Page 35 - Studio International - July 1965

Toti Scialoja

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parent materials and embroidery. In the last two years,
in addition to embroidery, Toti has used the motifs of
embroidery together with a kind of faint echo of these in
an interplay of superimposed fabrics. Finally, the artist
has added (as it was possible to confirm in the great
hall at the last Venice Biennale) to these effects of
juxtaposition of carefully planned elements a new form
of integration-large murals of the size of an entire
interior wall.
The artist himself may be permitted to speak on this, the
last phase of his work: 'Perhaps the superimposition of
fragments of cloth on various differing "horizons" in
my impressions is a means of informing scenic space­
the multiple scenes and "appointed regions" of tem­
porality'.
Is this a fleeting appearance of his former interest in
scenic design? It is rather the realisation of an enlarge­
ment-the approximation of the pictorial artefact to
the scenic creation in order to obtain a form of action
containing the elements of visual drama and expres­
sionistic drama.
Toti Scialoja has realised, in a unique way, the con­
temporary need to arrest the transient moment between
lasting phenomena and to endow it with unlimited
possibilities of metamorphosis: the reading required is a
lengthy one, but the way is open to a unified structure
for the whole process. Perhaps it is because of this
that one can say that his latest works (those produced
during the last five or six years) are some of the few
expressions of our own times that still retain a pictorial
quality ( or, rather. that are still subject to the autono­
mous and personal employment of colour and form) and
which can be considered as assuredly partaking of the
fundamental requirements of the present moment:
(1) The need to create a painting that appears as an act
of constant 'becoming'; a unique way of achieving a
victory, through the very act of creation, over those
values which are only transitory and of transmuting
them, with such lasting immediacy, into a realisation of
being without limits. (2) The requirement-and now
with great control and creativity-of repetition. In fact,
that 'which is always different and yet always the same',
which constitutes the very opposite of the industrial
product, which is always ·exactly the same' as each of
its fellows turned out from the mould. (3) The need to
paint skilfully with a pre-constituted medium (the batch
of varying materials which makes up the impression)
which renders possible the exact degree of chance that
is so essential and which is only partly foreseeable.
Only in this way, by realising these essential require­
ments, is it possible to counteract the mechanistic direc­
tion of so many paintings of our times and to combat
their ethical poverty. Indeed, these requirements show
clearly how impossible it is to accept in painting any
'unity' that does not contain-even in an embryonic
form-the sense of repetition; on the other hand, they
show how impossible it is to accept that form of repeti­
tion that consists of an indiscriminate serialization-the
mere reproduction of aesthetic phenomena, or, rather
mere mechanical reproduction similar to that proper to
the industrial product. In this way, painting can be
considered as a meeting point between the constant
desire of men and artists to render and project the
essence of one's own existence within one's works;
and time itself then plays an important part in the work
of art-particularly the chronological essence of this
strange phase of our civilisation. Such a point is pro­
vided by the works of Toti Scialoja. ■
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