In our tumultuous and chaotic world with its confusion of values and pseudo values, its sense and its nonsense, its “isms”, its established traditions and its futuristic trends, artistic discourse is becoming ever more complex and nebulous. Today, there is a tendency to consider even the most minor human deed, daily action, or adversarial struggle as tradition and culture. This only serves to confuse and results in tradition and culture either being regarded as something incomprehensible, or, as is so frequently the case, as an excuse for calculated speculation. I believe however, that tradition and culture should be seen not only as expressions of what has already passed but also as part of our objective experience.
Man is man when he is able to reinvent himself over and over again, provided that is, that rebirth is truly dynamic and truly evolutionary, rather than a static or sluggish motor.
If we take this approach, the matter becomes more comprehensible and the responsibility of those operating within the realms of art, more apparent – be they artists or art critics who wish to interpret art.
An artist, when conveying his ideas to others, has a certain responsibility, and this lies in his ability to capture tradition, which is itself history, and to endeavour to find its relevance to the present, which is history in the making.
Critics also have a responsibility and while I do not wish this to sound like a personal attack, it is one that has far too often neglected in the confusion of this past century. Critics have a habit of getting sidetracked by issues which do not relate to the question at hand – the artist and his work – but to the preoccupations of the critic himself and invariably these derive from unresolved, personal issues and frustrated ambitions. Critics should stop being so condescending and precious and start demonstrating a little more humility. They have the responsibility to go beyond what is commercial and the fads of the day and to identify true artists within the multitude. In this way, critics will be better able to perform their role as intermediaries. The role of the art critic is to inform, to explain what the artist wishes to convey, which is, if it is genuine, always simple. However, so many critics today, in their desire to ensure that art remains a commodity and privilege of the elected few, seek only to mystify, thus rendering art impenetrable, incomprehensible.
A critic can, if he so wishes, endeavour to understand what it is an artist wishes to communicate, as all artists, no matter how minor, by very virtue of their artistic endeavours have something to say.
This has a certain bearing on the question of conflict, and what better example than the recent controversy mounted by the Venice Biennale. For, even if freedom of expression is considered the right of all, and fundamental to artistic expression, it must be recognized that within our highly praised western society there is a remarkable intolerance towards those artists who are not accepted by the establishment. This hostile indifference which is truly devastating psychologically and highly destructive in practical terms, has silenced and will continue to silence the voices of many.
This past conflict has given rise to a truly abhorrent, self–serving opportunism and speculation on the part of critics today, who praise both the eminent and the mediocre in one breath and expound upon the virtues of outsiders, whilst neglecting those of us closer to home.
Thought can only set free by means of a resolute and unrelenting struggle against the system, which must be followed by the dismantling of the barricades behind which the old culture doggedly resists. But our numbers are few, and we are battling against the odds.

Albino Lucatello

There is one thing on which all agree: his character.
There is no doubt: he is difficult. A good pretext then, for not trying to understand the man or his art. After all, he is such a hard nut to crack, and hasty, superficial analyses are far less exacting. Yet, I believe there is something to be gained from taking a closer look at the man.

Lucatello the artist: somewhat bizarre, slightly mad, rather strange, definitely polemic and not always polite. Unorthodox intellectually speaking, in other words “out”.
Like artist, like man: and not a hair’s breadth between them.
He is genuine – just as his rage, ferocious commitment and unrelenting consistency are genuine. He is moral and consistent and his consistency is perfect, complete, and is entirely “beyond” that which is not moral and coherent.
It is his genuine, sincere and straightforward nature that makes him a rebel. He is often considered a maverick, and for this he has dearly paid the price. His rigorous reflection and constant revision are his great defence and he is able to avoid being crushed by his detractors – those who by provoking him with their endless rhetoric on declining values, seek his demise. He has the ability to shift the established parameters of discussion and by constantly questioning or even dismissing time honoured truths, he is able to turn discussion on its head and force his critics to rethink or give up entirely.
During his early years in Friuli, documented here in this exhibition, Lucatello set out to firmly establish his relationship with nature. Nature, with its harsh beauty, severe and uncompromising, hostile to sentiment or poetry – a reflection almost, an uncanny resemblance to the man himself.
Lucatello instinctively and passionately immerses himself within Friuli and its nature, so that he may understand it and in turn understand himself. He depicts what lies before him with a burning rationality, destroying what is superficial, conventional – shedding it of all frills and embellishment. In so doing he fiercely challenges and contests what he considers to be the twisted thinking of society on the man–nature question and presents his own personal analysis (dialectic man–nature).
He instinctively places himself outside the circle, beyond the dimensions of all that is corrupt and banal: “out”.
And this consistency in placing himself outside the circle can be seen in his refusal to accept compromise of any kind or anything of questionable taste. It is further confirmed in his unexpected return to charcoal and his dark drawings of the women of Friuli. Old women, uprooted from their hills (or rather from uprooted hills?), whose faces battered by oppression, abuse and years of disappointment, reveal the stony sadness of their pitiful lives. Their faces reveal the thunder of tragedies past, those more recent – of yesterday even (the earthquake – terrible but certainly not the last nor any different from those of time past), those of today and tomorrow.
These are drawings born of truth. They are the answer to an urgent call, the voice of the trembling earth, and yet they are “out” of time, beyond the news reports and the wail of collective mourning. They were born when the work of other artists, more quick to respond to the event was already history: that history. Theirs were bold paintings rendered in fresh attention–grabbing colour, ex–voto offerings in thanksgiving for what they “were about to receive”.
There is an honesty to Lucatello’s work and for this I respect him still.
Have I only spoken about the man and not his painting? Perhaps, but this is the only way to portray him. He is his painting and always will be, his colours are nothing other than an extension of his senses, his “skin”. His paintings are a mirror of his essence, a self–portrait of his soul.

Renzo Viezzi

 

translated by Amanda M. Hunter