Exciting lunch, Thursday 1st March, between good food politics and color theories between the artist Gentile Polo and some of his longtime friends.
Responding to an invitation, the artist Rotaliano went to a friend's house for a goliardic lunch based on polenta, succulent ribs with sauce, local cheeses and lemon-flavored desserts. Between a delicacy and the other we have debated various topics: from the politics of our grandparents, to the revolutionary movements of '68 which were also witnessed in Trento, to the next national political elections (for the Chamber and the Senate); the artist Gentile Polo has been asked to paint a flag with the symbol of the A.N.P.I. (National Association of Italian Partisans) for an old widow of partisan who wants to hang it on the balcony in memory of her husband. With great generosity, Mr. Polo agreed to do the favor.
Speaking of political movements, the period of the First World War and of the riots in Russia also took place, and it was precisely between 1913 and 1915 that Kazimir Malevich's "suprematist black square" was born.
The "black square" of Malevich is one of the symbols of avant-garde Russian art and minimalism that also shows how the eye can be deceived by color. The square, in fact, is not really of this form because the sides are not parallel and the black, if seen closely, reveals that it was obtained from the mixture of other primary colors. For the Russian artist it was only the first of three similar ones: the second realized it in 1923 for the Venice Biennale, the third he painted it in 1929 for the Tretjakov Gallery without the chaps of the first, and in 1993 was found in a Samara bank a fourth variant that had been sold by unknown as a pledge for a loan. Obviously the idea of creating a black without an industrial black but of primary colors is electrifying for the artist Gentile Polo who for years has carried out a thorough study on color both through his experience as a craftsman decorator, both in artistic painting and in his notes close to being drafted in a new book on the theme of color, in fact. Remaining anxiously waiting for the next book by the Rotaliano Gentile Polo, the lunch ended nicely with a lemony dessert of the landlady and a providential return due to the copious snowfall that whitewashed the streets.
(Lucia Martorelli - Gentile Polo Art Studio)