by Alberto Albertini – Milan (Italy) – images by Alberto Albertini –

no title, by Rosanna Albertini

1 Undeniably, sunset is romanticism: it contains all of it! The golden light about to disappear, as you do know, is your desires, and hopes like phantoms disquieting the inmost lake. Ah, what a delicious pain to be spectator in the end, of the end, one end … inebriating, like the sundown there. 

2 To someone questioning, it seems Fontana answered that behind the cut he wanted to see what’s was there, not the wall, obviously.  Yet, the statement is simplistic. Artist should not explain or define their work : one could see different things.

The space, the space, what does it tell you?

If it is empty, free, uniform, it represents no thing…

or every thing! Why do you think Fontana introduced the cut?  He was furious not being able to own the whole thing! Space is irresistible attraction: one mark, many marks, your inner space in one mark, a comet!

3 I am the sunset. Postponed for a long time now it hesitates like the sun, already cut in a half by the horizon staying for one more instant, as if something had to be brought to an end, a regret, a wish, one more glimpse of life… A flash of light and evening starts. 

The daily toil is heavy. For today the sun is done, time to go home, cook a couple of potatoes, light a candle for a useless prayer.

4 Sunset on fire. Clouds redder then the luminous sun, stripes degrading to a dark purple, until the deep blue where the night is waiting.

5 The plain ends meeting the lake. The horizon erased in a light that looks like an atomic bomb. Red, radiant, the arrogant sun towers: shortly thereafter he will find the horizon, and disappear. Along the road to Monte Ceneri everybody stopped, annihilated by such enchantment as maybe never ever after.

6 This evening there is no sunset for the sun. The air is humid, not worth it.  In its indifference, the lake consents, slightly rippled by a jumping fish. Long shadows of naked trees. Time has been suspended, and the future, the marvelous future, has disappeared. Così per sempre…No time forever…

no title    by rosanna albertini – January 11

I don’t want Alberto to jump beyond the edge of his life. His legs are not strong enough. He walks as if the skinny body was weightless, with fast, long steps and apparently without looking around. No car hit him while crossing the street. Miracles can be prosaic, almost uneventful. 

He picks nice shirts and pullovers, he cares about his looks. Trying to be spotless, almost dandy like. He cooks a delicious goulash and shares it with friends. His ninety eight years seem eternal. 

I don’t know if by wisdom or superstition he convinced himself that time doesn’t exist; being mentally prepared to the place with no time? Alberto wrote many posts in this blog about the long waiting, while the eyes became more and more blurred, and the legs hurt.

Pretty often we exchange images, of my tropical garden in abundance. He quickly answers they remind him the luxuriant garden of a novel by Zola, with a priest infuriating in his senses. The title doesn’t come back, but Alberto finds in his archive the images of drawings he had done: his “pathetic attempts” to represent that garden. It doesn’t count when, time is now. It happens that I am so close to his state of mind that I share his nonsense which is calming down fears and giving intensity to whatever happens, at every moment. If it is odd I don’t mind. 

I don’t even know why he sent me old B&W photos of sunsets in our native countryside. I asked him to write about the idea of sunset. He pretended to be tired, but sent five lines. “Whatever comes up again, please send it to me.” One by one, six parts arrived. 

Let me finish this blog before the sun disappears. If it does, I promise no tears. Alberto is eternal for me, he will never disappear. I hope he laughs at me. He doesn’t want to become a dream for sure. Un-romantic as he is, Alberto considers dreams, their infinite movable links of unrelated fragments, a revenge of memory on reason. A way to shake the opportunisms out of the person, or else “ a reshuffling of the past in the impossible attempt to rebuilt a new person”. 

 These days of fire in Los Angeles are a bad dream burning illusions and stereotypes about this city so often mistaken for the the film images of imaginary stories. The real story is only pain, loss, attachment, power of the wind. Let’s go away Via col vento – Gone with the wind, all the fake images of Los Angeles, where angels are free. 

TRAMONTO

1 Ma il tramonto è il romanticismo: lo contiene tutto! Quella luce dorata che sai che sta per scomparire sono i tuoi desideri, le speranze come fantasmi che turbano il tuo intimo. Ah quale delizioso dolore assistere alla fine, la fine, una fine ….. inebriante, come laggiù il sole.

2 A domanda, pare che Fontana rispose che lui dietro lo squarcio voleva vedere cosa c’era, non il muro ovviamente. Mi sembra comunque riduttivo. Gli artisti non dovrebbero spiegare o definire il loro lavoro: ci si possono vedere cose diverse!

Lo spazio, lo spazio, cosa ti dice?

Se è vuoto libero uniforme, rappresenta il nulla…oppure il tutto!

Perché credi che Fontana vi abbia introdotto lo squarcio? Per il furore di non poterlo possedere, il tutto! È un’attrazione irresistibile, lo spazio: un segno, tanti segni, il tuo intimo in una traccia, una cometa! 

3 Io sono il tramonto. A lungo rinviato ora esita come il sole che già a metà sull’orizzonte si trattiene ancora un attimo, come avesse qualcosa da terminare, un rimpianto, un desiderio, ancora un guizzo di vita … Un lampo di luce e poi la sera.

Pesa la fatica di ogni giorno. Il sole per oggi ha terminato, è ora di tornare a casa, mettere due patate sul fuoco, accendere una candela per un’inutile preghiera.

4 Tramonto infuocato. Nubi più rosse del sole lucente, strisce che degradano fino al viola oscuro, fino al blu profondo dove la notte attende…

5 Laggiù la piana termina per via del lago. L’orizzonte cancellato, luce come in un bagliore atomico. Il sole gigantesco troneggia spavaldo, rosso, raggiante: l’orizzonte l’avrebbe trovato lui di lì a poco per poi scomparire. Lungo la strada per il Monte Ceneri tutti si erano fermati annullati da quell’incanto che così forse mai più.

6 Questa sera il sole non farà tramonto. L’aria è umida e non ne vale la pena. Il lago indifferente, acconsente, il guizzo di un pesce l’increspa, un poco. Ombre lunghe di alberi spogli. Il tempo è sospeso e non c’è più il futuro, meraviglioso. Così per sempre… no time forever

tonight, sunset with smoke – tramonto con nuvole di fumo photo by PeterKirby