From an early age, I spent quite a lot of time by myself, relating to objects around me rather than to people.I came – because of the emotionally dysfunctional family in which I lived and the difficult relationship with other human beings, to whom I felt an alien - to invest objects with the inner life I did not perceive in humans. I loved objects; I appreciated their shapes, colours, texture and functioning. I liked the simple and pure way they existed, quite different from the roughness, the pettinessthe arrogance I perceived in people.Obviously, as a child I was not aware of all this, nonetheless I much preferred to relate to objects and animals rather than to humans – or indeed rather than to myself. I felt perfectly comfortable in the so-called non-sentient world.
Throughout the sixty-three yearsof my present existence, my passage into this world has been marked by themeaningful encounter with objects and animals. Both types of relationships were always based both on respect and on personal growth, so much so that, as a vegetarian from birth, I became completely vegan and Buddhist. Encounters with humans, on the other hand, have always been disastrous, in the name of contempt, denial and emotional indifference. Probably – if my human relations had been healthy, full, profound and had not made me so intimately unhappy and suffering, – I would not have searched in objects and animals for what I have always been denied with humans.I wound not have invested so much in objects and animals and now the world would have one less artist and one lesscat-woman. …
It was at the age of fifteen - when I was living by myself in the mountains for one year - that I first made contact with my interiority and made my first drawings spontaneously, without being forcedby school pressures. These were visionary works,where the sense of atmosphere was predominant, in which human being was either completely absent or else forced intoalienating or passive roles. It was those fist instinctive drawings that struck my father and made him suggest – years later – I enrolled in the academy of fine arts.
In the academy began my awareness that what I created for pleasure, as an emotional liberation from the frustrations of my family and as a way to maintain deep contact with myself, was art. I began to take my creative impulse seriously and to invest more and more time and energy in discovering the secret life of those objects that attracted me so much and compensated for my existential malaise. I began to produce what I called "Emancipated Objects", which are freed from the role where they have always been relegated and claim their true existence;it was as if my life yearned to emancipate itself from the affective dependence on parents and to reveal its true self - until then hidden even from myself.
The encounter with the works of Marcel Duchamp was fundamental to convince me that a work of art can involve more than just sight: the whole life in its breadth and depth can enter into making art and into observing it – one’s emotional, psychological, spiritual, cultural, rational reality. My interest in objects found a confirmation and new lifeblood in observing how Duchamp had brought life into the work of art and the work of art into life. My production of "Emancipated Objects" continued over the years, always somewhat limited and diluted over time. As with Duchamp "ready-mades" were a sort of appointment with chance, so for me "emancipated objects" were spiritual and "random" encounters (but nothing happens by chance) with the life of objects. I could not search for them, plan them, think of them beforehand – they presented themselves when my vital condition was open enough to grasp the signals they sent out to me,"encouraging" them to take shape, to manifest themselves in the world. In this sense, I have always found it extremely difficult to work on commission or within a time limit.
The recurring theme in my descriptions of objects – and actually in my making art in general – is "fun". It is significant that fun is an important element, in fact making art lightens my life: every work is a Pindaric flight in which objects and men, non-sentient and sentient meet on the dissection table of my mind and heart. Objects are invested with human emotions, they seek emancipation, they can no longer be crushed by their usual functions, just as Valentina cannot fit into the schemes proposed by the system (and here a deeply subversive side of my nature reveals itself). On the other hand, it is a reduction in the karmic retribution of objects: they finally free themselves from their flat and "normal" life, devoid of emotions, uncommunicative and open up to new adventures. The fun connected with my making art, in addition to a lightening of the life of objects, also constitutes an increase in the vital state of the creator and, I hope, of the obserrver. The worries, sufferings, problems of the past and daily life take on a less cumbersome weight in making art; they relate to life in a much broader and eternal sense. The moment I create, I am fundamentally and absolutely absorbed into the present, with all mypastexperiences and aspirations for the future.
When you think about it, the emancipation I offer to objects reflects a deep faith in the respect and dignity of all beings that represents a foundation of the Buddhist attitudes towards life. The dialogue intervening between creator and object is productive for both: the object receives respect, dignity, understanding, encouragement, support (what I have never received in my family of origin) and the creator receives energy, stimuli, empathy, spirituality, open perspectives... Onecould undoubtedly say that my making art is deeply and inextricably connected with the suffering caused by my dysfunctional family. I finally seek in objects a healthy relationship, a creative, fruitful, fertile, open, equal interaction. I am absolutely convinced that objects too have a soul, desires and aspirations. Objects communicate, too. Not verbally, of course (except for the "Thermologist"), yet they do communicate. Being the spokesperson for the objects is my mission. Giving them a voice, listening, attention is my job in this life. Entering the world of objects, feeling where they are inclined to live, where they wish to exist means recognizing that objects are desiring beings. They possess a soul, tend to "mate" and be fruitful: they give birth to a breed of pure energy and they produce mental leaps. Once freed from their ordinary existence, objects have the potential to welcome new and multiple meanings, to become "good conductors of language".
Over the years, my fundamental motivation to make art has changed considerably. At first, it was a way not to succumb to the frustrations of what I perceived as lack of love by my family and of the drive to self-destruction that made me take drugs, abuse alcohol and smokeas means to avoid feeling and suffering. Art was the only contact I kept with the deepest part of myself and at the same time represented my defence against the cruel world around me. Later, parallel to the human revolution I undertook through NichirenDaishonin's practice of Buddhism, making art became an expression of my inner conquests: strength, courage, the power to transform suffering intoan occasion of growth, awareness, hope, wisdom and a profound acceptance of life and myself.
The Buddhist monk NichirenDaishonin wrote in 1265: "In all things, names are of great importance precisely because they can convey general meanings in this way. (...). Names convey the basic nature of a thing, while phrases describe how it differs from other things (…) In addition, names have the virtue of being able to summon the things to which they refer, and things as a matter of function respond to the name that refers to them." (A sage and an unlightened man, The writings of NichirenDaishonin, p. 132, Soka Gakkai, 1999). The choice of a title for each work was in fact a research of equal importance to that on objects, and it often required careful reflection. Not only do titles express the essence of the work, but they also have the power to expand and multiply its reading levels, providing combustible material to the fire of the meanings of the work, resulting in a level deviation – a sgambetto – an extension of the meaning. It is from agap that the story that binds objects to the observer begins: the trace of machination...
My artistic research is, after all, a long inner emotional/spiritual path littered with works whose value is completely personal to me, outside the business of the art world. Only to a few intimates who know me and my story do these objects "mean" something; precisely because they are intimate objects, linked to personal life experiences, these objects can hardly have a market. They remain as fragments of my great battle to win over the overwhelming self-denial I have suffered, to change my own attitude to people; they are fragments of my own progressive emancipation from the object of emotional violence to a subject whocan choose and transform.
Unifying all my works into one body, being able to see my objects all together is an experience that gives me the idea of the work I have done in my life through creativity. It is something concrete and necessary to pull the strings of my journey, a way to see that I have done something important and valuable in this existence. Having my works – which I never accepted to exhibit -publishedwas fun: after all, this book is a real "exhibition", alas without business behind...
In this book I intend to analyse my own works in the light of the extraordinary inner transformation that I have carried out through my Buddhist practice. The four criteria I have used to interpret my works are:
- toanalyse the causes and conditions that led to the creation;
- toanalyse the work according to its content and history;
- toanalyse the work by separating what is transient from what is original;
- tomeditate on the truth of the work in my life.
Observing my works from a Buddhist point of view has the power to open universes: since even non-sentient beings are bearers of karma, each work represents the relationship between my individual karma and that of the objects that make up my work. From this point of view, every work is as unfathomable as the karma accumulated in the past by both components. The causes posed in the past become known only through their effect in the present. In this sense, the causes posed in the past by my objects are such as to allow them to emancipate themselves in this existence, that is, to transform their karma of non-sentient beings in order to reach a state of existence that allows them to function as engines for the human spirit. On the one hand, they take on the responsibility of transforming the mind, the heart and the spirit of the observer, on the other they are agents of the creator's inner transformation. The creator therefore has the task of a seer: to open his/her own mind/heart to be able to see the potential inherent in objects, their latent energy so to speak. He/she also has the task of carrying out his/her "human revolution", that is, to go beyond his/her limits and transform his/her negative tendencies, suffering and karma.
According to Buddhism, even the creative act - like every other phenomenon in the universe, needs ten factors to constitute itself:
1. aspect, i.e. what can be perceived or distinguished from the outside, appearance; in the case of the work of art, it consists of the physical appearance of the final object and of the objects that compose it;
2. nature, that is, the inner qualities that cannot be perceived from the outside, the spiritual aspects of life as mind and conscience; in the case of the work of art, the ability of the creator to perceive in the object by empathy emotional or spiritual qualities similar to those experienced by the creator himself;
3. entity, i.e. the quality that manifests itself both as an external aspect and as an internal nature, but is not in itself either; entity is what a person is, his/her uniqueness and peculiarity that manifests itself both in his/her visible physical appearance and in invisible thoughts and emotions. In the case of the work of art,entityis the set of physical appearance and inner qualities that the author perceives in the object and thattake form in the work;
4. power, that is, the inner strength of which life is endowed, the capacity of life to live, that is, to act; power is the life state of which the object is endowed, and which determines its "desire" and its "ability" to emancipate itself;
5. action, i.e. the concrete and visible manifestation of power; it is expressed in thoughts, words and actions properly; action in the work is the act of emancipation itself on the part of the object, its repositioning itself in the world;
6. internal cause: any cause posed in the past that creates karma, i.e. tendency since it simultaneously creates a latent effect that remains so until an appropriate external cause arises; the internal causes present both in the creator and in the object are largely unknowable, however they instantly produce corresponding latent effects (also unknowable until they occur);
7. external cause: the external influence that activates the internal cause in a response that manifests the latent effect created by the internal cause, connecting life to external influences; in the artistic act it represents the propitious occasion that brings together creator and object in that particular circumstance, which will produce the manifest effect constituted by the work;
8. latent effect: effect created simultaneously with the internal cause and therefore future direction of our life considered at this precise moment; it is the germ contained both in the object and in the creator that remains hidden waiting for favourable conditions to germinate and manifest itself;
9. manifest effect: visible reaction to the internal cause and latent effect; it is the work of art itself;
10. Finally, the last factor is consistency from start to finish, it integrates and unites the other nine and determines on the one hand the feeling that the work at some point in the creative act can be declared finished and on the other the value of the work itself for the observer.
One can easily imagine how, by changing any of the ten factors in both the creator and the objects that make up the work, the result or manifest effect will be different. This implies that each work is a unique and unrepeatable crystallization of the karma of the creator and the object. In short, objects find in the creator a propitious vehicle to emancipate themselves and transform their karma together with that of the creator. In fact, a new term should therefore be found to designate the human catalyst that favours the visible reaction that is the work of art. Alchemist of karma?
In artistic creation, the encounter of the ten factors of life inherent in the object with the ten corresponding factors inherent in the creator produces transformative energy that involves both the object and the creator on the one hand and the observer on the other hand. It consists of vital energy originating from universal energy, which regulates the rhythm of the universe: the Law of Life and Death. This energy permeates every phenomenon of life, including the creative act. It concentrates the maximum potential of the human being. By "creative act”, I mean not only the union of male sperm and female egg, but also any transformative attitude of our lives that allows us to overcome our limits imposed by the little self: the production of art rightly falls within this definition. Turning one’s karma into a mission is creative. Using one's propensity for anger to fight injustice is creative. Using one’s tendency to greed in order to get humanitarian aid is creative. Everyone has – very democratically indeed – the potential to be creative in his or her own life.
Although the object cannot act independently to change its karma (i.e. modify the factors from the sixth to the ninth, those active in the production of karma), human beings possess this power intrinsically and are able to transform not only their karma but also all phenomena, even objects. The object, becoming part of the art world by virtue of the creator's decision, instantly transforms its karma and acquires a higher status; it has already virtually emancipated itself from common object to an object of art by the mere action of turning its context. Taking a further step on the path towards emancipation - and equipping the object with "spiritual" characteristics such as the possibility of standing up on its own in the case of the scissors or the possibility of "talking" in the case of the thermometer - you get a certain amount of self-awareness on the part of the object itself. This "Existential Emancipation" is a step towards equal condition between human and object, and towards an exchange of vital energy between constitutionally different beings which are nonetheless – from the point of view of universal reality – united in an indissoluble symbiosis.
What does analysing the work and the creator from the point of view of the ten factors of life entail? Observing the functioning of the true entity of all phenomena in the creative act provides a series of parameters to establish - from an existential point of view - the value of the work itself. When the human potential for transformation comes into play, anything becomes possible: even to foretell one's awareness, recreate one's suffering by distancing oneself from it and even mocking it, reducing one’s own existential effort to a series of "little scriptures" no larger than a postage stamp...
What happensto the creator during the creative act? Daisaku Ikeda wrote (Buddhism and Society No. 190 - September/October 2018, p. 12): "Art is an irrepressible expression of the human spirit. In each of its many forms, the symbol of the ultimate reality is imprinted. An authentic work of art is in itself "life", born from the dynamic fusion between the self and the universe. Art is for the spirit what nourishment is for the body; through art, we join to a transcendent entity, breathe at its own pace and assimilate the energy necessary for our spiritual renewal. It also fulfils the function of purifying our interiority in order to raise us spiritually, what Aristotle called "catharsis". (...) The integrating force of art acts on human beings allowing the finished to become infinite and the specific of contingent experience to take on a universal meaning. (...) A creative life always aims at transcending the individual self and overcoming the limits of space and time in the pursuit of the universal self. It opens new paths and aims at self-innovation every day, always, in harmony with the original rhythm of the universe, thus generating a total transformation."
By infusing his/her emotions, spirituality and existential research into the object, the creator carries out an exchange of vital energies at such a deep level that his/herown vital state rises. A real catharsis occurs, that is, a purification from traumatizing or conflicting experiences obtained through the resurface to consciousness of the responsible events, removing them from the subconscious. It is therefore a process of awareness and "reduction of karmic retribution", often helped by the irony contained in the titles. The sense of contentment reached at some point in the creative process is the signal or clue that the work of art is finished, that everything is miraculously where it must be with absolute coherence and existential legitimacy, so to speak.
The originality of the creative act lies in abandoning the transient, that is, the common vision, in order to open the creator’s (and the user’s) eyes to the true reality of phenomena. It is therefore a matter of abandoning the transitional condition of a common person weighed down by karma, selfish desires and sufferings and revealing the true identity of the object, through the achievement of a vital state of absolute freedom, awakening to one’s true great self, to the most excellent and noble spirit of the human being. In this sense, the function of the scissors to cut, the thermometer’s to mark the temperature, the stone’s to stand inert on the ground are transient functions; the emancipation of these objects is original. To open my eyes and the observer’s eyes: this is my mission as an artist and a Buddhist, to broaden the common vision of things and reveal their original reality.
The game that is being thus played between the objects and me is an existential game, a game of souls: I help objects to rise from their role of inanimate objects (without soul) to objects with a soul ready to rise to the noble paths of the world of humanity. The Thermologist which creates meaningful words, the Danseuse Nubìle that whirls gracefully to the rhythm of the membranes of the harmonica observed (albeit from afar) by the Voyeurs, theChronomeasurer that calculates the gravity of spirit are no longer inanimate and inert objects; they possess and transmit vital energy. They have accomplished their "human revolution" and now they not only live on their own lives, but theyare also able to trigger a soul movement in the creator and a mental movement in the observer. Such is the function of emancipated objects...
The wounds and humiliations I have suffered in my present existence are still as bleeding and burning as when I received them. They have not softened, erased, healed at all. They are always present, at all times, in all circumstances. They are also powerfully present in my art. They are so deep, so annihilating they are part of my bones, the skeleton of my thoughts. They are part of the fabric of my soul. They are myself. Making art is a balm precisely because it allows me to get out of myself, out of my small wounded and sore self, in order to expand my life through objects.
"Creativity, wrote Ikeda, means to force the heavy front door of life itself to let the new flow from within (Buddhism and society n° 190, September-October 2018, p. 4). To create means realizing one's own thought, one's own vision, one's dream. This movement from inside out constitutes the artistic expression, the generating and continuous regenerating of one's life from the inside. Creativity must take root in the soil of a rich spirituality in order to thrive. The key to creativity lies in deepening the nature of life and humanity and in setting the potential inherent in life itself free. Unleashing creativity within life is the work of what Buddhism calls the "human revolution"."
Creativity is the ability to connect distant ideas and concepts to each other and create new combinations of elements already known and stored in our memory. It is a particular way of using thought that upsets existing models by introducing something new. The transformation of our reality and ourselves, our “human revolution”, begins with the creative act: throwing ourselves into the void, into the unusual, relying on the unknown. The role of creativity is to integrate, to reveal the intimate link between things. Such openness to the new, to things that do not yet exist, to progress distinguishes human beings from animals, in that human beings not only safeguardtheirlife like other animals, but alsocontemplate the ambition to lead it to a higher level of quality that is still unknown.
Marcel Duchamp, speaking at the Convention of the American Federation of Arts (Texas, April 3-6, 1957), argued that, considering the two poles of artistic creation (on the one hand the artist and on the other the viewer) "... the artist acts as a medium who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way to an open space." The whole series of decisions that the artist makes during the creative process remains, according to Duchamp, within the scope of intuition and thereforecannot be entirely ascribed to consciousness. The artist's inability to fully express his/her intention, the condition of partial unconsciousness in which he/she finds himself/herself guarantees a total independence at an interpretative level because they leave a gap between the artist’s intention (partially unconscious) and the realization of the work. This gap, which Duchamp defined as "coefficient of art", causes the work, once declared completed by the artist, to become an autonomous object for evaluation, interpretation, and criticism – regardless of the considerations of the artist himself.
Taking a further step, Duchamp stated that the work is “made” by those who observe it, giving the user a creative power equal to that of the author himself. The finished work becomes a "field" with a set of data that the observer has the power and task of deciphering, filling up, connecting, processing. It is therefore up to the user - with all the potential at his disposal - to fill the gap between the intention of the artist and the realization of the work with an active reaction and not a passive reception. The wider the gap and the higher the "art coefficient", the greater the effort required of the viewer. Such is the great contributory power of the observer... a reactive power, if you like, nevertheless creative – and above all an integral part of the creator's work. The "art coefficient" of which Duchamp spoke as the difference or gap between intention and realization proceeds in my case from a "weak" (non-volitional and non-prevaricating) intention to a realization that evolves with rhythms in its own right. I find it very difficult to plan my production or to accept a deadline. In fact, the difference between intention and realization in my case is unfathomable and the observer is really called to "make" the work with complete freedom. Once I have declared it concluded, the workbecomes free from all ties with me and turns into a being endowed with its own life, open, receptive and at the same time provocative.
The subjective mechanism producing what Duchamp called "art in the raw state" is in my case the transference with the object: the transposition of my experience on the world of objects. I am actually so unaware of my intentions that I cannot plan my works. I proceed by letting my perception, my heart and my mind be as open as possible to pick up from my life and from the world around me the stimuli to connect, approach, match, compose in an "organic" whole parts in themselves static and non-sentient, devoid of a soul. I try to remain in a state without intentions, without a strong will, and I let things find their right place almost without my intervention or with a marginal intervention on my part, so to speak. I give objects only a "little help" to realize their true emancipated life. The realization always catches me by surprise, because nothing is planned in advance.My path towards realization is similar to an alchemical path, where creation goes hand in hand with my inner transformation. I can therefore say that the creative act is for me an emotional and psychological path of growth.
The art historian René Huyghe wrote in his dialogue with Ikeda La nuitappellel'aurore: "Art affirms itself only when it adds to what it is, and also to what is imaginable. Thanks to the creative act, art introduces into reality a new, virgin contribution, a type of additional wealth for which nothing seems to have prepared the way. (...) Art exists only when it introduces into reality the research, and the achievement, of a quality that is totally non-measurable but inevitably lived in the active reaction provoked in the viewer by the creator." And also: "Art is one of the activities that overcoming the function of intelligence allows the human being to reach that reality to which he/she alone can rise, and which we cannot define in any other way than spiritual life. (...) The spirit is the highest possibility of the human being to project himself/herself beyond the real, beyond himself/herself, and realize his/her potential, his/her best aspirations (...), and an increase in value. (...) Intelligence can only know what can be defined and measured: quantity." I agree with Huyghe when he argued that quality does not originate from facts, and that art is one of the most important spiritual activities that allow us to go "beyond things", beyond what belongs to the sphere of knowledge, beyond what arises solely from rational intelligence.
The intensity of the artist's gaze allows him/her to understand and perceive the object without being subject to its external appearance. According to Huyghe, there are three types of reality: on the one hand there is concrete reality, organized in space, shaped by matter and subjected to the observation of our sensory organs. Then there is an inner reality, which belongs much more to time than to space because it islocated nowhere, it is everywhere and nowhere, it is the passing of time, the "inner duration", as Bergson calls it. The fundamental question of human life lies in this intersection, this interference between these two dimensions. Our reality exists between these two worlds: although immersed in the material world through the body, it develops in the "duration" through the progressive surfacing of life to the dimension of consciousness. What we call "present" is precisely this point of intersection of time and space. Alongside those two fundamental realities among which he/she is divided, the human being has created a third reality:art. Art consists in fixing, inscribing in the world of matter and space the signs and projection of the inner world, of the subjective world. In art, therefore, a sudden fusion between these two worlds occurs, materializing in the work of art.
According to Huyghe, the work of arttherefore consists exactly of two parts: a physical component - the material - and a content- the interiority - which reveals our psychic life. In this way, we give some objects, which we shape, the power to manifest the inner life that they do not possess, but of which the artist permeates them. Such is the miracle accomplished by art. The value of a work of art consists in enriching other people; it must lead them to a greater awareness of the world and of themselves, to a richer and higher awareness.
The path of artistic creation consists therefore in moving from time to space. Only the transition from time to space, introducing quality into the realm of quantity, that is, inscribing a form, can make our experience eternal. In this way, art introduces quality into the realm of quantity, into space. However, quality only stems from inner experience: one can perceive it only by realizing it in oneself, if not by living it within oneself in a creative way. It is for this reason that some people will never be able to perceive the quality of a work of art, or they will only be able to do so up to a certain level, as far as their individual experience reaches. Huyghe argued that, as far as art is concerned, it is no longer enough to refer to the categories of space and time, another degree must be added to the scale of value: that of increasing quality. Only in this way can we understand the progressive growth that brings the human being from his/er physical, sensory bases to a spiritual experience. Quality is a rising movement that projects the individual on a scale of values that, gradually, tends towards infinity, towards the divine.
The characteristic of art is to allow the artist to project his/her feelings, his/her deepest sensitivity into the work; the artist infuses the work of art with his/her labour; he/sherelies on his/her work to express it, to become aware of it. Therefore, the work of art is often rich in premonitory insights, still waiting to be given a concrete form. Many of my works in fact foreshadow that emancipation of myself that my present life has always possessed as a mission and that I am carrying out little by little, with great effort and commitment.