthe objectivity of photographs and the educational purpose of texts.The original idea to introduce the lexicon of the most contemporary visual art – whichechoes previous works of art performed by women who, like our artists today, weredeeply rooted in the local social background – into the new rooms of the apartmenthotel was immediately appreciated. Especially the idea to bring a more mature art intodirect contact with the guests. By entering the rooms and living in them, guests willestablish a simple and daily relationship with the artworks, which are there for a reason,not by mere accident, and for the use of guests only. Guests thus become inter-actorsof an extraordinary closeness, of a private dialogue that is emotionally different becauseof the artworks defining each room and of the different architectural and furniturechoices. Spaces and furniture are completely white: they are sheets of white paper onwhich the visual artworks become original marks of style and matter.In a journey that stimulates their imagination, guests are given the opportunity tomeet 11 women of Sardinia who, with their work and passion for life, emphasized thehistory and distinctive essence of this island.This is also our small contribution to the Distretto Culturale del Nuorese project, whichcombines the Culture and local Economy of the province of Nuoro.

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A Dedication

The historic commercial landmark Grandi Magazzini Ruju Cicalò, located at 1, via Dal-mazia, in the heart of the Sardinian town of Nuoro, was opened in 1962 by Sardinian

entrepreneur Pietrino Cicalò. Its conversion into an apartment hotel with 26 one- ortwo-room apartments – 11 of which are now dedicated to 11 Sardinian women andartists – is a monumental project that is both commercially and architecturally ambi-tious, and aesthetically and conceptually consistent. The building, which was renamedResidence Grandi Magazzini in 2011, was modified to serve its new purpose and intend-ed use, with the idea of combining the natural beauty and culture of the Sardiniantown in Barbagia with a contemporary housing offer, equipped with state-of-the-arttechnological devices and decorated with some of the latest interior design objects.Moreover, with the inauguration of the new part of the building, the very idea of ac-commodation is now being deprived of its ordinary nature of a hotel stay and blendedinto a peculiar experience: a private meeting with some of the leading figures of theSardinian 20th-century literature, music, and visual and applied arts.En passant, it is also worth noting that the mere fact that this tribute is set in the prem-ises of a former department store is quite bizarre yet significant: department storesare the Western, middle-class symbol par excellence of the economic and commercialboom that the modern world experienced at the turn of the 20th century, and thatreached Nuoro after World War II. It is in this bivalent background of wealth and sinthat women – including first of all the stylish woman par excellence, the Frenchwoman, or the iconic parisienne – would always be the main (active) subject and (pas-sive) object of market mechanisms: voyeuse, buyer and commodity at the same time.Here, on the other hand, in a totally renovated part of the apartment hotel, 11 extra-ordinary women – some of whom are among the leading figures of the 20th centuryin Sardinia – do not merge with an implicitly isolating idea of home, or worse withthe semantic field of trade, but with the broader idea of a warm yet never servile wel-come. The aim is to welcome guests and tell them a story – the story of these women,the story of an island – while interviewing them, at the same time.11 rooms for 11 women who are known locally as well as to an Italian and interna-tional audience. These women are: Grazia Deledda (Nuoro, 1871-Rome, 1936), writer

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Magnificent Hauntings.Of Sardinian women, artists and things, as seen through the eyes of SEUNA LABby Cecilia Mariani

And a tangible mark that echoes what Sardinian writer Grazia Deledda, winner of theNobel Prize for Literature in 1926, wrote in Tradizioni popolari di Nuoro in 1894:«The young artists from Sardinia jokingly define Nuoro the “Athens of Sardinia”. It isactually quite the most educated and fierce village of our island. It is home to artistsand poets, writers and scholars, strong and kind young people, some of whom docredit to Sardinia and are also set on a pathway to a relative success».

To Maria Fois, our mother,who patiently supports us in all our projects.

Antonio, Angela, Agostino, Gianfranco, Luciana Cicalò

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and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature; Francesca Devoto (Nuoro, 1912-1989),painter; Edina Altara (Sassari, 1898-Lanusei, 1983), illustrator, decorator and fashiondesigner; the Coroneo sisters, i.e. Giuseppina (Cagliari, 1896-1978) and Albina (Cagliari,1898-1994), artists, illustrators and craftswomen; Verdina Pensé (Alghero, 1913-1984),painter and jewellery designer; Olimpia Melis Peralta (Bosa, 1887-1975), entrepreneur;Luisa Fancello (Dorgali, 1910-1982), embroiderer; Anna Marongiu (Cagliari, 1907-Rome,1941), illustrator and engraver; Maria Lai (Ulassai, 1919-Cardedu, 2013), artist; MarisaSannia (Iglesias, 1947-Cagliari, 2008) and Maria Carta (Siligo, 1934-Rome, 1994), singersand songwriters.They are the “magnificent hauntings” evoked by SEUNA LAB, a collective of artists fromNuoro that has been active since 2006. The group is totally embedded in the life ofthe local community and is characterized by a polystylism once again displayed –with the exception of some unusual and avant-garde effects – by the different tech-niques and styles chosen by its members: engraving for Pasquale Bassu (1979), paint-ing for Gianni Casagrande (1963), installation art, printing and sculpture for VincenzoGrosso (1977), sculpture for Sergio Fronteddu (1982), installation art, painting and col-lage for Stefano Marongiu (1977) and Vincenzo Pattusi (1978). The six artists wereasked to connect with the 11 women in an imaginary dialogue that summed up boththeir life and their respective aesthetic legacies, considered either directly or in thelight of the most recent theories. They have consequently established “a correspon-dence of loving minds” (more than of “senses”) with these potentially cumbersomematres (mothers), a compassion exceeding the mere and obvious tribute, as youwould normally expect from younger artists. They established a connection withsome of the most prominent figures of Sardinia’s 20th-century cultural scenario (likeGrazia Deledda and Maria Lai) and with other less prominent figures, as it were, whoexpressed themselves in essentially private or exquisitely popular environments (likeLuisa Fancello). Thus each room is inhabited by the presence of the woman to whomthe room is dedicated. But at the same time it is also indelibly imbued with the per-sonal interpretation of that woman by Bassu and Casagrande, Grosso and Fronteddu,Marongiu and Pattusi, which stems from their poetic and stylistic sensitivity.The best feature of the final outcome, which refuses to yield to sheer reverence andawe, is that it doesn’t relinquish to a simplistic stereotype, nor indulge in the moreobvious praise; on the contrary, in these "portraits" the hidden gushes of aporiae, in-consistencies and anxieties that the beloved artists experienced during their lives andaesthetic journeys, if not in their post mortem legacies, inevitably emerge like under-ground rivers of ink, paint and glue. It is up to guests to decode the candid and devi-ous game of mirrors and glimpses, and to accept the invitation to a journey of themind of which these new rooms are just the first stop.

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del giudizio (Day of Judgement). Bassu’s artwork depictsan old and abandoned building. Due to its photo-likestyle, the image looks like it was taken from a photo-essay, but actually conceals the observer’s sympathet-ic gaze. By showing an example of present-day urbanblight, the artist seems interested not in exposing it,but rather in showing his sympathy, clearly saddenedby its obvious decay. The derelict old building over-looks a short uphill section of the street, which thusbecomes the humorous and Pirandellian portrait of awoman who aged prematurely but still wishes toshow bystanders her faded beauty.Vincenzo Grosso enters into a totally different dia-logue with Anna Marongiu, a dialogue that stemsfrom a new version of the artist’s favourite technique– engraving –, and from a critical reinterpretation ofthe landscape leitmotif, which Anna Marongiu was sofond of. Grosso created two very unique artworks, andadapted the engraving technique to his needs in or-der to express the criticalities of today’s relationshipbetween man and cities and between man and na-ture. In Tombino a Seuna the black print on paper re-producing the surface of a manhole cover in Seuna –the neighbourhood of Nuoro where Grosso was bornand raised, and where the SEUNA LAB studio is locat-ed – implies an attempt to interact with the land-scape views that Marongiu used to pay honour toher hometown. Grosso did the same with his home-town, which thus becomes the archetypal urbanarea in its nondescript ordinariness, and dismissedthe idea of an overall contemplative vision, choosinga detail of city life not at random, but for its connota-tive meaning: a manhole cover. If we try to interpretthe artwork, which was obtained by using the realobject as a plate and covering it with ink, we can readthe name of the original Dino Pusceddu foundry ofCagliari flipped over, as if written using a mirror writ-ing technique. However, it is just a random, mislead-ing cross-reference, even more so because the artist’s

attitude towards the portrayed object couldn’t bemore different from Anna Marongiu’s. The full-scaleprint, both frightening and creepy, actually suggeststhe author’s critical and slightly unflattering approachnot to the town of Nuoro, but rather to today’s soci-ety as a whole, which, in its sheer indifference andconstant absent-mindedness, is happy to see be-cause unable to observe. To this effect, the manholecover is a feature of a presumed civilization thatGrosso provocatively draws the viewer’s attention toby defining it as a symbol of oblivion, neglect andthe indifference to the unwanted stream of wasteand scraps that life entails. The same vision recurs inAbused, a charcoal print on canvas created by using aplank of wood lengthwise as a plate. The plank, whichGrosso found in 2011 in a neighbourhood of south-ern London, was part of a building dating back to themiddle 1800s. The Sardinian artist found it in a pile ofrubble from a renovation project, still perfectly intactand fit for use, decided to save it from landfill andoblivion, and smuggled it to Sardinia as a relic so itcould continue to exist and be remembered. Grossocovered it with charcoal and placed it on a canvas,and the plank left its image, which is now an artwork.This care for the object stems from the universal valuethat the artist attaches to it, and also to the overlap-ping – i.e. reconciliation – of wood (synecdochicallyrepresenting the creation as a whole) and the humanbeing. By hinting at and resolving one of the greatestconflicts embedded in the Western world – the con-flict between nature and nurture, chaos and order, ar-tificiality and spontaneity – Abused conveys the ideaof a landscape that is violated, exploited, tortured andyet embodied by the contemporary man. By leavingan organic mark on the canvas and thus transformingthe painting into some kind of evocative Holy Shroud,the plank of wood has become a metaphor for thelife of the universe, a single log that is at once fragileand precious.

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Anna Marongiu (Cagliari, 1907-Rome, 1941). Fulfill-ing her family’s dream, she got her chartered ac-

countant qualification, but she was always drawn to vi-sual arts. From an early age, she stood out as aself-taught artist in the arts of drawing, illustrations andcaricature. At the end of the 1920s, having just turned18, she was already certain of her vocation for art andleft for Rome, where she studied at Accademia Britanni-ca and often visited the ateliers of Umberto Coromaldi,a painter, and her cousin Giuseppe Capponi, an archi-tect. She made her lucky debut as an artist in 1929 at theexhibition Primavera sarda in Cagliari alongside famouscolleagues like Giuseppe Biasi and Mario Delitala. Thismarked the beginning of a wide and glorious range ofexhibitions. Anna Marongiu later went on to illustratebooks by Manzoni, Dickens and Shakespeare with wa-tercolour panels and ballpoint pen drawings before dis-covering, in the early 1930s, her natural bent to the etch-ing technique, which she had learnt in Rome with CarloAlberto Petrucci. She further expanded her knowledgeof this technique by studying the great 17th-century tra-dition and often associating with contemporary Italianengravers, among whom another fellow Sardinian, Fe-lice Melis Marini (Cagliari, 1871-1953). A master of en-graving, Marini would then inspire Marongiu to turn to

landscape views, although she, now an acclaimed etch-er, would always stand out from the group of fellow Sar-dinian engravers for her complete indifference to Sardin-ian folklore and everyday life. Anna Marongiu alwayspursued her own personal research, devoid of any forcedregionalism, and seemed drawn more to urban settingsand miscellaneous inspiration, ranging from circuses tosacred themes. Back in Cagliari at the onset of WorldWar II, from 1936 to 1941 she created a series of etchingsthat would make her even more famous. Her 15 etch-ings portraying views of Cagliari (Vedute di Cagliari) area joyous and accurate portrayal of a town known for itsarchitecture and evocative monuments, which hadbeen the town’s own pride and joy for a long time beforethe air raids and bombings of World War II suddenly anddramatically transformed its skyline forever.1

Pasquale Bassu’s linoleumgraphy portraying a partialview of Via Majore – nowadays Corso Garibaldi – inNuoro was inspired by Anna Marongiu’s urban viewsof her hometown. However, Bassu presents a moreordinary part of the street that features one of thelandmarks of the town’s centre, the Bar Majore-CaffèTettamanzi, named after the old name of the streetand celebrated by Salvatore Satta in his novel Il giorno

H 501. ANNA MARONGIU

1. For further information on Anna Marongiu: cf. W. SHAKESPEARE, Ilsogno di una notte d’estate, special edition published for the artist'sretrospective (Cagliari, Cittadella dei musei, 23-28 February 2002),Cagliari, Soroptimist International Club, 2002; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI,Pittura e scultura dal 1930 al 1960, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2000, pp. 64, 67-69, 74, 86, 102, 104, 157, 163, 264; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI, Pittura escultura del primo '900, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1995, p. 287; A. MARONGIU PER-NIS, Tavole per «I Promessi sposi», edited by M. Crespellani and

L. Rogier, Cagliari, Edizioni della Torre, 1999; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI,Le matite di un popolo barbaro. Grafici e illustratori sardi 1905-1935,Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana Editoriale, 1990, pp. 148, 179; L. PILONI,Cagliari nelle sue stampe, Cagliari, Edizioni della Torre, 1988, p. 303;Quarant’anni di incisione artistica in Sardegna: 1930-1970, cata-logue of the exhibition curated by S. Naitza and M.G. Scano(Quartu Sant'Elena, 15-29 March 1986), Quartu Sant’Elena, Il dado,1986. For further reference, please visit www.marongiu.org.

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PASQUALE BASSU,Via Majore, 2014linoleumgraphy

VINCENZO GROSSO,Tombino a Seuna(Manhole Coverin Seuna), 2014,ink print on paper

VINCENZO GROSSO,Abused, 2014charcoal print on canvas

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2. For further information on Olimpia Melis Peralta: cf. G. ALTEA, M.MAGNANI, Pittura e scultura dal 1930 al 1960, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2000, p.254; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI, Pittura e scultura del primo '900, Nuoro,Ilisso, 1995, pp. 199, 209; C'era un fiume e nel fiume il mare. I fratelliMelis: una famiglia di artisti in una fiaba moderna interpretata da gio-

vani illustratori d'oggi, catalogue of the exhibition curated by A.M.Montaldo and A. Cuccu (Cagliari, ExMà. Centro d'Arte e Cultura,28 May-8 September 1996), Cagliari, Stampacolor, 1996. For furtherinformation on the Melis brothers: cf. A. CUCCU, A. FAETI, Pino Melis,Nuoro, Ilisso, 2007; A. CUCCU, Melkiorre Melis, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2004.

Olimpia Melis Peralta (Bosa, 1887-1975). She was thesister of Melkiorre, a painter (Bosa, 1889-Rome,

1982), Federico, a potter (Bosa, 1891-Urbania, 1969), andPino, an illustrator (Bosa, 1902-Rome, 1985). Olimpiawas the fourth creative genius in a family that left an in-delible mark on the history of visual and applied arts inSardinia. Since the 1910s, Olimpia showed quite an un-common entrepreneurial flair for a woman of that time:she set up a factory of filet in her hometown. Over theyears, her factory would stand out for the creativenessand high quality of its manufactured products, whichwere sold in Italy, and also exported in Europe and theUnited States. A brave and proactive woman, Olimpianever reduced the ancient art of weaving to a meremass production vainly reproducing traditional manu-factured products. Inspired by the designs of Art Deco,Olimpia reinterpreted the traditional designs of the pastand adapted them to the new trends in home decor,trousseaus and linen, while innovating the very purposeof decorations and applying them to fabrics in uncon-ventional ways. Today, because of her life and career, sheis rightfully regarded as one of the artists of her time –along with her brothers – who managed to create a joy-ful bridge between the aesthetics of the past and thenew trends of the present. She was able to reinterpret the

Sardinian handicraft tradition, breathe new life into it,and launch it into the future, both in Italy and abroad.2

Vincenzo Pattusi’s artwork Senza titolo (Untitled) isdedicated to her and reminds us of the pages ofMani di fata, an iconic Italian magazine for women,or the frames of an online video tutorial: 18 panelslaid out 3 by 3 on 6 rows, 18 shots showing everysingle step to creating the first stitches of a filet. Bybreaking down the experienced and quick move-ments of a woman’s hands, Pattusi expands in time– also through the reflection of the above mirror –the moment at the very start of this handcraftingprocess, thus transforming single automatic move-ments into a solemn pace with a slow-motion effect.The regular pattern of stop-motion images hencebecomes a visual rhythm, with each image rhymingwith all the others, which have been laid out as if ona conventional grid. They rhyme in the cyclic cuttingand reunification sequence of lines – the straightlines of crochet hooks and tight threads, and thecurved lines of fingers and loose threads – in a har-monic grace of black and white.Furthermore, Stefano Marongiu’s polyptych Senzatitolo (Untitled) represents a triple future stage of an

H 502. OLIMPIA MELIS PERALTA

imaginary process. The three vertical panels effectivelysimulate three looms: one of them has a frame, andeach of them features a network of tight threads andpartial decors. The artist used a street art technique todraw the networks of threads: the stencil. Through theirregular distribution of black paint sprayed onto theForex® sheets, the technique creates a vague andslightly smoky effect similar to a radiograph, and thusgives the rectangular surfaces an evocative power. Itis as though the white lines of the decors emergethrough the fog of a long-forgotten past, and standout through the powerful, sharp, chalk-white cutsagainst the white-board-like walls. It’s the materializa-tion of the dots and dashes of a Morse code that couldstill be a shared language, a binary code similar to thedownbeat and upbeat of music, geometrical protru-sions of pure abstraction or natural memory, moun-tains and valleys. Miniature houses still inhabited bythe wisdom and knowledge of expert craftswomen.

VINCENZO PATTUSI,Senza titolo

(Untitled), 2014polyptych – pencil on paper – mirror

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STEFANO MARONGIU,Senza titolo(Untitled), 2014triptych – stencil and incision on Forex®

Edina Altara (Sassari, 1898-Lanusei, 1983). From anearly age, she was fascinated by the art of drawing

and collage; she started her career as a self-taught artist,and was soon admired by illustrious colleagues andpraised by the leading critics of her times. After marryingVittorio Accornero de Testa – a famous artist known un-der the pseudonym of Victor Max Ninon – in 1924, shebegan to show her versatility and creativity while work-ing with him as a Deco illustrator in Milan. After the endof their marriage in 1935, Edina continued experiment-ing autonomously and with outstanding results ingraphic design (young adults books, magazines, peri-odicals, advertisements), fashion (she opened an ele-gant atelier at her own house in Milan), pottery, and dec-oration tout court. In 1942, she began her prolificpartnership with Gio Ponti, a famous Italian architect:Edina designed the cover and some fashion sketches forBellezza, an Italian magazine for women, and in 1946she started signing design and interior decoration proj-ects for Stile and Domus, two prestigious Italian mag-azines. During her long collaboration with Ponti, shedecorated a wide range of objects created by the famousdesigner, and designed the interior decoration of variousocean liners: Conte Biancamano, Conte Bianco, AndreaDoria. However, her destiny was doomed: the end of herlife would be similar to the end of a dime novel. Her sis-

ters Iride and Lavinia were also artists, and often workedwith her. After her sisters died, Edina lost her clearness ofthought in a private hospital for psychiatric disorders inthe village of Lanusei. An unhappy ending after a lifespent searching for beauty in every possible form, lastbut not least, the material form.3

Stefano Marongiu’s tiny sculptures L'altra faccia del-l'Isola refer to the first period of Edina Altara’s career,and take the viewer’s memory back to her first cre-ations. They remind us of the tiny paper puppetsthat she created in the 1910s and 1920s, and thatone of the early followers of Edina’s work, GiuseppeBiasi, loved so much. Sadly they are now destroyedor lost, and can only be viewed in vintage photo-graphs. In a game of Chinese boxes, Marongiu incor-porated new playful elements into objects that arealready playful, and thus achieved his own personalversion of figurines of Sardinian people in theircolourful folk costumes. The artist further simplifiedshapes and lines, and reduced his colour palette toprimary and secondary colours, including referencesto the contemporary visual culture and imagery ofJapanese mangas and anime. Marongiu took one di-mension away from objects only to insert one of hissignature elements: paper coasters. The figurines

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H 503. EDINA ALTARA

3. For further information on Edina Altara: cf. G. ALTEA, Edina Al-tara, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2005; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI, Pittura e sculturadal 1930 al 1960, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2000, pp. 69, 251, 260-261, 266,

268; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI, Pittura e scultura del primo '900, Nuoro,Ilisso, 1995, pp. 134, 150, 166-171, 176, 192, 199, 210-213.

were actually created by assembling scraps of thisrecycled material, which he often uses in his art: pa-per coasters covered in black and featuring detailsof maps and aerial surveys. The cardboard scrapshave been transformed into colourful clothes for theminiature silhouettes, thus adding indistinct frag-ments of landscape to the geometric or floral deco-rations of the women’s dresses, and in a way suggest-ing a new, hybrid sense of belonging, an essentialand inevitable crossing of local and global culturesand minds. The five figurines are balanced in a per-fect harmony of poses, geometries and colours. Themodular square shape, included in the original papercoaster, is repeated regularly and rotated by 45 de-grees to become the base/skirt of the posed women.But the artist also further exploited it for its originalpurpose by placing an object, which is apparentlyout of context, on top of it: the Rubik’s cube. Theiconic combination puzzle – the readymade gamepar excellence – is an alienating, half-serious and ulti-mately chameleon-like detail: the regular, repeatedsquare shape and the recurring colour palette of thefigurines play a part in its ideal camouflage, but it’sits printed surface, with the black spots of a uniden-tified territory, that conveys a frustrating sense of anunstable identity, of a precarious balance in a geo-graphic puzzle whose outcome is variable and al-ways renegotiable. Literally: manipulable.For his diptych À la guerre comme à l'amour andpolyptych Perduta! Gianni Casagrande drew his in-spiration from Altara’s most mature artistic periodand age. It is almost as if he gave the viewer a slightlyunflattering – and in some ways boastful, if not in-competent – image of the Sardinian artist. Edina ap-pears to be playing the part of a beautiful, jolly ladysitting in a posh living-room (Cattive notizie) or at atable at a luxury restaurant (Una serata perfetta) inskits depicting upper-class people. The social events

that the artist usually attended are further ridiculedhere by Casagrande by inserting elements that aredangerously out of context, alienating details thatspoil the quiet and pleasant atmosphere of the twomundane events, and turn it into a surreal andgrotesque one. With its green-and-white stripedwallpaper, the room where Edina is portrayed whilesitting and talking to another woman immediatelysuggests the upper-class status of the house owner.However, in order to upset the balance of the scene,Casagrande painted the magnified and unlikelyheads of a locust and a tsetse fly – instead of the usu-al hunting trophies – on the walls, as well as a hugeDeidamia Morpho, a Brazilian butterfly, spreading itscobalt blue wings in a big, white square. The badnews that the title refers to – and that maybe Edinareads in the letter in her hands while faking a smile –is probably nothing more that this: a fictitious dangerin a faraway “East”, as in the movie The Career of aChambermaid, so innocuous that it is even dreamedof with an exorcizing anguish. Nothing more than afalse reverie of a bored bourgeoisie that is incapableof crossing the golden fence of their own privileges.But in Una serata perfetta Casagrande hints at some-thing even more subtle. Here the artist appears per-fectly at ease while enjoying dinner with a high-rank-ing military officer. She seems relaxed in her smartdinner dress and in a glamorous, almost cruise-likesetting. Edina confidently toasts with her fellow diner,oblivious of the hook that he wears on his other handand of the metal prosthetic plate replacing the leftside of his disfigured face. The common denominatorof Ca sa gran de’s small diptych seems to be the risk ofsurrendering to a frivolous and ambiguous morality.The painter suggests all the unpleasantness of a con-stant social masquerade with expressionist andminiaturist care, and hints at hidden and symbolicmeanings through the various elements of the scene.

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As if, in the painter’s mind, Altara and her universemade “war” as they would make “love”, always in acynical and deceitful way. Nothing is there by acci-dent: for example, the entomological accuracy of theheads of the insects goes hand in hand with the ac-curacy of details that are apparently insignificant butextremely connotative of a wealthy status (e.g. thebooks that lay closed on the coffee table in the smallliving room, the cigarette burning in the hands of theMephistophelian fellow diner, the wine that the wait-er keeps refrigerated in the steel bucket). Casagrandetransforms the potential negative consequences ofan involvement with influential people (in society,culture, the business sector) into images, castingsome doubt on, and therefore slightly tainting, thereputation of an artist who, more than any other Sar-dinian woman, managed to live her life like a legiti-mate dandy, a life full of aesthetic ambitions, both in

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private and in public. Casagrande seems to be slight-ly more lenient in his triptych Perduta!, but this firstimpression is immediately contradicted by the imageof Edina aimlessly wandering in the woods. She isportrayed in three different moments out of her usu-al home and city setting. The slender silhouette ispainted against a natural green backdrop whilewearing a dress that is as white as the empty sky be-yond the meadows and the bushes. She wandersand she is in despair, as though missing a point of ref-erence and unable to find her way. The only possibleoutcome for this sleep-walking woman lost in thewoods of life is once again to submissively surrenderto beauty. To find her way, Edina must yield to natureand then collapse onto the grass, only to spendhours smelling wildflowers, like an opera heroin pa-tiently waiting for the wicked and salvific worm of in-sanity to arrive.

GIANNICASAGRANDE, À la guerre commeà l’amour [Unaserata perfetta(A Perfect Night),Cattive notizie(Bad News)], 2014diptych – acrylicon canvas

GIANNICASAGRANDE,

Perduta!(Lost!), 2014

triptych – acrylicon canvas

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STEFANO MARONGIU,L’altra facciadell’Isola (TheOther Side ofSardinia), 2014collage withaltered readymade,acrylic

Verdina Pensé (Alghero, 1913-1984). Her fame isstrongly intertwined with that of her hometown, Al-

ghero. From the 1950s, thanks to the training courses or-ganized by ENAPI (The Italian Institution for Trade andSmall-sized Businesses, from 1951) and the resulting im-pulse to exhibitions that was further stimulated by ISOLA(the Sardinian Association for the Craft Industry, activefrom 1957 and headed by Eugenio Tavolara and UbaldoBadas), Alghero went through a rebirth due to the pro-motion of coral jewellery and processing. Coral has al-ways grown off the North-Western coasts of Sardinia.After attending the Istituto d'Arte in Sassari where shetrained under Filippo Figari, who was then the schoolmanager, Pensé experimented painting, but she soonabandoned it to follow her natural bent for jewellery de-sign and manufacturing. Determined to promote localtraditions and crafts, Verdina managed to fulfil herdream of establishing (1952) and directing (until 1959)a school for coral processing (Scuola del Corallo), whichwas first a branch of the local school and later becameIstituto Statale d’Arte. Pensé, who also worked in her pri-vate atelier, achieved fame for the primitive and naivedesign of her jewels, which she created with relativelysimple techniques devised to emphasize the irregular

shapes and natural colours of the raw material, in a stylethat was consistent with the latest trends in jewellery de-sign of the second half of the 19th century.4

Toeletta is a hybrid installation specially designed forher by Stefano Marongiu: it merges the lines of ready-made and objet trouvé (found object) with collageand painting elements. At first glance, it looks like anordinary three-legged wooden table with a table mir-ror and another small hand mirror; quite simply ascenographic reproduction of a detail of an early-cen-tury boudoir, yet also a corner of a bedroom or a bath-room decorated with retro style furniture and decorby a lady who is often not at home but likes stoppingin front of that mirror to try jewels and makeup on.The group of objects strikes above all for the markedcontrast with the sleek and polished contemporaryfurniture. However, under its reassuring vintage look,Marongiu’s artwork proves to be variously allusive inits complexity. The old dressing table, which wasfound in a basement and reconditioned with a coatof burgundy paint, manages to entail an emotionalburden of intimacy, as it was the artist’s grandmoth-er’s, who was probably a contemporary of Pensé.

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H 504. VERDINA PENSÉ

4. For further information on Verdina Pensé: cf. G. ALTEA,"Tradizione e innovazione nel gioiello contemporaneo. Dal de-signer per l'oreficeria all'artigiano artista", in Gioielli. Storia, linguag-gio, religiosità dell'ornamento in Sardegna, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2004, pp.382-386; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI, Pittura e scultura dal 1930 al 1960,

Nuoro, Ilisso, 2000, pp. 269, 280. For further information on jewelsand precious adornments of Sardinia: cf. Gioielli. Storia, linguaggio,religiosità dell'ornamento in Sardegna, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2004; Gli or-namenti preziosi dei sardi, Sassari, Delfino Editore, 1999; G. ALTEA, Igioielli d'arte in Sardegna, Sassari, Delfino Editore, 1995.

In turn, the tilting mirror, which features a heavy, gold-en, baroque frame, is a sign of the romantic origin ofthe object – possibly a marché aux puces – in its thick,oxidised contour layer, juxtaposed with the kitsch,phoney, children’s-toy look of the smaller, plastic handmirror. However, the most unusual element of thiscomposite beauty station is its very inefficiency be-cause it lacks a reflective surface. Where there wouldusually be mirrors, Marongiu applied some drawingsportraying a swash through the alienating idea of astretch of water. And while we gaze at the wavesbreaking on the beach in a splash of foam, we do notsee a miniature feminine silhouette embodying Ver-dina Pensé, but rather an “impossible” detail that theartist treasures so much: a red icon marking a positionon a digital map. No wonder it’s coral red; and exactlylike corals, it’s both sharp and round. By negating theirfunction of reflecting light, shape and colours,Marongiu turns mirrors into fully fledged paintings,into screens that appear to have been frozen whileshowing a significant stop-frame – the search andwait in coral catching and processing, in the crafts-man-like creation of something beautiful to wear. Butalso frozen in space-time windows, dream-like cham-ber stargates through which it is possible to accessan unexplored dimension that blends together thememories of an ancient craft and the signs of a virtualreality where the contemporary world would gladlydrown the living. Thus, the juxtaposition of “ready” and“altered” elements is not casual at all, and the creationof all the graphic components converge into an orig-inal evocation of Pensé: spiritualistic-sentimental onthe one hand, and digital-futuristic on the other.Gianni Casagrande’s polyptych Coralli leads us intoa surreal, underwater world. The human figures, ei-ther on their own or in a couple, are shown to theviewer as though in an aquarium in four differentmoments, and they absent-mindedly gaze at a sea

that is lacking both fish and corals. The old lady witha purse (Un pensiero per la nipotina), the woman withchild (Il regalo della madrina), and the two younglovers (L'anello di fidanzamento) avidly stare at therocks covered in seaweeds, sea moss and mucilage,unaware accomplices of a long-gone adventure,mere buyers of a now rare product. The charactershave no wetsuit, mask or oxygen tank. They wanderthe abyss in plain clothes, whereas others dive orswim back to the surface once their choice is made.In these dreamy images, which are seemingly playfuland reassuring like in one of Marc Chagall’s reveries,in the smooth elasticity of the welcoming wavesthat do not drown the characters, but just turn theminto accomplices to a “murder”, Casagrande seemsto have hidden a sort of criticism in retrospect at atrade that has now become a real business. As a mat-ter of fact, if coral processing has long been one ofthe flagships of Sardinian craftsmanship, with a ded-icated school and a first-rate manufacturing produc-tion, it has nonetheless led to sacrificing the balanceof an ecosystem in the name of a louder and louderembellishment and robbery. Maybe this is why thefish, which are the rightful inhabitants of the sea, canreappear only later, when it is all quiet again. Theartist entrusted the mother-of-pearl dazzle of theirscales with what remains of the plunder, i.e. thesilent contemplation of the outcome of an overex-ploiting hunt (Acqua). However, the human charac-ters portrayed by Casagrande in a spontaneous andfrustrating underwater search also place the viewervis-à-vis an undeniably poetic offset, when their ac-tions are not conditioned by material needs anymore but gain historical and symbolic meanings. Thecharacters turn the pages of Nereide Rudas’ novelL'isola dei coralli (1997) into images, they search theseabed and the shady caves inch by inch, looking forthe precious rubrum (hidden, missing, or lost forever)

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while trying to find themselves, their sunken andmultifaceted identity. As if today this identity couldstill have an equivalent in the biological mystery ofa coastline creature belonging to the three king-doms (mineral, vegetable, animal) and soon movingpast the legacy of a flexible birth to turn towards thefixed and sharp lines of a rugged death, individuallymottled in red.5

5. N. RUDAS, L'isola dei coralli. Itinerari dell'identità, Roma, CarocciEditore, 2004 (first published in Rome, N.I.S., 1997).

GIANNI CASAGRANDE,Coralli (Corals)[Il regalo della madrina(The Godmother’s Gift),L’anello di fidanzamento(The Engagement Ring),Un pensiero per lanipotina (A Gift for her Granddaughter),Acqua (Water)], 2014polyptych – acrylic on canvas

STEFANO MARONGIU,Toeletta (DressingTable), 2014readymade, acrylic on Masonite®

Vincenzo Grosso has pulled and interwovenFilo conduttore (Common Thread) to stimulateviewers to a contact and connection with theartist and with themselves. It is a composite,almost totem-like sculpture made with mate-rials that are reminiscent of the Italian ArtePovera and of a controversial artist, JosephBeuys. Its structure revolves around an oldmetal thread, and conveys the hope that, in itsvertical unravelling and while incorporatingmiscellaneous objects with various places oforigin, it can still be of value as a means totransfer energy. 30 years after Lai’s powerfulsymbolic installation Legarsi alla montagna,Grosso used rusty iron instead of a denim rib-bon, and with it he shaped what he thinks isthe very nodus of our present times: the con-nection with mountains – and by mountainswe mean not only rural mountain areas, butalso nature and art in the poetic/symbolicmeaning of Lai’s 1981 work, – is now doomedto the same precarious and endangered con-dition that Maria Lai denounced a long timeago. The old electric cable is for Grosso ameans to preserve all the remaining elementsof what everyday life was like in small villagessome decades ago, and also to hold them to-gether, in order to try and convey new energyto viewers, or at least produce the early sparkof a new impetus in them. Just as the blue rib-bon tied knots and enveloped breads in thestreets of the small village in Olgiastra, now theoxidised thread unites vintage frames and

hinges, a chip of strawberry tree, and a frag-ment of granite. In its fixed verticality, theheavy sculpture conveys a craving for light-ness and puzzles the viewer in its candid dis-play of materials, which the artist collectedboth in an urban and rural environment. Theseare the surviving scraps of mountains nowa-days, of a forsaken and maybe unrecoverablepast. The wood from strawberry trees is nowused in fireplaces and ovens (and in take-aways too), and granite is only a dead frag-ment spilled out of a quarry. Isn’t it thereforepossible that the ultimate end of everythingimplies yielding to its inevitable betrayal?When in doubt or in the absence of answers,only the cable seems to hold on, sturdy andloyal to itself and to its role of conveyor ofmeaning. This is why viewers are stimulated toconnect and converse with its firm energy,while hopefully finding a “common thread” tothemselves and a past and value system thatare way too often set aside.Sergio Fronteddu decided to bring Maria Lai’smemory back to an original and natural levelwith his sculpture Senza titolo (Untitled), whichnonetheless also hints at intellectual and crit-ical implications. At first the tangle of coils,which have been imbued with hot glue andunevenly wound one on top of the other, re-minds us of the magnified – and oversized –appearance of a silkworm intent on weavingits precious filaments, or a chrysalis that hasjust freed the butterfly it contained in em-bryo. As if the Sardinian artist from Ulassaicould in some way identify with the biologi-cal cycle of both insects through the firm

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Maria Lai (Ulassai, 1919-Cardedu, 2013). One of themost prolific and important Sardinian artists of the

19th century, famous both in Italy and throughout theworld, she left her beloved hometown – the small villageof Ulassai in Olgiastra – in 1939 and moved to Romewhere she attended the Liceo Artistico and studied withMarino Mazzacurati. She later was the only woman atthe Sculpture course of Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice(1943-1945) where she trained under Arturo Martini.From the 1950s, her very personal artistic style, which shehad developed over decades after experimenting withthe art of painting, went through a research into sculp-ture that was driven by the impulse of experimentingwith new techniques and materials, and this eventuallyled the artist to create a different, original, soon to beiconic style. During the years of her full stylistic maturity,Lai eventually turned to avant-garde solutions with en-vironmental and relational installation and performanceart. The leitmotif in her works has always been a closeconnection with the traditions of Sardinia, which sheconstantly referred to without indulging in a self-ethno-graphic celebration, but rather by reinterpreting the cul-ture of materials and craftsmanship of the island with aneye to women’s everyday activities in agro-pastoral com-munities – from ceramic manufacturing to bread-mak-ing, from weaving to embroidery and sewing. It is in thesecommunities that the artist found traces of the existenceof another realm of meanings. Among the people she

was most associated with, the most noteworthy are Sar-dinian writers Salvatore Cambosu, who was her high-school Italian teacher, and Giuseppe Dessì, who inspiredsome of her most famous works: the Terrecotte, Telai,Libri, and Geografie series were all made with elementsretrieved from fairy tales, traditional oral folk tales, andeveryday-life stories transformed and dramatized in heraesthetic research. With their great pathos and visual im-pact, these series are the best specimen of her entire artis-tic production. One of her most recent and avant-gardeinterventions is the emblematic Legarsi alla montagna(Connecting with the mountains, 1981): by reinterpret-ing and updating a local myth, the artist decided to tiehouses and uplands in her hometown together using ablue, 20-kilometre long ribbon created by her fellow citi-zens from a single piece of fabric. This ribbon played as asymbol of the aggregating and redeeming power of art,and as a wish for a new harmony among men, and be-tween men and nature and landscapes. The connectionbetween Maria Lai and her hometown – where in the1990s the artist created several site-specific interventionslike La strada del rito (The Road of Rites, 1992), Le caprecucite (Sewn goats, 1992) and La scarpata (The cliff,1993) – is obvious and undeniable. Today Ulassai stillkeeps and treasures 150 of Maria Lai’s artworks, whichshe donated to Stazione dell'Arte, a museum establishedin 2006 in the premises of the local disused railway sta-tion and now dedicated to her.6

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H 505. MARIA LAI

6. For further information on Maria Lai: cf. Maria Lai. Ricucire il mon-do, catalogue of the exhibition curated by B. Casavecchia, L. Giusti,A.M. Montaldo (Cagliari, Musei Civici; Nuoro, Museo MAN; Ulassai,Stazione dell'Arte, 10 July-2 November 2014), Milano, Silvana Ed-

itoriale, 2015; M.D. PICCIAU, La ricerca della forma assoluta. Itineraridell'esperienza artistica di Maria Lai, Cagliari, Condaghes, 2014; M.LAI, Ansia d'infinito, edited by C. Di Giovanni, with double DVDcase, Cagliari, Condaghes, 2013; M. LAI, F. MENNA, S. TAGLIAGAMBE,

Ulassai. Da Legarsi alla montagna alla Stazione dell'arte,Cagliari, AD-Arte Duchamp, 2006; S. CAMBOSU, Mieleamaro: racconti dettati a Maria Lai, Cagliari, AD-ArteDuchamp, 2001. For further reference, please visit thewebsite dedicated to the artist and Museo Stazione del-l'Arte: www.stazionedellarte.it.

VINCENZO GROSSO, Filo conduttore (Common Thread),2014, mixed-media assemblage

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weaving process that she carried on during her lifeand artistic career, and soon after the end of her earth-ly, mortal interlude: almost ontologically inclined toslow-paced and patient works, but also “unravelled” atlast, and soaring in her definitive, most private and yetmost formidable flight. Fronteddu has undertaken anuneasy task by connecting with a contemporary artistwho, more than any other fellow Sardinian, hasachieved national and international success, andwhose critical interpretation now has to come toterms with her recent demise. In his attempt to pro-vide the concrete and accurate portrayal that MariaLai deserves, he shunned a simplistic idealizing repre-sentation, and resorted to an analogy with animals inwhat appears to be a symbolic, post mortem portrait.

On closer view, this is the reason why the incision thatcuts the silkworm cocoon lengthwise does not hintat abuse or injury. The straight line engraved by thesculptor is rather the clear proof of a passage, the signof an actual and final exit. The outcome of this cross-ing – which leaves a white exoskeleton behind, theresidual leftover of death – is the airspace of a distantflight in which the honoured artist can finally be free,now a bodiless woman–girl–insect, safe from any fu-ture betrayal or misunderstanding.

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SERGIO FRONTEDDU,Senza titolo

(Untitled), 2014hot glue sculpture

in silence, in a failure that is cried out without utteringany sound. Not even the reference to an ideal “dolls’house”, shielded from the threats of the outside world,seems to eclipse the inevitability of hypocricy, espe-cially if even the title chosen by the author brings tomind sinister details of a possible vintage postcard,conveniently sepia-coloured. And this is due to thefact that a surreal atmosphere can be similar to theatmosphere of a fairy tale, but the town onto whichthe real Nuoro transfers its appearance here can onlybe Hamelin, from the ambiguous German tale, a townthat is ungrateful and for this reason robbed of its chil-dren, naive souls seduced and charmed away by theflatteries of eternal Pied pipers.Pasquale Bassu decided to give his personal inter-pretation of the most typical topos of Francesca De-voto’s visual collection; with his linoleumgraphiesAngolo di riflessione and Dove entra la gente, Bossureinterpreted the “clichés” of indoor scenes and ofDevoto’s studio descriptions. However,he also responded to the apparent and comfortingquietness and undeniable bourgeois innuendo of fa-mous paintings like Tina nello studio di Via Cavour (Tinain the Studio at via Cavour, 1936), Ciccio nello studio diVia Cavour (Ciccio in the Studio at via Cavour, 1938) orTina al pianoforte (Tina at the piano, 1936) by providinga detailed description of two overtly chaotic parts ofthe old and abandoned building in Nuoro that Seunahas given new life to by turning it into a shared spacefor the members of the collective. In Angolo di rifles-sione the artist’s analytical look rests on the casuallystacked objects, and restores the emotional value thateveryday use brings to them: the basin used to washpaintbrushes in has the same dignity as a plunger,whereas empty beer bottles – indisputable proof of a

cheerful social gathering – need to be disposed of,along with the black garbage bag full of rubbish. Thesame happens in Dove entra la gentewhere manufac-tured products and finished artworks hanging on thewalls are in the way, as well as all the artists’ tools. Theyare the metaphor for a personal marking of the terri-tory when people live together and share life as wellas creative experiments, an unfettered realm in whichthe dustpan that is used to sweep dust into – and toclean and tidy up – must coexist with a wheelbarrowtemporarily parked next to the door. To the affectationof Devoto’s portrayals of interiors, decorated along theguiding decorating principles of the time, Bassu re-sponds by welcoming the viewer into the intimacy ofhis private studio/laboratory, without altering its de-scription with either stylistic or formal embellishments.The portion of bathroom and the corridor at the en-trance – especially the latter, in its function as a repre-sentative office – have not been cleaned from wastefor the occasion, but appear to visitors in all of theirmateriality, in an uncensored exhibitionism. Nonethe-less, despite all the differences in genres, contexts andpersonal lives, the lines carved by the artist still leadthe viewer to the Deco cocoon that Devoto liked tospend time in, to the golden circle that she, as an in-dependent woman, would regard as a precious spacefor a much sought-after freedom.On the other hand, Sergio Fronteddu’s composition Ilsilenzio della bambola is enigmatically obscure despitethe distinctive features of each part: in a sculpture-pho-tography composition, a fruit bowl made with hot glue(Natura morta) is admired with silent yet avid interestby a digital version of Ritratto di bambina, an artworkby another artist from Nuoro, the self-taught painterFrancesco Congiu Pes (Nuoro, 1861-Sassari, 1932).8

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Francesca Devoto (Nuoro, 1912-1989). Born into one ofthe wealthiest and most respected families of Nuoro,

she enjoyed a rare privilege for women of her times: study-ing in mainland Italy, Tuscany. When she went back toSardinia, thanks to a favourable economic situation, sheopened her own studio and, though still very young, man-aged to blend into the local artistic milieu, which wasmainly formed by men. In 1935, she successfully took partin an official exhibition in Nuoro, VI Mostra Sindacale, and,in 1936, she organized a solo exhibition with 60 of herworks at Galleria Palladino in Cagliari. Devoto was drawnless to regional trends and Sardinian folk traditions thanher colleagues. This radical difference, along with her ex-ceptional status as an artist, is the reason why her paint-ings have long and inaccurately been regarded as a mereexpression of a limited and superficial – if not contentedand self-referential – aesthetics for beauty. On the con-trary, Devoto’s choice to represent everyday momentsfrom her middle-class background was driven by the ideathat art is a personal take on the world and a profoundmeditation on life; a reflection that she decided to makeby painting portraits, interior views and still lives. Her stu-dio, which was decorated with Deco and modern styles,was one of the settings she favoured for her paintings:here, in their meticulous and photographic representa-tion, every single detail shows the artist’s status, as well asher favourite objects and amusements.7

Through a radical intervention of reset, GianniCasagrande brought the quietness of middle-class pri-vate rooms, which are a leitmotif in Francesca Devoto’soutput, back to basics. In the small-sized paintingHamelin there is no trace of life: in the untouched sit-ting room, which is on the whole anonymous despitethe contemporary design furniture, humans are total-ly absent, or every sign of their presence has been re-moved. The only elements of the scene are an arm-chair and a sofa, silently facing and content in theirlong shadows on the empty floor: theirs is an unreal-istic – yet the only possible – dialogue against a back-drop where not even the natural perspective, beyondthe big windows overlooking the empty space, offersthe viewer the comfort of human life with the coloursof far-off objects, skilfully kept at a distance. Betweenthe heavy and slightly pulled curtains, beyond thewide windows that are so typical of modern architec-ture, there are only empty spaces and living bodiesdissolving in the dusty, chalky light. The flat thatCasagrande paints with the dull and sand-like coloursnormally used by Devoto is somewhat hanging inspace and time, an elevated tunnel that has just beenfurnished and represents ever-present absences anddiscomforts. Like a still from one of Antonioni’s mov-ing pictures, this human-comedy set is modern andhip: only words are missing, after committing suicide

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H 506. FRANCESCA DEVOTO

7. For further information on Francesca Devoto: cf. G. ALTEA, M.MAGNANI, Pittura e scultura dal 1930 al 1960, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2000, pp.69-71, 108-109, 126, 142, 155, 157, 161; M.L. FRONGIA, "Un percorsodell'arte in Sardegna nel XX secolo", in MAN. Catalogo dellacollezione, Nuoro, MAN, 1998, pp. 107-111; Francesca Devoto, cat-

alogue of the exhibition (Nuoro, Galleria Comunale d'Arte, 1-24March 1996), Nuoro, Eikon, 1996. Special thanks to GiuseppinaCuccu for granting permission to consult her book Una calmaluce diffusa,which is about to be published.

8. This is a new take on Fronteddu’s intervention at Museo MANin Nuoro for the second stage of the project DNA. Caratteri ereditarie mutazioni genetiche (1 June-8 July 2012): at that time, while try-ing to find a synergy between the artworks of the permanent col-

lection of the museum and his own artistic research, Frontedduhad used Senza titolo as a link between Ritratto di bambinaby Con-giu Pes and a very modern painting by Devoto, e.g. the one por-traying the well-known cartoon character Mickey Mouse (1930s).

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To the various genre-painting subjects that are oftenportrayed in Devoto’s works, Fronteddu here re-sponds with a three-dimensional artwork: he “glazed”an apple, an orange, a banana, a (bitten) pear andtheir bowl with a coat of hot glue. The transience oflife is thus placed within the viewer’s line of sight, asthough in a transposition of a 16th-century still life:over time, fruits have slowly decomposed, and nowfeature black, sticky spots that can still be seen on thewavy plate. They have also left behind some emptyyet perfect shapes, entirely covered in a dark dust. Itis no coincidence that the print of Congiu Pes’ paint-ing is made with dark colours: its original colours onlyappear in the area – which the artist has underlinedwith a powerful cinematic iris – where the smallchild’s finger is pressed on her lips in an affected andmysterious pose. By titling the artwork Il silenzio dellabambola, Fronteddu casts a shadow of indecipher-ability on the slightly cutesy child’s portrait, so that itis not possible to assert if the little girl’s lingering ges-ture simply suggests a refrain from eating the ripefruits, or rather an invitation to recollection, silence,and meditation on life and art, in what appears to bea sort of reference in plain clothes to the little angelsthat recur in Medieval and baroque paintings andsculptures. The sculptor’s interpretation turns the al-luring apples in the bowl into empty, opaque, wrin-kled peels, in the final outcome of a bizarre vegetablemoult that is closed and sealed, trapped in a chemicaland biological perfection, artificial and natural, as wellas ever-changing. A sic transit gloria mundi that hasdragged – and will continue to drag – in the indiffer-ence of dust.

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SERGIO FRONTEDDU, Il silenzio della bambola(The Silence of the Doll),printed photograph;Natura morta (Still Life),hot glue sculpture, 2014

GIANNI CASAGRANDE,Hamelin, 2014

acrylic on canvas

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PASQUALE BASSU, Angolodi riflessione (Corner forMeditation), 2014linoleumgraphy

PASQUALE BASSU, Doveentra la gente (WherePeople Come In), 2014linoleumgraphy

Marisa Sannia (Iglesias, 1947-Cagliari, 2008). Beforepursuing her own personal research, which would

eventually lead her to interpret art music in the Sardinianlanguage, she was a great singer and was known to thegeneral public mainly for some blockbuster hits in the1960s and 1970s: Tutto o niente, Lo sappiamo noi due,Una cartolina, Sarai fiero di me, La compagnia. Also anathlete and radio disc jockey, Sannia used to perform livewith amateur bands and entered several singing com-petitions. Winning one of those competitions, the nation-al contest Rai per voci nuove, was the big break for her.After that, she signed a four-year contract with the Italianmusic label Fonit Cetra, and was discovered by Luis En-riquez Bacalov and Sergio Endrigo, who would both laterwrite various songs for her (along with Italian singer-songwriters Lucio Dalla, Roberto Vecchioni andFrancesco De Gregori, just to name a few). She wouldmaintain a close relationship with Bacalov and Endrigofor the rest of her life. Over the years, Sannia took part inItalian popular TV shows like Settevoci, Canzonissimaand Festivalbar; in 1968, she sang Casa biancawith Ital-ian singer Ornella Vanoni, and was ranked second at theItalian music contest Festival di Sanremo. She laterrecorded some songs for the original soundtracks ofPietro Germi’s and Dino Risi’s moving pictures, and ap-peared in theatre recitals and musicals alongside some

of the greatest actors and music bands of her times. Afterenjoying a period of great success and then taking sometime off from show business, the singer went back to theSardinian language and Sardinia – which she publiclyembodied the soul and post-World War II rebirth of – asa source of inspiration. In 1997, along with the Italianwriter Francesco Masala, she recorded Melagranàda, acollection of songs taken from Masala’s collection of po-ems Poesias in duas limbas. In 2003, the collectionNanas e janas was released featuring original lyrics andpreviously unreleased songs. This enlightened and suc-cessful research period was tragically interrupted by thesinger’s unexpected demise: Marisa Sannia died duringthe spring of 2008 of a sudden and serious illness. In thesummer of 2008, her native Island granted her the MariaCarta Award, a prize in honour of her great colleaguewho had passed away 14 years earlier and who, in 1995,Marisa Sannia had had the chance to replace in the the-atre show Memorie di Adriano. Ritratto di una vocestarring the acclaimed Italian actor Giorgio Albertazzi.9

Thanks to her musical success, the public also cameto appreciate Marisa Sannia’s beauty, and she beganto appear frequently in magazines and on TV pro-grammes, as well as to work as a model and spokes-woman in a wide range of TV commercials. The most

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H 507. MARISA SANNIA

9. For further information on Marisa Sannia: cf. M. SANNIA, Mela-granàda/ Marisa Sannia, lyrics by M. Sannia and F. Masala; CD edi-tion with booklet (M. LAI, Sul telaio delle janas. Le muse operosecome api dell'universo, Cagliari, AD-Arte Duchamp, 1997), Milano,

NAR, 1997; M. SANNIA, Sa oghe de su entu e de su mare, lyrics by A.Casula (Montanaru) adapted by M. Sannia and F. Masala; CD edi-tion with special box (linen cardboard box by Maria Lai, Nuoro,Ilisso, 1993), Sassari, Teknorecord, 1993.

iconic element of her body features, which werequite different from the usual, Mediterranean – andespecially Sardinian – beauty standards for women,was certainly her hairdo: an ash blond, straight bobwith volume, but still very neat in its cut, which shesported with a cheeky fringe. This type of haircut,which was very fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s(in Italy there were other famous women artists whosported the so-called “golden bob” in that period: forexample, singers Mina, Caterina Caselli, Raffaella Carràand Rita Pavone), made of Sannia a popular icon inItaly, as well as a brand new personification of the typ-ical Sardinian woman. However, it would be slightlysimplistic to comment on Casco non omologato, theartwork that Vincenzo Grosso created as his tributeto her, just associating it with her hairdo. Grossocombined golden threads of acrylic paint against awhite backdrop in order to create a kind of blondewig that is suspended in mid-air. Without underes-timating the values and messages that fashion andstyle choices have always conveyed, here the refer-ence to Maria Sannia’s “transgression” goes beyondher hairdo and aesthetic choice, which could ratherbe misinterpreted and regarded as the compliancewith a depersonalizing fashion trend. The “un-con-ventional” Sannia who Grosso refers to in his artworkis not the one who abandons the easily identifiablecultural and folk frills to take on the new standardsimposed by current fashion and show business, butrather the well-rounded artist in her brave versatility,in her avant-garde artistic streak, who is capable ofranging across several styles and successfully inter-preting the songs contained in the original sound-tracks of Walt Disney moving pictures (in the 1973album titled Marisa nel paese delle meraviglie) andFederico García Lorca’s verses (in her posthumousRosa de papel). And above all the artist who, after along time off away from show business, bravelymade a comeback and turned to her roots in an

original way, that is by choosing to transpose the20th-century Sardinian poetry into music and voice.A multifaceted spirit, Marisa Sannia liked the idea ofmixing different art forms, and was very close friendswith fellow Sardinian artist Maria Lai. In September2009, slightly more than a year after Sannia’s prema-ture death, Lai paid tribute to her with a special com-memorative event held in front of the museumStazione dell'Arte in Ulassai. The two artists hadworked together for Sannia’s comeback in the early1990s. To launch a new season of her career, in 1993,Sannia recorded her first album in the Sardinian lan-guage titled Sa oghe de su entu e de su mare, in whichshe sang Antioco Casula’s verses, a Logudorese poetof the early 20th century also known as Montanaru.The album, which won the Premio Silanus in 1994,had forged a special bond between music and mat-ter, a bond made of invisible notes and tangible weft,as Maria Lai took part in the production of the linencardboard box. It was not the usual cover in art paper,but rather a handicraft of cellulose and fabric con-ceived as a fusion of arts in which the poet’s verseswere handwritten and decorated with thread stitch-es. Vincenzo Grosso and Gianni Casagrande decidedto honour that collaboration and drew their inspira-tion from Lai’s visual code for their Non Vedo ma Sento– Sonata Sorda, a printed artwork the aim of whichwas to pay tribute to the famous singer from Iglesias.The numerous elements of altered readymade areassembled here to express the synaesthesia of aseemingly impossible music stemming from theforced dialogue between the embossed writing onsome pages for the visually impaired – and actuallysilent pages for the two artists – and the black musicalphabet impressed on piano sheet music of the Ger-man-tradition – which is also a silent melody for thevisually impaired or those who cannot play the piano.The outcome of this overlap is a thick theory of nails,which – with the same emotional tension of the iron

41

43

nails that Lai left exposed in Libri cuciti – painfully stickinto the braille syllables and leave blank spaces nextto the black notes printed on the staff. In what couldbe likened to a variation on metal and special paperof Lai’s visual imaginary, Grosso and Casagrande pro-duced a sense of intentional misunderstanding of ex-pressive codes and messages in order to create newmusic that will possibly be composed either by theviewer, or by anyone who has never heard MarisaSannia’s music. The aim is to remember her today byconnecting with her through the familiar artisticcode of a friend of hers, and through a piece of musicfor four – or more – hands, which was composed andcan be performed mentally.

42

GIANNI CASAGRANDE, VINCENZO GROSSO, Non Vedo ma Sento – Sonata Sorda (I Cannot See, But I Can Hear – DeafSonata), 2014, braille-printed paper,vintage sheet music, nails

VINCENZO GROSSO,Casco non omologato

(Non-certifiedHelmet), 2014

acrylic on paper

to split the audience into two with the solemnity ofa sacred icon, Maria Carta faces the audience andturns her back on the viewer in the synecdoche ofher long, straight, velvety hair. Pattusi avoided givinga predictable psychological portrayal of her beautifuland eloquent face, and preferred to linger on the au-dience at her concert: a mixed crowd made up ofpeople belonging to different age groups, who seemhappy and fascinated by their idol. It is perhaps a vi-sual reference to the unforgettable concert that drewthe whole town of Siligo in 1993, when, one year be-fore the artist’s death, the local municipality officiallyinvited her in a tribute to her extraordinary role as acultural ambassador. It is regrettable that the TV setis and remains silent. However, the artwork is provid-ed with a backlight that somehow turns the emptycast of the appliance into a block of ice, freezing thewarmth of the pretty black-and-white image in a vin-tage snapshot where all colours are deliberately leftto the viewer’s imagination and memory. Once againPattusi insists on Maria Carta’s international fame,achieved through the powerful means of televisionfirst and cinema after, with his sculpture Senza titolothat he created by placing recycled objects and ma-terials onto a wooden piece of second-hand furni-ture. However, this time the readymade front part ofa TV set – equipped with knobs and marbled withclots of dried colour – confirms the passage to Tech-nicolor, while the jump towards modernity remindsus of Maria Carta’s performances as an actress. Shewas friends with Pasolini and was widely respectedin the film industry. Moreover, she starred in severalmoving pictures by famous Italian directors Zeffirelliand Tornatore, Coppola and Rosi, Parodi and Cabid-du. She championed the cause of the progress of Sar-dinia and the broadening of its horizons, which even-tually led to the international spotlight beingfocussed on an island in full blossom thanks to theeconomic boom of that time.

The sleeve of the long-playing record Umbras, whichthe artist recorded in 1978 and is entirely dedicatedto folk songs and nursery rhymes, serves as a link be-tween the two TV sets. In the album cover, drawn byMario Convertino, a famous illustrator, a doll withblond hair is sitting on a very high chair. The precios-ity of her golden locks and candy rose blouse cannotconceal a sense of melancholic uneasiness, which isfurther emphasized by the loneliness of the anthro-pomorphic puppet and the long shadow of the chair.The object, in its readymade pureness, brings thesinger back to her origins, to her childhood, to a play-ful condition of free and spontaneous singing. In do-ing so, Pattusi tried to somehow save her from herdoomed destiny, and immortalized her as an eternalchild, a prodigious performer of an island, of musicand of a broader culture.

45

Maria Carta (Siligo, 1934-Roma, 1994). She wasborn to sing. A child from a modest family who

soon became fatherless, she tried to alleviate the fatigueof farm labour by singing songs and nursery rhymes,while also learning the Mass in Latin and the churchmusic that formed an integral part of her hometownparish celebrations. Growing up, she performed in pub-lic singing in town squares with Sardinian cantadoresduring local festivals. Her desire to redeem herselfthrough music, and her broader dream of rebirththrough art for Sardinia, and of a world where womencould shape their own future, came true when, in 1957,at the age of 23, she became popular for her strikingbeauty after being crowned Miss Sardegna. The follow-ing year she left for Rome and, in 1960, she married Sal-vatore Laurani, a screenwriter, with whom she wouldthen have her only child, David. She settled permanent-ly in Rome, where she recorded several hit albums, all inthe Sardinian language. She divided her time betweenAccademia di Santa Cecilia, where she pursued herartistic research, and her beloved Sardinia, where shecollected accounts of folk tunes from elderly people.Singing was a moral imperative for her, a real politicalmission that she has never concealed. This is probablythe reason why, although she frequently worked on A-list moving pictures, music has always been herfavourite form of art. Acclaimed throughout the world,

she was likened by many to some iconic and politicallyactive singer-songwriters such as the American JoanBaez and the Portuguese Amalia Rodriguez (who shewould duet with). Despite being diagnosed with an in-curable disease (which she did not hesitate to an-nounce publicly), she never stopped singing, perform-ing and teaching Anthropology at the Universities ofBologna and Sassari, both grateful and intimidated byher growing fame and numerous awards, prizes andhonours, such as the appointment as Commendatoredella Repubblica Italiana that she received in 1991 fromthe then President of the Italian Republic, fellow Sardin-ian Francesco Cossiga. Maria Carta eventually died inRome in 1994. She had expressed the wish to be buriedin Siligo, in her family grave at the small local cemetery,the perfect resting place for a great yet modest divawho was so proud of her origins.10

With their artwork TV Pattusi and Fronteddu have de-cided to emphasize Maria Carta’s media and publicside, along with the warm affection that her gratefuland respectful fans have always shown towards her.11

On the screen of an old, cathode-ray tube TV set, cre-ated by Fronteddu with a hot-glue cast, Pattusi por-trays the Sardinian singer in what was – and still is forpeople today – her ideal status: in direct contact withthe audience. At the centre of the screen, as though

44

H 508. MARIA CARTA

10. For further information on Maria Carta: cf. E. GARAU, MariaCarta, Cagliari, Edizioni della Torre, 1998. For further reference,please visit www.fondazionemariacarta.it.

11. Fronteddu and Pattusi have exhibited a collection of artworks

from a joint effort and a mix of their respective techniques in theexhibition True Lies, which was the first stage of their project FaceOff, at Museo MURATS (Museo Unico Regionale dell'Arte TessileSarda) in Samugheo (18 January-2 March 2014).

VINCENZO PATTUSI,Senza titolo

(Untitled), 2014readymade

VINCENZO PATTUSI,Senza titolo(Untitled), 2014assemblage withwood, readymade,acrylic paint andlight bulb

SERGIO FRONTEDDU,VINCENZO PATTUSI,

TV, 2014hot glue sculpturewith ballpoint pen

and charcoalpencil drawing

liveliness of its cultural milieu. However, she has al-ways been connected to her motherland by a per-sistent love-and-hate relationship. To Bassu the Sar-dinian novelist’s life experience is a paradigm that isstill valid today. Thus the complexity of this dynamicis resolved through the image of a bird cage that isillegitimately inhabited by flying pages. The object,which in its delicacy reveals the underlying selfish-ness of every forced adjustment, turns into ametaphor for Sardinia itself, into a scandal of its owncontradiction, of its being – even now for those whoare born here decades after her lately praised NobelPrize winner – a prison and a fortress, a springboardfor necessary departures and a magnet for inevitablecomebacks, a spur to the creation and a drive to(self )censorship. After all, the fragile look of the art-work, made of thin and flexible iron wire, does notconceal signs of violence and inner conflict. The yel-lowed book pages have been ripped from a vintagecopy of Ashes – a novel that was written by Deleddain 1904 and is the highest point of her existential pes-simism – in a sacrilegious act, and still bear the marksof the tearing process on the inner margins. They arealso piled one on top of the other, like a legacy ofwords that are exposed and ready to catch fire andturn to ash. Yet, there is a strong desire underlyingthe liberating act of violating the text and book-ob-ject, a desire to reconcile with the commonly accept-ed idea of inadequacy and yielding to a condition,along with the pledge to start a new style of writingthat is emancipated from the need of seeking refuge.This can be read as a desire for self-invasion.In an attempt to connect with the novelist’s work,and yet deviating from it, with Finestra temporale Bas-su tried to reproduce a talisman made of twine, can-vas and ash, and projects the viewer into a remoteworld: that of an ancient and eternal alternation ofseasons, the dull succession of life and death.Through the tool of literal quotes and an approachthat is similar to that of a theatre props buyer work-

ing on stage decoration, the artist recreated the ob-ject that the main character of Deledda’s Ashes, Olì,hands down to his son Anania with the recommen-dation to open it only after his death. The artist pre-sented the small wrapping, with its mysterious con-tent hidden in the jute, – nothing more than sootydust – in its sheer materiality: exposed in a specificcardboard box just before Anania can open it and bereminded – and remind the viewer – that embers ofa peaceful future can smoulder under the rich ashesof a burnt and indifferent past. The box, open like abook, is now a mysterious invitation to the viewer: aset prop, a literary memento mori, an embryo of hope,a visual summary of a stubbornly “fireproof” literarystyle, that of Deledda.With L'altra parte Bassu went back to his favourite arttechnique: he portrayed the façade of an old church,Nostra Signora delle Grazie, in a linoleumgraphy. Thepeople of Seuna hold this 17th-century monumentdear, and surely the Sardinian Nobel Prize winner heldit dear too, although she is now buried in another fa-mous church in Nuoro: Chiesa della Solitudine, at thefoot of mount Ortobene. Located just a few metersaway from the SEUNA LAB studio, the old Chiesa delleGrazie “vecchie” fell into disuse in the 1950s, and wasreplaced by a more imposing religious building, calledChiesa delle Grazie “nuove”, at the beginning of CorsoGaribaldi. After undergoing extensive renovations fora long time, the small church of Seuna is now openregularly and serves as a location for the gathering ofthe Orthodox Christian Church followers during themonthly visit of their leading Minister, the Pope. Bassudrew his inspiration from this historic symbol ofNuoro’s town centre for a graphic artwork of dramaticimpact. With a lowered point of view from the left-hand side that he borrowed from cinematography,he outlined the top of the building, the simple, curvedprofile of the central nave and the squared contourof the bell tower with few essential lines and withoutomitting the basic details of the small cross and the

49

Grazia Deledda (Nuoro, 1871-Rome, 1936). A self-taught, prolific, internationally-acclaimed novelist,

she is the only Italian woman to have been awarded theNobel Prize for Literature (1926). After spending her child-hood and youth on the island of Sardinia, where she per-fected her studies with a tutor and published her first writ-ings and stories in local and national magazines, shemarried Palmiro Madesani, a civil servant, (1900) – withwhom she had her two sons, Sardus and Franz – andmoved to Rome. The special bond she always had withher motherland is unmistakably clear in her prolific proseand theatrical output: from Elias Portolu (1903) to L'edera(The Ivy, 1908), from Cenere (1904; Ashes) to Colombi esparvieri (Doves and Falcons, 1912), from Canne al vento(1913; Reeds in the Wind) to L'incendio nell'oliveto (TheFire in the Olive Grove, 1918). A folklore-imbued Sardiniahas always been Deledda’s favourite background to herworks, where she set the clash between the most primor-dial impulses of human beings, drawing inspiration fromlocal news and myths, in a never-ending, unresolved con-flict – between good and evil, sin and atonement, guilt andfate – which emerges through a modern style that blendstraits of Italian Verismo (Realism) and Decadentism.12

The first of the three artworks dedicated to the Sar-dinian novelist by Pasquale Bassu puzzles the viewer

with a paradox and a query: why is a fake, iron-wirebird cage half-full of yellowed, crumpled paper pages,which have been ripped from an old book, a Preg-nable (Espugnabile) object? Why is this word – bor-rowed from the barbaric, military terminology – asso-ciated with such a frail, assailable and vulnerablehandicraft featuring a constraining essence of cage?The truth is that every single space or building actu-ally – patently – hides one or more frailties. Over thecenturies, historiography and chronicles have gottenreaders used to cyclic tales of fortresses, villages, re-gions and whole countries surrendering under thepower of conquering enemies and usurpers, to a con-stantly unsatisfied duress of fighting for possession.Similarly, literature has proven that the same dynam-ics can also apply to the human soul, and thus to theactions and life of fictional characters. Life, which isequally unresolved, shows that each and everyoneone of us is pregnable.Bassu seems to have moved from this acknowledg-ment and a meditation on the existential and artisticconsequences of a union between personal identityand Sardinian identity. The artist drew his inspirationfrom Deledda’s life events. She chose to live as an exilein the "promised city" of Rome, which she preferredto her hometown, Nuoro, because of the exciting

48

H 509. GRAZIA DELEDDA

12. All novels, stories and essays by Grazia Deledda have recentlybeen reprinted by Ilisso (Nuoro) and Il Maestrale (Nuoro). The lit-erature on the Sardinian author is quite vast. Cf. at least some ofthe most recent papers and historico-critical texts: D.D. LABAŠ,Grazia Deledda e la "piccola avanguardia romana", Roma, CarocciEditore, 2011; Chi ha paura di Grazia Deledda? Traduzione,ricezione, comparazione, edited by M. Farnetti, conference pro-

ceedings of the Convegno nazionale di studi of the Faculty of For-eign Languages and Literature, Università degli Studi di Sassari,24-26 October 2007, Roma, Iacobelli Editore, 2010; Grazia Deled-da e la solitudine del segreto, edited by M. Manotta and A.M.Morace, conference proceedings of the Convegno nazionale distudi of the Faculty of Language and Philosophy, Università degliStudi di Sassari, 10-12 October 2007, Nuoro, ISRE, 2010.

front, trachyte rose window. The black-ink print wasimpressed on a white, recycled canvas, probably acurtain or tablecloth, with a delicate decoration,which is all the more precious here as it is unexpected:a floral embroidery tone-on-tone. The sharp contrastsof colours seem to cover the proud face of the build-ing, which people often look at and remember fondly,with a majestic and primordial make-up. The churchfaçade, which stands out against a dark sky in all of itswhiteness under the bright, Mediterranean light – apossible sinister symbol of destiny and looming (bad)luck, as in literature – replies from above to the view-er’s puzzled gaze with the peaceful, mellow featuresof a familiar subject or of a Sphinx observing the hu-man fate while being sheltered by its own riddle. It isas if it was “the other side” of a building halfway be-tween the sacred and the urban, which here, alongwith a whole tradition, is once again to be discovered,decoded and interpreted.The triptych Senza titolo, which Vincenzo Pattusi ded-icated to the Sardinian Nobel Prize winner, is alsosomehow inspired by nature. While shelving thegloomiest themes of Deledda’s works, Pattusi chose totake his cue from the equally famous descriptions oflandscapes, the happy moments in which the au-thor’s idyllic and dreamy prose often hints at a desireto redeem herself existentially from a looming evil, ina leap towards the positivity of a life that is finally freefrom the anguish of guilt and perdition. It is a moremature Deledda that Pattusi has in mind, the one whogradually turned the rigid harshness and exclusive du-ality – inspired by the Old Testament and typical ofher debut as a writer – into the Christian virtue ofpietas, and who also managed to reconcile the con-trast between Verismo and lyricism through style, byputting into words the suggestions of a fairy-talespace-and-time atmosphere in which human eventsblend with and reflect nature’s events. Pattusi em-braced this animated and anthropomorphic view oflandscape, and thus portrayed on canvas a fantasy in

which air becomes earth and vice versa in a constantmetamorphose of shapes and colours, of which thepainter blocked the most visually accomplished mo-ments. Standing out against a sky that gradually goesfrom the darker shades of the night to the lightershades of the day, a whole forest – where tiny, folk-story creatures could live – can emerge from the gen-tle profile of pink clouds at dawn and sunset. We donot know if the green, wavy foliage – outlined againstthe matte black from the lowest corner of a smallerpainting – belongs to the fronds of a tree or a bush,or to the head of a character hiding in the woods, oreven to the temporary, emerald-green appearance ofsome lingering mist. However, it is not by merechance that Pattusi chose clouds, which are a lightand moving element, as the subject of the mainpainting of the polyptych. Here – with a cinematic-like effect of a saturated point of view shot, or of char-acter projection – the varying whiteness, which hasbeen slightly frozen in a woodland view, is meant toawaken memories of a young Deledda who, from thewindow of her house in the neighbourhood of SanPietro (now a museum dedicated to her), gazes at thehorizon – both natural and existential –, which is faraway but also interiorly transfigured and capable ofabsorbing and echoing the most intimate frames ofmind, i.e. future inner voices of paper heroes andheroines. Perhaps, this is the reason why the painterconcentrated the deepest meaning of this imaginaryjourney in the most abstract element of the triptych.Here, in the shades of brown that gradually go fromdarker to lighter in horizontal lines, viewers can findthe freedom of imagination and expression that istypical of “colour field” painting. Or else, they are nar-ratively projected forward and beyond, as thoughwith a sweeping pan that accelerates and garblestheir whole vision while shifting them forward in thestory or deeper into the characters’ psyche. Their gazewill finally land on their very personal contemplationof new landscapes, new sceneries, and new stories.

50

PASQUALE BASSU,Espugnabile(Pregnable), 2014iron-wire bird cage,printed pages

53

On the nextdouble spread:

VINCENZO PATTUSI,Senza titolo

(Untitled), 2014triptych – acrylic

on canvas

PASQUALE BASSU,Finestra temporale(Time Slot), 2014cardboard box,canvas, twine, ash

52

PASQUALE BASSU,L’altra parte (TheOther Side), 2014linoleumgraphyon embroidered

canvas

5554

Luisa Fancello (Dorgali, 1910-1982). Born into a largefamily from Dorgali, she suffered the loss of both par-

ents as a small child, and soon learnt the art of embroi-dery out of need. She was the sister of the more well-known Salvatore Fancello (Dorgali, 1916-Bregu Rapit,1941), a celebrated sculptor and potter. She married Si-mone Lai (Dorgali, 1907-Cagliari, 1984), who in the1930s established a pottery factory, “Lai Ceramiche”. To-gether they had one son (who died very young) and twodaughters: one of them, Caterina (Dorgali, 1945), wouldin turn become an artist and ceramist, as well as ateacher. A very smart, talented, and naturally self-reliantwoman, Luisa Fancello devoted her life to embroidery,well-aware that the results of her work would eventuallybring her not only financial, but above all and most im-portantly personal independence. Over the years, shemoved from manufacturing decorations for the shirts ofthe wealthiest families in her hometown to creating alarge number of shawls, embroidered with floral pat-terns, for all the women of Dorgali, who held her in highesteem and trusted her, and who she was always happyto please while remaining faithful to her passion for theart of embroidery and withstanding the emerging tradetechnologies for faster and cheaper production. She was

very close to her brother Salvatore, and, though illiterate,she entered into an intense correspondence with himasking for help to the local scribe. Luisa never acceptedhis sudden demise on the Albanian front, on 12 March1941, nor the fact that he was buried anonymously andfar away; on 31 March 1954, 13 years after his death, sherequested the relevant Italian Ministery to have his re-mains identified and returned to Dorgali. The zinc urncontaining the remains arrived to his hometown onlyeight years later; and on 3 April 1962, the whole townattended the burial ceremony of the young artist, in ageneral atmosphere of deep sorrow and emotion.13

With an inspired juxtaposition (Senza titolo) of vari-ous media – five black-and-white drawings, one vin-tage print, one painted canvas, one floral passe-menterie and one wooden box holding some threadspools –, Vincenzo Pattusi paid tribute to Luisa Fan-cello’s art of embroidery by drawing his inspirationfrom the familiar shapes and colours of Sardinian folkcostumes, and from scenes of everyday life and craft-work that have now become archetypal. Thus, theimage of faceless women with unmistakable folk cos-tumes and hair styles is the happy image of any

56

H 510. LUISA FANCELLO

13. For further information on the art of embroidery in Sardiniacf. I fiori nel tessuto e nel ricamo sardo, Sassari, Delfino Editore,1992. For further information on Sardinian folk costumes: cf. Cos-tumi. Storia, linguaggio e prospettive del vestire in Sardegna, Nuoro,Ilisso, 2003. For Sardinian pottery and ceramics: cf. Ceramiche.Storia, linguaggio e prospettive in Sardegna, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2007;

100 anni di ceramica. Le ricerche degli artisti, degli artigiani, dellepiccole industrie nella Sardegna del XX secolo, edited by A. Cuccu,Nuoro, Ilisso, 2000. For further information on Salvatore Fancello,Luisa Fancello’s brother, cf. A. CRESPI, Salvatore Fancello, Nuoro, Ilis-so, 2005; S. NAITZA, I. DELOGU, Salvatore Fancello, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1988.

bride-to-be of times gone by who prepared for herwedding by decorating her linen and dresses withprecious and propitious ornaments. But it is also the– more meditative – image of Fancello, in a feature-less portrait, intent on embroidering other people’sclothes while she waits for a letter from her brotherwho has left to study in a far-away country, or worsethe return of his remains, which have already beenburied in a war cemetery. Similarly, the solitary pro-files of the two shawls – suspended against a whitebackdrop and resembling insects displayed in a dis-play case – create a sculpted and artificial effect ofthe portrayed garments in the exact moments whenthe curves and tensions in the fabric reveal the pres-ence of the invisible models wearing them. The tri-angular piece of cloth is worn over the head andopens up to disclose an untouched back, as thoughto evoke a desire to fly; or it curls up like a cocoon,hanging down straight because of the multiple,heavy fringes, whereas the detail of the hand pickingup one edge of the shawl emerges from behind thecurve of cloth. Nature also provides the inspirationfor the decorations of the floral pattern and for thepiece of passementerie, which is the symbol of fin-ished handcrafted products, a sensual picot of redroses and golden ears of wheat. Even the vintagebotanical-themed print, illustrating a specimen ofMedicago Helix, shares the same decorating purposebecause the thorny sprouts, typical of the sponta-neous plant and easily attaching themselves to fab-rics, will eventually draw random three-dimensionalpatterns. Pattusi hints at the embroiders’ essentialtools by directly resorting to the immediacy of ready-made art. He aligned colourful thread spools in asmall wall case that, by extension, becomes a colourpalette and ends up incorporating the decorative-numerical detail of an “8”, the rotated symbol of anendless imagination. Also, more additional colours

expand and go from darker to lighter shades one in-to the other, like in a spectrogram, in the single smallcanvas of the readymade. Above everything, in theupper part of the artwork, the artist placed the sgraf-fito drawing of a thimble, a protective armour forevery embroider: here the enlarged image shows inturn a pitted, embossed surface, rich in complex dec-orations, while the enlargement gives the object anarchitectonic magnificence that likens it to a nuraghe,or a Babel full of fantasy patterns.The meaning of the Majolica Flowers (Fiori di maiolica)that Pasquale Bassu picked for Luisa Fancello blos-soms in a biographical and aesthetic cross-referenceto the life of the craftswoman from Dorgali. Two tri-angles of fabric, recalling the shape of the traditionalheadscarf worn by Sardinian women dressed in folkcostumes, bear the black stamps of several squaretiles, which are in turn decorated with natural and ab-stract patterns and laid out in close-packed groups oraccording to the cutting lines of the fabric. Thelinoleumgraphies are also a clear reference to Luisa’sexpertise in the art of embroidery, to her husband’sexpertise in sculpture and ceramics, as well as to herdaughter Caterina’s talent, but above all to that of herbeloved brother, Salvatore. In a visual oxymoron, Bas-su’s Fiori di maiolica resembles small decorated tiles,but unlike tiles – which are usually baked and thencoated with a transparent, resistant, polishing and wa-terproofing enamel –, they reveal all the fragile poros-ity of a drawing on canvas. At a closer look, the linesof the decorations show an atypical evolution of thedrawing process, a progress from the traditionalshape of petals and leaves to fantastic buds. However,the real alienating detail of this artwork does not liein the reinterpretation of techniques, materials andpatterns that belong to different realms of the appliedarts, but rather in the fact that the category of tilesthat the artist’s small tiles printed on fabric refer to is

57

completely unrelated to Sardinia’s handicraft tradition,being as it is inspired by Campania’s and Sicily’s tradi-tions. Bassu ended up entering into an imaginary di-alogue with the excellent handicraft skills of differentareas of Italy, and inserting references to extra-region-al traditions into a project that is only Sardinian at first.He thus adapted his favourite technique (linoleumg-

58

PASQUALE BASSU, Fiori di maiolica (MajolicaFlowers), 2014linoleumgraphy on canvas

raphy) to the purpose of conveying a personal,stylised vision of a post-modern idea of nature. The fi-nal outcome is quite close to a bold family portraitwhere the creative output of a range of generationsand material traditions come to life again – ideallyblended together – in a miscellaneous set of contem-porary lines, shapes and techniques.

6160

VINCENZO PATTUSI,Senza titolo

(Untitled), 2014pencil on paper,acrylic on canvas,

readymade

The Coroneo sisters: Giuseppina (Cagliari, 1896-1978)and Albina (Cagliari, 1898-1994). Their father was a

retailer from the Sardinian town of Cagliari, and they suc-ceeded in turning the creative charms of their father’shaberdashery and antiques shop into colourful collages(of thread, passementerie and panno Lenci®) and pup-pets made from recycled materials (papier mâché, wood,iron wire, straw, remnants of fabric). The Italian architectGio Ponti, along with Eugenio Tavolara and UbaldoBadas – who promoted the boost of Sardinia’s handicraftin the second half of the 20th century in a scenario ofwidespread revival and rehabilitation of folk art – wereamong their most enthusiastic supporters. The two sis-ters were completely self-taught, but nonetheless alwayslived on the fringes of the then-blossoming “art world”,as they preferred to work in full autonomy and obey afreedom of expression that was immune from fashionand market influences. The sophisticated Deco illustra-tions, created mainly by Albina and published on chil-dren’s and women’s magazines; the small scenes withstylised women in traditional costumes; the nearly ex-pressionist puppets created mainly by Giuseppina: theyall merge into a collection of “pure” works that were cre-ated in the almost complete indifference of the generalpublic, and were either jealously guarded or given as agift to someone who could understand and appreciatetheir inner, humanistic meaning.14

In Vincenzo Pattusi’s vision (Senza titolo), the Coroneosisters go back to being children again, back to thelightheartedness of childhood, to the free uncon-sciousness of the creative experiments at the very be-ginning of their art career. Laid down on a late 19th-century sewing machine – a readymade where theheavy body of the machine is just barely softened bythe faded floral decorations –, Albina’s and Giusep-pina’s silhouettes somehow materialize and take thefamiliar form of embroidery on panno Lenci® and of acollage of thread, coloured papiers and wallpaper. Pat-tusi chose to create a mixed composition, playfullyrhetoric, and gave life to a patchwork of metaphoricsuggestions, along with visual synecdoches andsynesthesiae. Bearing in mind the so-called “dolls hos-pital” – a tiny room in the two sisters’ house wheretheir father Attilio used to “treat” old dolls in bad shape–, the artist turned them into dolls too, and for bothof them he imagined small two-dimensional bodiesmade up of remnants of fabric or just briefly outlinedwith a few stitches of white thread on a red cloth. Atease among small pieces of the floral passementeriethat is used in Sardinian folk costumes and that Pattusilaid down as an inventory of the tools available foruse, the Coroneo sisters smile happily and unawarelyin the form of dolls, with their eyes closed. They seemto be perfectly comfortable in the comforting realm

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H 601. CORONEO

14. For further information on the Coroneo sisters, cf. V. SGARBI,M. PERI, Coroneo. L'opera di due sorelle artiste-artigiane, Nuoro, Ilis-

so, 2009; G. ALTEA, M. MAGNANI, Pittura e scultura dal 1930 al 1960,Nuoro, Ilisso, 2000, pp. 266, 271.

of a vintage comic strip, which does not deliberatelyforeshadow any of the future dramatic events that fol-lowed the outbreak of World War II and that wouldhave serious repercussions on the evolution of theiractivity. Everything is suspended in the quiet inno-cence of a past that has been further sugar-coated bymemory. Thus also the needle rising from the red fab-ric that remained after having sewn the distinct pro-files and features of the two handicraft artists is ap-parently prevented from stinging.With his Proviamo così, Stefano Marongiu also mimicsthe two sisters’ first handcrafted products in style andmaterials, while referring both in its title and in its pur-pose to a later work by Giuseppina, a stand-alonepuppet with a surreal and carnivalesque look datingback to the early 1970s, and portraying a man whocarries his head under his arm after having replaced itwith a watermelon. By blending remnants of colouredpanno Lenci® with scraps of cardboard coasters,Marongiu split up a template-scene of Coroneo’s ear-ly period, and then isolated its ideal basic elementsinto three round embroidery hoops. In one hoop heportrayed the subject of a well-known and recurringcollage, Profilo femminile con cuffietta di Desulo(Woman’s Profile with Desulo Bonnet, 1920s-1930s);in another, smaller hoop he isolated the tiny vasewith a thorny plant in the hands of the even morewell-known Fanciulla con fico d'India (Girl with PricklyPear, 1930s); in a third and final hoop he emphasizedwhat he thinks is once again a basic element, a mod-ular shape of a recycled object, a paper pixel: theprinted coaster. Marongiu took the action performedby the character in one of Giuseppina’s latest cre-ations literally. Her creation portrays a puppet thatchanges his head and face to replace his old, run-down features with a brightly coloured watermeloncarved like a Halloween pumpkin to create a largesmile. And Marongiu replaced the tiny woman’s pink-ish ruddiness with a satellite map, as though to con-

vey once again a sense of a wavering and uncertainbelonging to a local community and culture.With his Volo strumentaleGianni Casagrande travelledthrough time, caressing with his fingers the scars thatwar left in the lives and careers of the Coroneo sisters.The small paper sculpture becomes a metaphor linebeyond which a probe can be launched into the ma-terial and psychological void provoked by World WarII, in order to assess the chances of survival of mankindand art after all peace coordinates have been lost. Byfolding some dress patterns – a clear reference to Al-bina’s and Giuseppina’s textile aesthetics essence – inmultiple ways, Casagrande created a geometric ob-ject with an almost architectonic look, a sort of brokenand stage-less miniature theatre, or a wrecked house,ravaged by bombings, whose walls, floors and foun-dations have all collapsed. The polygonal origami,which stands on three sides only and is thus markedby a structural default, carries the symbolic prophecyof a potential, future reconstruction, a prophecy thatcoincides with the solid and dotted lines of the dresspattern. With light pictorial touches, the artist turnedthe direction arrows on the dress pattern into blackbeaks of swallows, as though to hint at the possibilityof new flights and a new existential and artistic spring.Casagrande seems to suggest the idea that as a pilotcannot take off without the necessary flight instru-ments, both at peace and at war, so art cannot soarbeyond the boundaries of the present without idealconditions. However, we do not know what the bestbackground for it is. The viewer will decide whetherthe swallows are looking forward to flying away, be-yond the thin ceiling, or if – given the general chaosand the lack of set directions or safe coordinates –they have finally found their ideal destination and themost favourable air currents for their wings in theirconstant migrations.With Guardaroba per figura a riposo, Vincenzo Gros -so chose to reinterpret the miniature world of the

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separated or if he has simply been abandoned, if heis guilty or not of the end of his love story, if he is suit-able or unsuitable for the difficult role of parent. Heleans forward in an impulse that shows an authenticemotional involvement, which is absent in the othercharacters. The only support he can count on is thatof a cat and a dog, domesticated surrogates of othermissing companions, which keep him company in ashared condition of weakness and vulnerability.The pathosof the characters that Giuseppina Coroneochose to depict in their material and existential soli-tude seems to be further expanded in the variousscenes of couples or groups. The gathering of alco-holic outcasts in a group scene like La bettola (TheTavern) does nothing but amplify, through the sumof the individual despairs, the discomfort of other out-casts, like the intellectually disabled – who in L'idiota(The idiot) has been abandoned to his demons – andthe prostitute – who in La peccatrice (The Sinner) isreinterpreted in a faded and tardily regretful way. Therepresentations of brides/grooms and lovers seemeven more loaded with human compassion, and theystill continue to impress the viewer with their poeticbluntness: from the older one in Arrivo in due (DoubleArrival) to the younger one in Figure (Figures). And itis to the latter couple in the bloom of youth, whichappears so rundown and scarred by war, that SergioFronteddu dedicated a tiny, delicate artwork, a Casket(Scrigno) full of money and potential “wonderfulthings”, the same things that the Coroneo sisters heldso dear at the beginning of their careers. The artistimagined to ideally give them to the two sisters, whoare in turn evoked by the black paint mark left on thewall with a stencil reproducing the lines of a hug. Forthis double, ancient, almost archetypical figure, heldtogether by an immortal feeling, Fronteddu preparesa small chest brimming with coins, which is very sim-ilar to those handed down over time by the imaginaryof fairy-tale and pirate stories, but which has been cre-

ated by using a simple technique of recycled papiermâché in a tribute to the material that Giuseppinaused for puppets in her latest period. Resting on awooden base – which somehow reminds one of theshape of a heart – and secured to it by a layer of hotglue – the transparent binding of good omen –, thesmall treasure-toy represents the precious auspice ofa future union between love and well-being. The twolovers, hugging tightly, seem to look away from thatsmall fortune, while the contrast between the hand-crafted look of the miniature casket and the contem-porary street look of the profiles on the wall – whichare slightly blurred projections dripping onto the con-tours like holograms that are ready to vanish into thinair – brings the viewer back to a more contemporary,urban modernity.

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puppets created by Giuseppina after World War II, re-placing the “anthropomorphic fauna” of an unrecog-nizable town of Cagliari with a synecdochical and inabsentia commemoration of the working class ofNuoro during the years of post-war reconstruction.Hung in a corner, guests will find a pair of worn-outtrousers, a shabby jacket, a very old, torn, moth-eatensweater, a loose flat cap and a ragged leather belt:few basic clothing items, clearly the last ones thatwere used by the character that the artist refers tohere, the member of an urban working class that hasnever forgotten to work on local land. Civilian andworking clothes here are favoured over any otheruniform. The tired worker takes his dirty clothes offas a normal guest of the apartment hotel would, asthough Grosso thought to offer him all the comfortsof a pleasant and unexpected stay. And to remind re-al guests of the dramatic events of an only decep-tively distant past, as well as of the forced courage ofthose who had to live those events, the artist insertedan additional element: a small heather broom care-fully hung next to the clothes. The broom immedi-ately brings to mind Lo spazzino (The Street Sweep-er), the character that Giuseppina elected as aparadigm of her times and portrayed in several pup-pets to pay tribute to this respectable, useful worker,relegated to the margins of society. Exactly likeGiuseppina, who preferred to portray him in hisbreaks, laying on the ground and hugging thebroom as if it was his lover, Grosso depicted him in amoment of inactivity and well-deserved rest. Theworn-out, life-size readymade – that is both evoca-tive and ghostly– manages to convey a sense of top-ical, current themes when the clothes of yesterday’sstreet sweeper make room for the clothes of today’swaste collector – a role that has been dignified bythe allegedly civilized progress of recycling –, and al-so of miners, factory workers, or graduates, peoplewho are often forced into a “break” by a society that

is facing a crisis of overproduction, and are com-pelled to deal with the disposal of a totally differentkind of bulky waste.Giuseppina Coroneo’s puppets also provide the in-spiration for Pasquale Bassu’s collection of tiny silhou-ettes in iron wire and remnants of fabric. La famigliaaims to be, from its title, a critical yet heartfelt repre-sentation of the contemporary comédie humaine. Toimpoverished nobles, unrefined bourgeois, war vet-erans and poor people further impoverished by thetragedy of war, the artist responds with few, quintes-sential figurines, symbolizing the sheer drama of thepresent: the quest for a material well-being that is un-balanced due to the gradual loss of romantic and so-cial cohabitation values. Despite its name, Bassu’sfamily group has in fact no strong and firm bond: itis a scattered, floating, suspended humankind that isvulnerable to the slightest puff of air, fake in its masks,and easily subduable in its tangled, iron-wire souls.For this reason, no figurine can readily be identifiedwith a set role, but rather all of them are dressed withnonmatching clothes. Males are depicted in randomposes that express excitement, provocation or threat.Their figurines blend miscellaneous or masqueradeelements, and thus a basic jeans jacket is matchedwith a cowboy hat, and a cowboy gun-belt with apair of Texan boots; a leather waistcoat with a redbandanna; a pirate coat with a pair of trousers deco-rated with psychedelic prints. Even the single, slim,feminine silhouette is wearing a dress that soon ap-pears to be inappropriate: a simple, black sheathdress that conveys the dignified composure ofmourning rather than a graceful and timeless ele-gance. And it is actually the feminine side that thefigurine of Ragazzo padre (Young Single Father) ismissing in its display of implicit denial: it is possiblythe most desperate character among Bassu’s fig-urines. The young man is sitting with his son on hisknees, and it does not really matter if he is divorced,

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VINCENZO GROSSO,Guardaroba perfigura a riposo(Wardrobe forResting Figure), 2014readymade with oldclothes and heatherbroom

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SERGIO FRONTEDDU,Scrigno (Casket), 2014stencil on MDF withpapier mâché andhot glue sculpture

PASQUALE BASSU,La famiglia (TheFamily), 2014iron-wire andfabric puppets

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VINCENZO PATTUSI, Senzatitolo (Untitled), 2014readymade, collage of coloured paper,embroidery on pannoLenci®

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STEFANO MARONGIU,Proviamo così (Let’s

Try This), 2014mixed-media collage,embroidery hoops

GIANNI CASAGRANDE,Volo strumentale(Instrument Flight),2014, india ink ondress pattern,mounted

Vincenzo Grosso

Vincenzo Grosso was born in 1977 inNuoro, where he got his diploma in

Gold Jewellery from the local Istitutod'Arte. After getting his degree from Ac-cademia di Belle Arti in Florence, hequalified as a Painting teacher and laterworked both as an artist and a teacher.In 2010, Grosso moved to Berlin, wherehe worked with XLAB Gallery and BBKKünstlerhaus Bethanien, while takingan interest in post-World War II archi-tecture and focussing on the influenceof man on landscape. He currently livesand works in Nuoro and Berlin, and hisworks have been exhibited in severalexhibitions. In 2011, Grosso won thethird MAN_Gasworks Award, and con-sequently lived and worked in Londonfor some months. He was among theSardinian artists exhibiting their worksat Museo Masedu in Sassari for the54th International Art Exhibition organ-ized by La Biennale di Venezia. He is alsoone of the artists chosen by APT (ArtistPension Trust) for its Global Collection.

Stefano Marongiu

Stefano Marongiu was born in 1977in Nuoro, where he got his diplo-

ma from the local Istituto d'Arte. He lat-er got his degree in Decoration fromAccademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Backin Sardinia, Marongiu currently com-bines his artistic work with teaching,as he organizes workshops on creativerecycling and graffiti. Recycled mate-rials and a style that vaguely echoesurban street art are the main featuresof his most recent art production, inwhich his research on the identity ofplaces and people blends with thecontrol frenzy implied in today’s hy-per-connected society. Besides ex-hibiting his works in exhibitions inItaly, in 2007 Marongiu worked on thecinematography of Sonetaula, a movieby Sardinian director Salvatore Mereu.He currently lives and works in Nuoro.

Vincenzo Pattusi

Vincenzo Pattusi was born in Nuoroin 1978. He began painting as a self-

taught painter while studying for his Ba-chelor of Arts degree in Pisa, and later forhis master degree in Conservation andRestoration of Cultural Heritage. Fasci-nated by street art, he aims his visual re-search at an overt and evocative graphicdesign and uses the pseudonym “Ludo1948”. Besides paintings on canvas, hecreates public and site-specific artworks.The art installation Faraway so Close forthe Olbia-Costa Smeralda Airport (2011)and a mosaic made of 30,000 used cre-dit cards for the headquarters of Bancodi Sassari (2013) are some of his mostrecent artworks. His works have beenexhibited in Italy and abroad. Represen-ted by Galleria LEM of Sassari since2009, Pattusi was among the Sardinianartists exhibiting their works at MuseoMasedu in Sassari within the 54th Inter-national Art Exhibition organized by LaBiennale di Venezia in 2011. He currentlylives and works in Nuoro.

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Pasquale Bassu

Pasquale Bassu was born in Nuoroin 1979, and has been a self-taught

artist since 2006, when he first ap-proached the art of engraving. After hisfirst experiments in Sardinia as a mem-ber of the SEUNA LAB collective, Bassufurther explored the art of engravingin Germany. Back in Nuoro, where hecurrently lives and works, he pursuedhis research in the domain of graphicarts and linoleumgraphy, mainly focus-ing on the subject of paper money.Meanwhile, he carries on an ongoingcritical analysis of the added value ofmoney resulting from the complexityof the drawing, printing and standard-ized reprinting processes. His works, al-ways centred on contemporary politi-cal and social issues, have beenexhibited in a variety of solo and groupexhibitions both in Sardinia and in therest of Italy, and are also part of publicand private collections.

Gianni Casagrande

Gianni Casagrande was born in1963 in Nuoro, where he currently

lives and works. An eclectic and entirelyself-taught artist, since 2006 he has de-voted himself to the art of small- andmedium-sized paintings after some at-tempts to write fiction, movie scriptsand song lyrics. His paintings combinea meticulous attention to detail withthe representations of a fascinating,vigorous and surreal imagination. Hisworks have appeared in a variety of so-lo and group exhibitions in the mostimportant exhibition centres of Sar-dinia: Museo Murats (in Samugheo),Pinacoteca Carlo Contini (in Oristano),Museo Tribu (in Nuoro), Museo MAN(in Nuoro). In 2011, Casagrande wasamong the Sardinian artists who werechosen to exhibit their works at MuseoMasedu in Sassari for the 54th Interna-tional Art Exhibition organized by La Bi-ennale di Venezia.

Sergio Fronteddu

Sergio Fronteddu was born in 1982in Nuoro, where he graduated from

the local Istituto d'Arte before earninghis degree in Sculpture at Accademiadi Belle Arti in Sassari. Through his re-search, Fronteddu aims to recreate theshapes and casts of everyday objectswith uncommon materials, like soapand hot glue. The viewer is invited tointeract with his artworks, which are of-ten abandoned in unconventional set-tings, through a sensory approach thatstimulates new perceptions of every-day life and contemporary art as awhole. Fronteddu is also currently in-volved in various design and creativerecycling projects. His works have ap-peared in solo and group exhibitionsin Sardinia as well as in the rest of Italy,and he has won several awards andprizes, among which Premio Total Art(COM.FUSION) in 2010, and Premio cre-atività Ponti non muri in 2009. He cur-rently lives and works in Nuoro.

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The Artists

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Cecilia Mariani

Cecilia Mariana was born in Nuoroin 1983, and got her degree in Ital-

ian Cinema and Literature History andCriticism in Sassari with a text that wasawarded the Premio Fernaldo di Gi-ammatteo. After specializing in Mod-ern Philology with a dissertation onHistory of Theatre and Entertainment,Mariani focused her Ph.D. in Contem-porary Art History on the connectionsbetween aesthetics and food from1980 to today. She has mounted sev-eral exhibitions in Sardinia, and her artand history criticism texts have ap-peared in a wide range of catalogues,publishing projects, as well as on thepages of the newspaper Sardegna 24.With Ilisso she published the essayTavolara critico d'arte in Eugenio Ta vo -la ra. Il mondo magico (2012). Besidesworking with www.criticaletteraria.org,a cultural blog, Mariani was awarded ascholarship by Fondazione “G.A. Sulas”in 2015. She currently lives and worksin Nuoro.

Nelly Dietzel

Nelly Dietzel has been working inSardinia for a decade now, and

currently resides in Nuoro after livingin Brazil (Jundiai, Sao Paulo), Spain (Va-lencia) and Argentina (Puerto Madryn),where she was born. Dietzel has beenworking in graphic arts for over 20years now, specializing in publishing,while also working as a photographer.Her photographs have appeared in awide range of exhibitions (Vietri a Bitti,Laboratorio Terrapintada, 2008; Mone-da, “Guardarsi l’ombelico”, MAN, Nuoro,2011; Che a sa manu de Deus, Acquario,Cala Gonone, 2012; Il denaro tra rito,leggenda e quotidianità, DeutscheBank, Nuoro, 2013; Il Pesce d’Oro, TeatroCivico di Cagliari, 2013) and variouspublications. Dietzel has worked withIlisso Edizioni from 2004 to 2012. Allthe photographs in Piante medicinaliin Sardegna (2009), Vino in Sardegna(2010), Dolci tradizionali in Sardegna(2011), published by Ilisso Edizioni,were taken by her.

The authors