Public relations

http://www.youtube.com/user/maxloy1950#p/u/2/GxPYZeRsSpI

And here is my coat of arms, my role in society, my public relations to show as a proof to the world: I know this chap and he knows me… the mutual aid bank.

Within the ten minutes given by YouTube I let the images run through. They portray me here and there, wandering through one hundred cities, hidden in the crowd shaking hands with me and asking for my autograph as if I were a star, and I change my way of being and I joke trying to figure a new image, the most suitable to the agreed role and I smile kindly and witty.

I could manage it, without any problem, overcoming my innate shyness and all the fears of being put on display: I obeyed my duties conscientiously and, just in case, I could also wear my tie and make praiseworthy speeches.

Sometimes, however, while speaking, I gazed in contemplation, losing the thread of my thoughts because an emotion, a dream, something vague caught my imagination all of a sudden.

Then, I started observing the audience, waiting for the predictable outcome of every conference and from that moment on, I began extemporizing, following a special unique inspiration, and I entered the smooth manifest wall, carrying everybody away to no man’s land.

However, as time went by, I felt more and more tired of spreading around words which could be hardly heard in this noisy world which proceeds at the wrong speed, which can’t enjoy and appreciate all the things it swallows up, because it’s always busy doing something else.

And so it happened that, one day I woke up in a bad mood and took the secret decision of fading out from the stage. To my works, by then “grown up” I left the burden of being silent witnesses to my passage: “I owe you one!”.

Therefore, it’s some time now that I gave up holding conventional exhibitions, offering aperitives.

I have also stopped giving speeches.

I have even dropped the habit of sharing my profits with art galleries.

I work in the silent peace of my studio and when the good weather comes I move to Sardinia and, for four months, I settle in paradise where I have everything I need, starting from the most important thing: the light…and the sea.

I’m a guest in a hotel, because I’m friendly, I think.

There is also another version of the story:

It was God.

I have always complained all my life about being unable to travel all over the world, losing that important experience of getting in touch with other cultures and ways of life, not to mention the other opportunities closely related to it. Therefore, in due time, God put me here, at the centre of the world, under a palm, as He knows I like palms, He gave me a paintbrush again, as I think He doesn’t expect anything else from me, or probably to put me at ease, I don’t know, after all, this kindness, He told me plainly:

- Now stay there quiet and don’t bother me, mind your own fucking business, I’ll care about all the rest.-

Then He said to the world:

- Turn around this man, as I have got a plan for him.-

I have to notice that I can’t get on with the world very well and neither the world nor me can understand the reason of this enterprise of God’s, but, you know, everyone deserves his/her own God.

As for me, if I think of my experience as a painter, I know that whenever I can’t see the centre of the picture and find the links I’m looking for, I try at first to stand three, five, ten steps back, according to the difficulty I face in coming to the true and lighted highlights. If, even after that, I can’t work it out, maybe because I’m tired, or because it isn’t easy to solve a problem, then I do a very simple thing: I put my director’s chair in the right place, just like God has done with me, then I sit down, take my time and I keep on watching what I have done without wondering, being firmly persuaded that there must be a meaning and that I’ll understand it sooner or later.

english version: Alessandra Gaggini