Articles by: Natalia nebel

  • Events: Reports

    Drawing and Designing the Italian Way. Chicago Welcomes Lorenzo Mattotti

    An exhibit covering a vast range of Lorenzo Mattotti's artwork opened at the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago on May 25th to an appreciative audience. Given the luminosity and positive energy of Mattotti's work, it isn't surprising that the atmosphere on this opening night was positive and relaxed, with visitors mingling easily and sharing quite openly and enthusiastically their impressions about the drawings and illustrations on display.
     

    Certainly it isn't everyday that visitors to the Institute can enjoy an exhibit that fills the entire office space - not only the Institute's beautiful gallery, but the corridors and library walls as well. In fact, as director Tina Cervone pointed out in her opening remarks, the full spectrum of Mattotti's artwork is on view: sixty-three drawings, comic book narratives, poster designs and illustrations, as well as his splendid covers for The New Yorker Magazine, Internazionale Magazine, and Cosmopolitan.  
     

    Mattotti’s career spans over thirty years and his artistic development can be traced in this exhibit.  Born in Brescia in 1954, Mattotti studied architecture in Venice before deciding to turn his talents to comics art. He is now internationally known for a signature style made of vibrant colors and flowing compositions. His credits include children’s books, graphic novels and animation films. 
     

    On entering the Institute gallery with Mattotti’s work lining the walls, the intensity and purity of Mattotti’s colors give people an immediate psychological lift. He cites Giotto, Francis Bacon and the Fauve artists as inspirational sources, and so it’s no wonder that the overall effect is one of  brilliance and luminosity. Like the great masters of the past that he studied in his formative years, Mattotti makes available one self-contained world after another in each illustration he creates, providing a visual narrative that takes viewers to places that are utterly strange and yet somehow familiar. Figures and landscapes are dreamlike, whimsical, full of play and occasionally laced with menace. Speaking about Mattotti’s images, Pulitzer prize winning comics artist Art Spiegelman said it best: “It seems I have already seen them in my dreams.” 
     

    Mattotti is one of those rare artists who has achieved success in the commercial and artistic world while remaining true to his vision. Whether creating fashion illustrations for Vanity Fair or edgy black and white graphic novels, there’s a sweetness and melancholy in Mattotti’s sensibility that always come through. This is because the spiritual dimension of his works is very strong; there’s always depth beneath the glossy surface. As one of the visitors attending the opening night observed, "Mattotti knows how to convey sadness and loneliness behind gorgeous facades."  

    This exhibition will run through July 30, 2010. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 5 pm. 

    The Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago
    500 N. Michigan Avenue, #1450
    Chicago, IL 60611
    312-822-9545

  • Art & Culture

    The Ides of March. A New Historical Thriller by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

    Novelist, archeologist, topographer of the ancient world and screenplay writer Valerio Massimo Manfredi presented his latest historical thriller, The Ides of March, to a packed house at the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago. Director Tina Cervone introduced Manfredi noting that, “we’ve hosted many internationally renowned contemporary writers, including Umberto Eco, Beppe Severgnini, and Gianrico Carofiglio. I’m pleased to renew our collaboration with Europa Editions, which brings leading European writers to the American public.” 
     

    Faithful Valerio Massimo Manfredi fans had clearly been anticipating the release of his latest bestseller, The Ides of March, a tautly constructed narrative of Caesar’s last eight days that cuts back and forth between the harrowing journey of one of Caesar’s most trusted centurions through mountains and over rivers as he races to warn Caesar that he’s in danger; the secret meetings of the conspirators planning Caesar’s assassination; and the daily life of Caesar himself, including his last dinner party with Rome’s elite, an evening that was documented by Plutarch and that ended with a conversation about death in which Caesar, when asked what sort of death is best, replies "one that is rapid and sudden.” 
     

    Professor Manfredi’s conversation with the audience was wide ranging and people asked questions that provided for profound discussion.

    To begin with, what is difference between history and the historical novel? 
    “History is an attempt to construct a common memory. Memory is identity. In English the distinction between a story and history is more defined because you have the word ‘history’ while in Italian we don’t. ‘Storia’ means history in Italian and ‘storia’ also means a story. In any case, the goals of the historian and the storyteller are different. Historians have a burden of proof. But Homer, in his epic, clearly invented creatures like the Cyclops. An epic doesn’t have to be factually true because an epic’s goal is to provide models of human behavior.” 

    How does he define literature's role in society?
    “Our mind is bigger than life. To fill the gap we need more lives, and most of all we need emotions, for emotions give sense to our life. The things we remember are the things that made us feel - a person, music, a gaze, a sunset. What moves the soul gives life meaning. Literature can give us what personal destiny denied. Some people lead interesting lives, some don’t. When someone reads one of my novels, they can become Alexander for an afternoon. This is the magic of storytelling.” 

    Manfredi spoke about the tradition of storytelling in his family: “Storytelling survived the invention of writing and print. My grandfather was a storyteller. When he was alive people didn’t have television, video games and the internet. They relied on the tradition of oral storytelling for entertainment. In the north where my grandfather lived there would be a lot of snow during the wintertime and temperatures were freezing - this was before global warming. My grandfather was invited to people’s homes and villages to tell his stories, often his theater would be a stable, because those were the warmest places. He was a star.” 

    How important is historical research in Manfredi’s novels? “The details in the novel must be correct. Details give authenticity and make the novel real. But you don’t go to a movie or read a book for a history lesson. What matters when reading my book is that you are moved by it. In history there is the chronological dimension, the political dimension. A novelist adds a third dimension, depth." 

    Would the world have been different if Caesar hadn’t been assassinated?
    “Yes. Caesar’s murder changed the course of history. History is like a river, and an act of this magnitude changes its flow and its banks. The last twenty minutes of Caesar’s life are out of a thriller. At one point the conspirators almost killed themselves, thinking that they’d been betrayed.” 

    What are Manfredi’s work habits?
    "In order to get into a meditative space that allows me to enter the creative world, I write in the darkness of night with music playing. The darkness and music cut me off from the outside and put me in touch with my emotions. I have a young friend who creates music for me on her computer. I describe to her what I'm writing, and she puts together a soundtrack of my novel. This is what I listen to when I write.” 
     

    And finally, his current project is?
    “I'm working on a trilogy based on an Indian epic that may become a Bollywood movie. I also write short stories, and a book of my short stories, some of which I’ve written during the past year, will be coming out soon.”