52

CARMELO STRANO, 1992

milan, june 1992

antologica - ed. meta - church of Saint Augustine - city of civitanova marche alta - 1992

         It is certainly no easy task to give structure to something so light that it approaches the immaterial, evanescence, sign. But it is precisely this that constitutes the foundation of Paolo Gubinelli's exploration. He is capable of conjugating the Marches (his region of origin) with Tuscany (where he lives), in the sense of the characters of these lands and also of their respective artistic traditions. Beyond the impact with their iconography, strongly informal or simply non-iconic, few are the artists today who, on careful examination, can show close relations with Piero or Raphael, Bellini or Cimabue. A few Italian examples could be Alberto Burri or Walter Valentini.

         The construction of every painting by Gubinelli reflects a calm but obstinate familiarity with the Classic-Renaissance vision, in the rhythm of forms at times absorbed in toned-down atmospheres. Onto this terrain, he then brings abstract-geometric declinations which are readily diverted onto principles of pure rhythm. Thus lyricism with great motivation on the level of formation but also, and primarily, on the level of design. His drafts of the finest sensitivity, on the edge of the said and the unsaid, even as concerns his reliefs, are not casual, adventurous or chance. Nor has this constituted an impediment for rendering explicit his signs-shapes-energies. Nature and culture have indeed found an excellent balance.

         Evidence of all this was recently offered by his personal exhibition promoted by the University of Camerino whose Dean, Mario Giannella, so aptly expressed himself in the catalogue edited by the university: "This map tormented by cuts and folds, softened by delicate pastels and "dug" by the shadows of cold greys, reveal niches, cavities, multicoloured receptors which, in turn, conceal little "neurones" whose embrace transmits to the surface a shudder similar to a quick breath. RIVEDERE QUESTO TESTO!

April, 1992

Ed. L'Arca, 1992, international magazine of architecture, design and visual communication.

CARMELO STRANO, 1993

         A mistake to watch out for is that of considering Paolo Gubinelli's work as the place where one abandons oneself to a personal abstract "imagerie." It is also this, but much more besides. In any event, it is helpful to say that fundamentally the artist is an analytic, one of the uncommon ones, capable of vibrating and of making vibrate. In brief, every sign, even those that look abstract, though responding to a pre-ordered structural system, tied to a sense of personal projecting, is never "The Pendulum of Foucault."

         It may seem audacious to insist on the sense of project with regard to Gubinelli's poetics. I instead find it particularly interesting for the apparently paradoxical difference - gap - discrepancy between, on one hand, a minute expressive and graphic sign, quick and circumstantiated, which seems casual and occasional and, on the other hand, an badly dissimulated project that governs the author's thought and his expressive means.

         Whatsmore, Gubinelli's logical-operative thread is always decided, loose, robust but subtle and delicate in its manifestation. From this latter viewpoint, we could grasp a connection with Paul Klee, a well metabolised sense of making things flow together, subconscious events. So well metabolised that this sense of the "aniconico" event emerging to the surface, typical of Gubinelli, upon close observation reveals his very educated arrogance in cutting. Indeed, at times the connotative sign lies in the groove, neutral and dry, traced on the paper. This particular sign normally colludes with painting, or rather with this fascinating, anything but anomic, formal freedom long spoken of by critics. At times, you have the impression that Gubinelli is tempted by a sort of sign-writing; it is the character of his system of signs and calligraphy which, for its very nature, is far-reaching and ductile. Verification is found by comparing his small sheets of paper and his installations even of large dimensions. You note a hot line, which certainly belongs to Gubinelli's physiology, between sense of microcosm and macrocosm: in brief, a single cosmic character of the sign's breadth descending from an equilibrium matured between nature and culture and which is perceived both in potential occasions (small sheets of paper) and in objective cases (his environmental works).

         In the beginning, I mentioned Gubinelli's projecting. An importance worthy of explanation, bringing into discussion some of his project-drawings tied to architectural ideas. With graphic and ideological pertinence, Gubinelli proposes his own static-structural mode on modular bases.

         This confirms not only the elasticity of breadth we have just mentioned, but also the vibrant equilibrium between expressiveness and analysis in Gubinelli's universe of signs.

May 1993

Ed. A.I.C.S.

Church of Saint Francis, City of Gualdo Tadino, 1993

Palazzo dei Consoli, City of Gubbio, 1993

Sala 90 of the Museo Palazzo Ducale, City of Mantua

Soprintendenza per i beni Artistici e Storici, Mantua, 1993

Paolo.Gubinelli@inso.it

giosue@giosuemarongiu.it

www.giosuemarongiu.it

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