Art for the masses - Sociological analysis by Roberto Cipriani (Emeritus of Sociology at Roma Tre University)

I asked Virgilio Rospigliosi to choose some of his works that could best lend themselves to a sociological treatment. He pointed out five to me: three are titled "Art Gallery", the other two have the words "Era Caravaggio" and "Era Van Gogh". I imagine that the expression "Art Gallery" refers to a whole series of works contextualized outside of official museums, so any public place could lend itself to being an "Art Gallery", thus achieving the intended purpose of “Art For The Masses” (AFTM), or art for all (as evidenced by the abbreviated writing affixed to the wooden tiles painted by Rospigliosi). In fact, all of Rospigliosi's works are so many provocations, in the sense that they arouse strong attention from those who look at them and question their meaning. The very operation of presenting an intriguing work of art, arousing emotions and questions at the same time, is in itself an intellectual action of the first order, which deserves full consideration on the part of the sociologist involved in the interpretation of what the artist proposes and presumably the public perceives. In short, Rospigliosi's artistic productions not only do not go unnoticed but lead us to go beyond the superficial gaze of a quick glance and without any form of philosophical and artistic epoché, as an arrest of a superficial evaluation to linger longer, questioning the message transmitted and on the transitions-between(n) disfigurations implemented. Yes, because this is what it's all about: moving from the classic to the contemporary or, better yet, from the contemporary inspired by the classic and then moving once again to the latter to re-mean it in another way, thus making it more usable by a large audience, no longer just elitist. The transit takes place thanks to the expedient invented by Rospigliosi, who makes use of everything he has learned from the great masters of painting, brings his own with an ironic and dramatic streak, adds a typical icon of digital communication such as the QR code and brings or brings the masses back to museums and/or places of daily attendance for the first time, in order to allow a re-reading of everything from a new perspective. In practice, the idea-suggestion prepared by the contemporary artist is a pre-text that brings people closer to art and then transmutes it into something else, but no less aesthetically and culturally valid. We are accustomed to the defacement of the masterpieces of pictorial art (but not only), but Rospigliosi's poetics has something more and different, as it implements mechanisms of re-appropriation of the works that allow various reflections and broaden the horizon mental towards other, more far-reaching goals. Our artist speaks of an immaterial place as a landing point for everything that has been "weaponized" by him. In fact, immateriality is given by the real non-existence of what he prepared in the form of an artefact. If you go to the Uffizi in Florence or the Art Institute of Chicago you will not find Rospigliosi's wooden panels juxtaposed on a painting by Caravaggio or van Gogh, however anyone who already knows Rospigliosi's works could not avoid a whole series of reasoning on the relationships between the two authors and their artistic works. In practice, it is after Rospigliosi that the problematization of the whole arises, starting also from the banal market value of both works. Thus, a disenchantment of the work of art recognized as a masterpiece is achieved and it is re-contextualized in a new and different frame, which acts as a frame for both artistic artefacts, placing them in close relationship for their different and original king. -interpretation. The QR code inserted by Rospigliosi as a stamp in his pictorial work does not have the same function found in museums and galleries where it is used to trace the individual work through the use of an audio guide or another electronic tool. Here, however, the code allows us to approach the new semanticization of a famous painting or an everyday context. If the stamp serves to solemnize and legitimize a character or an event and the "stumbling stone", set like a precious gem on the pavement in front of a house, has the purpose of remembering the sacrifice of people put to death for racial hatred, the small box of electronic graphics devised by Rospigliosi performs much more than one function: it allows wide-ranging widespread use, given the habit of using the QR code on multiple occasions; connects the Rospigliosian artefact to that of other famous authors; it allows the transfer of the painting specially created in the contemporary era by making it dock and attack in a different context both spatially and chronologically; accompanies the user of the initial work-suggestion towards a handhold constituted by the electronic code, an essential means to be able to view the new work of art, as a combinatorial result of two different creations. The "completion" operation is suggested and developed by Rospigliosi but in fact it mainly takes place (this is the intent of the artist, our contemporary) thanks to the full involvement of those who, as final recipients, appropriate the transposition mechanism and benefit from it to the end. Among other things, Rospigliosi deliberately and explicitly resembles the Flemish painter Hubert van Eyck (1366?-1426), author of the famous polyptych of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, which is found in the cathedral of Ghent, Belgium, and which was completed by his brother Jan van Eick (1390?-1441). Now, the aforementioned comparison, also revealed by the connecting hyphen between Virgilio Rospigliosi and Hubert van Eyck, can be considered correct and justified if it is believed that the beginning of the procedure takes place starting from a specific work by a given author, which is then completed by whoever succeeds him in production. In other words, Rospigliosi can legitimately identify with Hubert if it is taken for granted that everything begins with him. On the contrary, if it is hypothesized that the continuer is actually the one who has the intuition of something different, even if connected to the work begun previously, then Rospigliosi's identification with Jan would be preferable, also for chronological reasons, since , for example, Rospigliosi is a successor to Caravaggio and van Gogh and certainly not vice versa. Now, this double value of each of the two identifications increases even more the relevance and semantics of the procedure invented and implemented by Rospigliosi. There is, indeed, another element that deserves to be examined. It is about the relationship between pictorial work and photographic work. Both are present in Rospigliosi's aesthetic proposal, but the painting as such is one thing and its photographic reproduction is another. Today's technologies, then, have reached a level of perfection that was not even imaginable until a few years ago, making it very difficult to distinguish an original from a reproduction. Furthermore, it is necessary to take into account the possibility of modifying every detail of a photo using the computer program called Photoshop. Having said this, it is clear that we are, in principle, faced with two compositions, both pictorial and therefore valid in themselves on an aesthetic level. In Rospigliosi's case his starting work is always a painting and never a photo. The latter occurs in the case of the reproduction of a known painting or in the placing of Rospiglioso's initial work in an overall framework different from the one in which the initial work was created. In my opinion, this continuous interlocution between pictorial art and photographic art represents an added value of what we have prepared and offered to the masses. Perhaps it is appropriate to raise some critical doubts about this lemma, since the masses are an indistinct whole, while the enjoyment of a work of art occurs mainly at the level of a single person, even if the discussion then easily broadens to broader participation. The movement from one work to the other takes place primarily on a spatial level, but temporality is also part of the ongoing phenomenology. The existential times of Rospigliosi and of Caravaggio and van Gogh are not the same nor those of Rospigliosi himself to the extent that he paints a work at a given moment and then positions it within a framework of subsequent daily life. Therefore, the operations are jointly spatio-temporal (and, if desired, also corporeal). Above all, however, the use of verb tenses that underline the transformation in progress or that has already occurred should be emphasized: the painting "Era" by Caravaggio or van Gogh, or "It is no longer than". In other words, Rospigliosi performs a sort of miracle: not only does he make his work or that of a famous artist of the past "speak", but he also manages to create a third "immaterial" work which is given by the connection between two different works. And at this point the distinction between museum or art gallery and market tends to collapse, so exactly what Rospigliosi hoped for has happened, quod erat in votis.  

Roberto Cipriani 2024©                                                                

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