AGOSTI NOARRIVABENE INTERVIEW BY DAVID MOLESKY PORTRAIT BY ALICE NEMNT'NOYA
lN THE GRAND FOYER OF VIENNAS KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, with its marbte ftoors
and ornate details, l'm pleasantly distracted by a man speaking ltalian and captivating a small crowd. His disheveled curly locks bounce and sway as he passionately gestures, hands jangling with bangles, bracelets, and large rings. Entering a room of Flemish still-life paintings, spy him again, enthusiastically riffing to his coterie as he thrusts his face up to the canvas and then quickly back to observe the effects of distance. I
I stop him a moment to ask if he is exhibiting in Odd Nerdrum's Kitsch Biennale 2O08, which had opened the night before. As he confirmed and introduced himself as Agostino Arrivabene, I realized that lwas meeting the author of my favorite painting in the show. Growing up in the stratified terrain of Lombardy, a region of ltaly populated for centuries by a variety of ethnic groups and cultures, Agostino attributes his heritage to ancient Egyptian and Viking influences. Born and raised in the small medieval village of Rivolta dAdda, Agostino shaped himself as a young artist in an atmosphere rich with beauty and sorrow. His fascination for morbid detail plays itself out in his extreme attention to the transformative processes of mixing, boiling, and concentrating his materials.
him a sense of grace and poetic sensibility through which to view the world. My father sacrificed a wing of the house to serve as my private studio, and here I laid the fouhdation for my future works, guiding myself with the help of books and museums. Even the academy of fine arts could not fill my hunger for knowledge, so I created a sort ofvirtual workshop where I compared my technical experiments with those of the past. These were years of meticulous study; every detail and material I discovered had to be worked on, distilled, perfected and prepared with my own hands.
Where do you live now and how is your studio set up? I love solitary country life in my 18th century farmhouse. The
house is divided into three levels where every floor contains a space for work or meditation. ln the attic, I have made
With the use of both robotic and human translators, I was able to connect with Agostino in the ltalian countryside to ask a few questions as he prepared for his solo show,
Verperbild, opening May 22nd at Gallerie Giovanni Bonelli in Milan, ltaly.
Dovid Molesky: How did growing up in rural ltaly influence your training as an artist? Agostino Arrivobene: I have many, though nebulous, memories of my childhood due to trauma. When I was four years old, my destiny was marked when my mother lost her life, suddenly leaving me alone with a newborn brother and fragile father. Thereafter, it was a continuous roam between the homes of various relatives, till later a paternal aunt made things more stable. I then began a devoted search for the ideal figure of a mother that, from year to year, grew in me like an ancient simulacrum. I have dedicated several works of my early years to this totemic image so that I may strip its mystery and drain this charge of primordial force that was consuming my brain and flattening my emotions. I received my first encouragement in art through my father who took me to confront directly all the great ltalian masters. ln Florence, I first encountered Leonardo Da Vinci and, for many years afterward, he was my master. I distilled from
the yellow atelier. This is where I keep my library and I do preparatory drawings in the soft light. On the next level down is the blue atelier, a north-facing studio where I do the fine finishing work on paintings. Here the crisp light pours in over a vastness of deserted fields and allows me to observe hues with greater subtlety. On the ground floor is the scarlet atelier, where I spend the most time and where most of my paintings are initiated. Here I also keep a few inspirational books. ln one room, where I store my drawings, I have made a kind of temple dedicated to my 1996 circular painting of Orpheus.
A large spiral staircase, inspired by Gustave Moreau's Paris, ascends to my personal Wunderkammer, where I house my collection ofcurious objects and sculptures. You have cited the importance of your visits to Greece. How have your experiences and research there contributed
to your work? Patmos is the island where I have nourished my nostalgia and homesickness for the time when human beings met the gods. This is the great hidden mystery that haunts me, the link of some mysterious visitors that constituted the foundation of our myths, from Sumer.ian and Egyptian to the biblical tales, and through the Minoan civilization to the more recent Greek myths.
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