Words

If painters had not filled their works with words rather than colours over the last century, verbal communication would probably have no future. Instead, a visit to a biennial or any other art exhibition immediately reveals that the lesson of visual poetry (in its various conceptual forms) has been thoroughly assimilated. There is not an artist today who does not feel the need to include a vagrant comma, a melancholy vowel or a phrase – preferably in basic English – in his work. In the more sophisticated cases we may find a verse by Hölderlin (if the painter is from a German-speaking country) or Pushkin (if the artist hails from Siberia). It is a question of an irresistible nostalgia for the word that even writers are no longer able to satisfy in a society where information and the words that convey it are literally reduced to an indistinguishable pulp. But it could also be a means of diversifying the pictorial, and primarily digital, images that all seem to look the same the world over, while at the same time creating a  depressing paradox, namely that “languages” are basically reduced to one: English as it is spoken in Honduras and Korea, Sardinia and Sicily, in the underground or the corner café. And this brings us back to square one: the absolute uniformity of the world and art. 

All this must not have gone unnoticed by Alberto Orioli, who works with words, seeing that he’s a journalist. How can we communicate properly with others when every word seems as flat as a dead battery? The problem is always the same, but it can be shared. 

In this case there are two paths that can be followed. The first is to further deprive words of meaning by reducing them to syllables, parentheses and sublime intentions to be consigned to the emptiness of a blank page (as in Mallarmé). Until they erase themselves. 

The second is to opt for a cloying verbosity that is as unpalatable as an over-rich dessert (as in D’Annunzio). Until the words, once again, erase themselves. 

I would say that Orioli has created an artistic style that is a strange mixture of Mallarmé and D’Annunzio. And his gamble has paid off. On close examination, in fact, the pared down words he uses in his collages are not so far removed from Mallarméan emptiness. They are “desemanticized” words, as the artist himself admits. The emptiness is simply sensed rather than seen, since he conceals it in simulacra that may even be over-elaborate, which reveal the impossibility of silence – and solitude – existing in an era that obsessively gathers us together to separate us better – and make us feel more alone. 

Alone and trapped in a vicious circle that could prove deadly if the artist himself did not offer us a means of escape. When words no longer speak, the collage is combined with bold colours like yellow and red, or certain intense and vigorous blacks. So we really become part of the game, literally rising to the bait of one of the fishing hooks that Alberto scatters liberally through his works. Not to mention the tiny mousetraps that, like the hooks, are placed here and there, who knows with what malicious or strategic intent? But with a clever touch: the bait in these traps is not the usual chunk of cheese, but shreds of newspaper with traces of words that are impossible to decipher. They seem almost to echo all the chatter that envelops us, like poor mice catapulted into a time and space that we hardly recognize as our own,

I don’t know if Orioli is religious, since his work is thoroughly secular and worldly. Yet his crown of nails reminds me of a certain crown of thorns ...

Caught between a Babel of languages and the advent of a Pentecost that is always announced and postponed, the artist apparently does not take a stand. Or takes the only one possible for someone who seeks in his imagination a path that will free him from the confines of the world and history. The freedom to believe, the hope that sooner or later words will caress and no longer threaten. 

In making this modest tribute, I would like to add that the traditional collage technique – a predigital technique par excellence – is perfectly suited to Orioli’s works, since it is the one that poets and painters invented together in the early decades of the 20th century. It is therefore only right that Orioli should resign himself to being called, first and foremost, a poet of the head and heart. And secondly an artist or creator, even though “doing things with your hands”, as he admits, gratifies him and fills him with joy. A joy that is contagious. Thank you, poet, thank you! 

Vita di carta, per antonomasia, è quella del giornalista. E oggi che la carta, già minacciata dalle onde radiofoniche e televisive, è strattonata (definitivamente? Nonostante tutto, credo di no) dai bit, essa resta comunque un buon simbolo per rappresentare la figura del giornalista, il cui prodotto, ossia la notizia, quale che sia il supporto al quale si appoggia, è tanto impalpabile nella sua consistenza fisica quanto reale nell'impatto che fatalmente provoca.
In queste opere, Alberto Orioli, giornalista tentato dai supporti insoliti, sembra voler attribuire una consistenza definitiva al mondo delle notizie, imbullonandole nella realtà di uno spazio circoscritto. Ma non c'è notizia o idea che non sappia liberarsi per onorare il proprio destino di suscitare emozione e di impegnare l'interlocutore a interrogare se stesso e a cercare di cogliere il senso autentico di quel sovvertimento delle proprie certezze che è rappresentato dall'informazione onesta. Si prestano all'esercizio di Orioli giornali di tutto il mondo, quasi a sottolineare la partecipazione a un destino comune che trova espressione nel processo di globalizzazione, agente potente e irreversibile di cambiamento, occasione preziosa di riscatto economico e sociale per intere moltitudini, fonte comprensibile di ansia e sovvertimenti planetari. In Menabò, l'opera ai miei occhi più emblematica, colori, testate e rimandi contribuiscono a rappresentare l'apparente caos di un mondo che può trovare ordine nella ragione con la quale siamo capaci di leggerlo e comunicarlo.
Un'altra suggestione fa di queste opere una prosecuzione sotto altra forma della vocazione di Alberto Orioli: esse riecheggiano infatti quel mondo del lavoro che Orioli ha seguito con onestà intellettuale e coscienza professionale per lunghi anni nella sua permanenza al Sole 24 Ore. Il connubio tra arte, informazione ed economia assume così una dimensione tanto insolita quanto efficace, sintetizzando le prospettive del futuro possibile, in particolare, per il nostro Paese: ossia, il gusto e la capacità di fare, di innovare e di creare emozione, attingendo a quel patrimonio intangibile e unico rappresentato dalla nostra cultura. C'è, infine, un ultimo aspetto che richiama una complessiva e positiva visione del mondo: la voglia e la capacità di mettersi in gioco, non limitandosi a coltivare un hobby nel chiuso del proprio studio, ma assumendosi la responsabilità di dialogare col pubblico, attribuendo alla propria creazione il valore di uno strumento di dibattito e di confronto. Un'ulteriore prova, quest'ultima, di quelle doti di curiosità, propensione al cambiamento e rispetto per tutti che fanno l'ottimo giornalista. E allora, anche chi non frequenta il giornale di cui Alberto è oggi vicedirettore, può leggere queste sue opere come uno dei suoi migliori editoriali.