Interview with Angelo Vanoni

Angelo Vanoni was born in Daverio, a municipality in the province of Varese. After attending the Brera Academy he moved to Florence, Rome, New York. He currently lives and works in Bologna.

How would you describe yourself and your artwork?

I like to imagine myself as a sponge that soaks up every emotion that passes me by. Urban picnic is a work dedicated to the world of women and it aims to be an intimate and modern portrayal of their everyday lives. The emancipation of women is an irreversible process, even if it is systematically slowed down by prejudices and clichés. In my opinion, contemporary society has a great need for feminine figures, mothers, managers and women leaders.  We men, even if we do not have the humility to admit it, need their advice, their tenderness, their smiles, their hugs, the warmth of their bodies and their daily poetry.Urban picnic sets out to depict one of women’s many extraordinary characteristics.

How do you go about beginning a new piece? Do you have an idea already in mind, or do you start working with materials or sketches to find the departure point? 

I observe. An artist looks around, sniffs out the facts, smells the changes, the joys, the sorrows, the bullying, the terrified face of a child thrown into a pushchair between a forest of legs, and many other aspects of everyday life. I am always overcome by wonder and curiosity, which set my imagination in motion.

I have never been a planner. I used to make a living when I was young by setting up shop windows. I didn't want to see anything until the architects and interior designers had finished their work. I then started to do my own work. This drove businessmen and managers crazy, because they needed a plan, a sketch, a draft, something to discuss, something to approve and allow them to sleep soundly. My intuitions have always passed through my hands and I’ve always trusted them: my hands move by themselves. You just have to listen to them and let them do the work. They know and they do what they have to do. They are very good.

When do you think your most prolific time of day or week is?

Any time can be a good time. It depends on your state of mind, on the warmth of the air, on the roar of the rain, on the caresses of your beloved, on the song a blackbird sings to its bride while it broods, on the silence and on every moment that passes, and every moment that brings new things.

What is a barrier you as an artist overcame? Is there anything that enabled you to develop your work as an artist in your life?

As a child I drew quite well, but my father didn’t want me to become an artist, let alone a priest. As far as he was concerned, artists were all starving, drug addicts and useless. In a Marxist society, what was needed were workers, engineers, scientists and businessmen. I found myself in Milan in the 1970s, when the “Made in Italy” label was created. I was noticed by one of the emerging stylists (not even he was aware of what would happen next) and I entered the world of fashion, effectively leaving behind hunger, paintings and brushes. Over the years, I met artists who encouraged me to take up once again the path I had left. However, I revealed beauty in other contexts. I had great acclaim. I earned a lot. Even though I always felt in my heart that I was being loaned out to the fashion industry, I did not want to leave success and return to the hunger and uncertainties of my beginnings. Over the years, I have visited museums, exhibitions and various artistic events. I have listened to musicians, philosophers, poets, film directors, writers and scriptwriters and many other people who, even though they were not involved in the artworld, had artistic sensitivity. I was very lucky because I learnt from them that, if you want to depict beauty, you have to exercise your talents and there is no school or master that teaches you how to become an artist.

Did you have an idea of what you wanted to create right from the beginning?

I know the world of women well. I have, in fact, worked for over forty years with women. I have appreciated their extraordinary talent.  I have tried to highlight the fact that no matter what period of time they live in, women will never lose what makes them distinctive. Urban picnic is imagined as an accessory of the feminine soul. It is a precious talisman to be kept close by, which acts as a glue between a woman’s professional world and her most intimate sphere.

What is the meaning or creative inspiration for your work? We’re curious what the narrative or story is to what you are producing?

As an artist, my task is to work on intuitions with a sense of fairness and humility, being aware that an idea has value the moment it is shared. For me, art is neither a sword nor a sceptre, nor is it a question of copying what others are doing. Like everyone else, I am immersed in the contemporary world, with one eye on art history and the other on the present/future. I am aware of the consequentiality of time as it passes. I am living in an extraordinary era. It is a sort of new technological renaissance, the heartbeat of new discoveries coming at a dizzying pace. I am very curious and interested in every new invention, even the most commercial ones. I have always done research. Coming from the world of fashion, where the objective was to achieve short-term goals, I became accustomed to being particularly alert, quick to perceive things and to unearth hidden beauties, bringing them to light without delay. My experience of art is like travelling on a track: seizing the moment on one track and dealing with existential themes on the other track. After all, I feel like a child of Greece. I love Sicily deeply, and especially Syracuse and Agrigento, Segesta and Selinunte. Every time I have the possibility of doing so, I go and see the Dancing Satyr in Mazara and the Venus of Morgantina in Aidone. I believe I have to depict the times in which I live in a truthful fashion. However, in doing so, I must stick to the great works of the past, because the manner in which beauty is expressed changes, but it should always be capable of amazing the human soul.

In reality, I always have the impression that I am fumbling in the hope of grasping the beauty hidden everywhere. I have believed sometimes, just a few times, that I have seen beauty for a moment, and each time it has quickly slipped away from me, leaving anyway a great happiness inside me. That is why I never tire of looking for it every day. 

Is this perhaps inspiration?

Besides your artworks, are there any other things in life that your voice as an artist may consider vital or valuable? What makes you joyful and creative, in other words?

I’m not a thespian.  I’m lazy, a bit shy and reserved. I like people who show themselves for what they are. I'm not interested in judging, but fools bore me and I pity those that want to be seen everywhere. I hang out with my usual friends, those from my childhood and others I have met during the course of my life. Events taking place induce in me, as I believe they do in everyone, good or bad moods and give me, like everyone else, little time for silence, which is instead what I need. I rejoice at the falling snow, the warmth of spring, leaves growing back on trees, two people hugging each other, the tears of someone who has seen something they did not expect to see, a mother singing to her child by the sea, a dog pulling his master along, and so many other little things that happen every day, of which I bear witness.  Joy, however, passes quickly and my worry is sometimes that I cannot hold it back. This is why I took the air out of Urban Picnic. Taking away the nitrogen, I made it timeless. I crystallised it.

Are there any exhibitions or places where people can see these beautiful creations in person soon? Anything on the horizon?

Apart from an anthological exhibition in the House of Culture of the place where I was born, I have never exhibited my works, let alone sold them.  I have never been interested in anything other than seeing my dreams come true, my obsessions, and discovering hidden beauties. My works have crowded some of the places I have lived in for years. I produced Urban picnic after having been inactive for several years and after having had, on various occasions, second thoughts because I was tired of standing on the side-lines. I needed to get my hands going and I started working once again, stimulated by the theme of the Florence Biennale: " Eternal Feminine - Concepts of Femininity in Contemporary Art and Design". I am now working on an installation about the homeless and another about the moon. I am also attracted to themes about climate, technology, globalisation.