(for a major exhibit, then suspended, to be held in Turin in 1998)
The graphic designer's work has become very complicated to the point that it can be said that, like the director, he doesn't do everything himself. It puts us in front of different skills and respective levels (from creative to technical) that must be able to collaborate.
I would not like you to think immediately at the computer, which is now essential. It is not possible to avoid the issue of relations with technologies which also means collaboration of different skills. This is not in contradiction with the fact that, at least in my work, a large part, the material execution, is not just graphic. Often I really need to build objects, which implies the knowledge of materials and procedures. Sometimes I start from the sign I get on a linoleum, but also that I engrave on lead plates to make tiles. The research on the quality of the sign has a central place in my work. There are many differences between thickness and grain. The black of the design is different from the black of the toner and this rather than lead to a replacement must stimulate and take advantage of the differences.
It seems to me that it is this research attitude that also enhances traditional techniques that characterizes you in a very precise way.
Of course, one must know all the strategies to obtain the diversity of the sign, so that it imposes itself, in varying, as a particular style. From the graphic sign I go towards the carving sign and towards the engraving sign. And I'm fascinated by the design and the scenography. As for the latter, what else does the graphic designer do if not staging images from which the utmost communicative power is promised?
It is not a bit stretched, speaking of style, to say that we are in the field of art, of an enlarged art. In your case you are dealing with art both as a graphic designer and independently.
The graphic designer, like any other artist, whatever the medium through which he uses, is in the contemporary, in the habitual. And this is what assigns him a client, that is, it pushes him to find certain shapes, to concentrate in a single image or to put them in sequence. So he gives life to symbols with a particular awareness. I am not speaking in general, I am referring to myself. Beyond professional practice, I feel the need to visualize my world. There is no doubling: my world is the matrix from which I draw both for professional clients and for my "free" activity as an artist.
I know that it can be said about art in general, but in your work I see the magic of transformation very evident. Perhaps transformation is a stronger, heavier term of creation.
Actually I need to start from particular things, which at times also seem distant from what I intend to arrive at. But then I realize that these things are essential to give the character of necessity, and therefore of a well-rooted symbol, to what I can do. I need to use my hands, to cut, to engrave, to assemble. These are not purely technical-manual operations because they involve a conception of life.
This is also for me the point that has a central position. The graphic designer, like the artist, cannot rely entirely on skill. He must have things to say, be pressed by the need to say them: to have a world that projects itself on things, on events and on every type of image to be transformed.
The graphic designer, as I intend it, participates in the vitality of problems, contents, solutions: you can feel the charm of the great myths (for example Pandora's box) and also common things that may hide deep symbols (for example, the slingshot that challenges the power with its toy simplicity). If I have to do the cover of a book I have to know it thoroughly to give the meaning, with the graphic medium, of my interpretation.
Art has always used the technologies available but according to its own purposes, so without any lowering of creativity, on the contrary, it had the opportunity to follow previously closed roads. Advanced technologies substantially modify not only the production process but also the conception, its developments and the quality of the product.
The computer is a powerful new opportunity and you need to know how to take advantage. There is no reason, using the computer to dematerialize, so to speak, the entire process, completely neglecting, for example, the characteristics of the paper support, and the contribution they can make to the effectiveness of an image. There is also no reason not to make the relationship between the graphic designer and the typography collaborative. Of course, the computer is a tool with a power and versatility that has never been so great. But the protagonist remains the individual (or the team) who recognizes the new opportunities and uses them for the benefit of a higher degree of research effectiveness.
You speak of self-commissioning, the one that leads you to look around, to keep a diary of signs that grows and changes with the work.
As I recently wrote, the diary of signs consists in "visualizing concepts, places, links, pieces of history, daily reading of the newspaper, talking to people, the need to make certain objects visible"...
Unsuspected artists like Kandinsky and Mondrian have a positive concept of function: it is stimulating instead of producing a decline for utilitarian reasons. Two great artists therefore on the side of graphic designers, not to mention the many artists who were revolutionary graphic designers such as, for example, Schlemmer, Moholy Nagy, Rodcenko, El Lisitskij
The graphic designer is a multimedia communication expert and has the problem of helping to improve communication as widely as possible. It is not a question of anaesthetizing communication but of giving it forms and structures that allow it to achieve its goals, eliminating the disturbing elements. Scripts and images that refer to common everyday things must also be taken care of. Therefore the first problem is ordinary communication in different situations to favour understanding and relationships instead of misunderstandings and unfamiliarity.
In what you say I see implicit a concept that has always interested me very much, that of widespread beauty. Beauty should not be reserved for works of art segregated in museums but must be mixed with the common things of life such as a beautiful day, the colours of the flowers, the pleasantness and comfort of street decor …
This is one of the fundamental objectives to which I try to be faithful. It is something that can be understood if you understand the graphic designer's way of working. If we do not formalize ourselves on words but consider the technical and creative qualities or, as you say, the processes of transformation of experiences, always giving great importance to a good knowledge of materials and tools, the competence expands without knowing how far it will go. . It expands by taking on new responsibilities.