LUCIO MARIA MORRA
PROPOSAL FOR THE KUNST-STATION SANKT PETER KÖLN
SEPTEMBER 2016
PREMISE The Spiritual retreat, formation and artistic workshop week on the theme of the Struggle of Jacob, organized by the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Heritage of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Köln (28th August / 3rd September 2016) has been a very intense experience of close examination, of meetings and of creative incentives for me, which I am particularly thankful to the promoter for, Yvonne Dohna Schlobitten, and to the people in charge of the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, Pater Werner Holter and Dr. Guido Schlimbach, who have welcomed and assisted us with admirable attention, besides all the people that have participated and labored in order to make this meeting extraordinary. The Kunst-Station Direction has invited the artists to present the materials produced during the retreat week and, on the base of those materials, to present the proposal of an especially conceived work for Sankt Peter’s space. Therefore I have decided to insert the whole required documentation in this single dossier: the two preliminary reports, introduced during that week, the final proposal and the personal references, mine and of my collaborator Astrid Fremin. In synthesis, rather than an exhibition of a finished work, my proposal intends to offer an event of an artistic process within Sankt Peter's context, in its performing, elaborating and technical aspects, a work inprogress week eventually testified by the setting up of an installation that will remain then assembled for the whole established period of time. The conceptual matters of the proposal are specified in detail in this dossier. Its character is soaked with painting, with colour, with concentration and spontaneity, with physical impulse beginning from concentration, with systematic and positive prolific action. An important reflection emerged during the retreat week, not only about my identity, but also about the meaning of the retreat itself and the farsighted Kunst-Station Sankt Peter activity, pertaining to the role of Art and artists in this time of pressing change of the human culture and society. Today Art, because of its creative, intuitive and visionary quality, has a fundamental role in orienting and in planning a sustainable, evolutionary, synergistic and virtuous future, in reworking the ethical and aesthetic models, in supporting the practice of awareness as an egocentric system overcoming. May the spirit of awakening sustain us while we are composing the verses and the figures of our destiny.
Lucio Maria Morra
SUMMARY FIRST REPORT AND PROPOSAL Spiritual retreat, formation and artistic workshop week at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Köln, 29-08-2016
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SECOND REPORT AND PROPOSAL Spiritual retreat, formation and artistic workshop week at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Köln, 02-09-2016
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FINAL PROPOSAL FOR THE KUNST-STATION SANKT PETER KÖLN Sant'Albano Stura (Italy), cooperation with Astrid Fremin, 23-09-2016
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LUCIO MARIA MORRA Biographical notes, contacts, references, images
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ASTRID FREMIN Biographical notes, contacts, references, images
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FIRST REPORT AND PROPOSAL
Spiritual retreat, formation and artistic workshop week at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter KĂśln, 29-08-2016
In order to introduce my preliminary proposal about the struggle of Jacob a brief preamble is necessary. A short biographical note. I studied Mathematics at the University in Turin. Then I turned on the path of Art and I undertook the profession of painter for 10 years, many of which living in Brazil. As I returned to Italy I had a clash with the commercial and exclusive reality of art in Europe. Fortunately in that period I met the Gnomonics, the art of sundials that became my principal professional activity during 30 years, even if I obviously continued my eclectic creative production at 360°. 4 years ago, as I completed my 60th year of age, I decided to bring free painting to foreground again. Currently I am busy with the parallel production of some different series: I KING, the ancient Chinese book of changes, in which I mean to represent the 64 hexagrams, all the combinations of 6 whole (yang) or broken (jin) lines. These paintings, acrylics on canvas, measure 100x150 h cm. By now I am half done.
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Another work in progress is RUPALOKA. In the buddhist tradition reality is develops on three plans, three kingdoms: Kamaloka, the kingdom of desire, of senses, the physical dimension; Rupaloka, the kingdom of the form, the archetypes, the psychic dimension or metaphysics; and Arupaloka, the kingdom of formlessness, the spiritual dimension. Therefore what we can say about this series is that they are metaphysics painting.
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Another series is SHODOKA, The song of awakening, inspired by a text of the Zen tradition, by the Chinese master Yoka Daishi (VII century). It consists of 48 pictures 60x60 cm. Sentences of the original text are brought over the informal abstract background. I produce these backgrounds during some zen action painting performances together with the French sculptress and performer Astrid Fremin.
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So you have seen that in my pictorial language 3 principal components are always present: - the informal abstract backgrounds, that express the unconscious, the spontaneity, - the geometric objects, fluctuating as the conscience does, as the rationality, in the ocean of the unconscious, - and very often some writings, graphic and verbal reference as a didactic support and as an expedient to facilitate the joining of the opposites (informal backgrounds and geometric objects) and the composition too. Therefore also the proposal to represent the struggle of Jacob is inserted in this expressive modality of mine. I imagined a triptych, three canvas 70x210 h cm, to "narrate" the story, not so much the case of fixing instead a crucial moment of it or proposing an exegetical interpretation. It is just a narrative choice.
The number 3 is the metrics of this work. Like in music, the march, 2 times, 2 feet, is a linear movement. In the waltz that third time seems to unbalance toward the next measure, it is evolutionary, it is circular. 2, 4, 8 describes a space. 3, 6, 12 are the course of time. Therefore, 3 canvas to narrate a story. Dimensions: the height is 3 times the base. 3 visual elements of my paintings: the geometric, physical objects; the writing, the verbal, the mind; the background, the vast and undifferentiated spirit, before the language. 3 sentences extrapolated by the biblical story to illustrate the physical clash (MANSIT SOLUS ET ECCE VIR LUCTABATUR CUM EO USQUE MANE), the verbal comparison (DIC MIHI, QUO APPELLARIS NOMINE? CUR QUAERIS NOMEN MEUM?), the spiritual resolution (VIDI DEUM FACIE AD FACIEM, ET SALVA FACTA EST ANIMA MEA). The backgrounds are dark because it is night, the atmosphere is dense, loaded of energy, of shines, it is electric. In the first canvas the two objects, the two bodies are clasped in tension, in the second one they are comparing, and in the third one they are harmonized forming a cross - I thought about the christological interpretation of the Old Testament -. Only after having projected them I realized that these 2 objects are 2 "J", as JACOB and JAVHE. The choice of Latin language for the writings is because it is more symbolic, evocative ("cum mortuis in lingua mortua"), but also in honor to the Christian tradition. 8
SECOND REPORT AND PROPOSAL
Spiritual retreat, formation and artistic workshop week at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Kรถln, 29-08-2016
Based on the indications received before this meeting I had prepared a first proposal. Then, during these days many other contents emerged and an inner path has been trod, so I have decided to change the previous project. I would like anyway to briefly illustrate again the first proposal for the people who were not present. In any case it is my intention to produce this work, possibly for the exhibition at the Musei Vaticani. SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PROPOSAL [ see the previous page ] NEW PROPOSAL In these days of close examination and sharing, new important reflections have emerged in me about my religious and artistic identity, and together with the direct knowledge of the space of Sankt Peter and a greater understanding of the Kunst-Station purposes they have determined the choice to elaborate a new proposal. As for my religious identity, as a zen buddhist monk invited in a catholic circle, face to face with a so deep intellectual approach to the theme of the struggle of Jacob, I have perceived that the exegetic problem does not subsist for me. Zen is founded upon silence of the body, of the word and of the mind as the natural dimension of the experience of the awakening and as a base to practice awareness in daily life. Familiarity with silence makes the words clear, evident, also those of the Bible. Christianity is founded upon the word, upon the text of the revelation, upon the book. Also praying is "talking" with God, and meditating is mainly "thinking". Deep silence is just a mystical option - and his point of contact with Zen -. So I have decided, first of all, to regain the subject of one of my first ideas, a vision that I had during a lecture at the Gregoriana, when, sitting in front of a shelf full of books, I have seen an empty book fluctuating in the nebulous space. At first I discarded this idea because it seemed provocative.
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As for my artistic identity, I have realized that I am not really interested in studying the struggle of Jacob because I AM JACOB. I have not the problem of understanding my history. I live the concrete problem of fighting and to surviving. So my new proposal is first of all to embody, in a first phase, the struggle of Jacob through an action painting performance together with the French sculptress and performer Astrid Fremin. My version is that Jacob, provoked by the preponderant purity of the angel, fights with the matter, the material, not to dominate it, but to recognize its divine nature and his own in it. Purified himself by the struggle, worn but firm, he conforms himself to the angel and the angel blesses him touching the transformed matter with his feet.
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As for the setup at Sankt Peter, there might be indicatively a row of 5/6 pieces of canvas (for example squares 2x2 m) along the central nave, straight until a platform in front of the altar on which the two performers would alternate themselves in meditation. During the performance the floor will be protected with nylon. The duration of the performance is about one hour. Afterwards, the canvas be left in place to dry for at least one day.
When dried, in a second phase, I will paint on one of those canvas the fluctuating book and the writing "il libro è vuoto" in italian language ("the book is empty"). The other canvas will be cut in strips and the text of the Bible will be transcribed on them. In a third phase, immediately following, the whole material will be used to form an installation in the space of Sankt Peter, as if the TEXT had been produced by the EMPTY BOOK and then distributed in the CHURCH.
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FINAL PROPOSAL FOR THE KUNST-STATION SANKT PETER KĂ–LN Sant'Albano Stura (Italy), cooperation with Astrid Fremin, 23-09-2016
After the intense experience of the spiritual retreat and artistic workshop week, I have improved my proposal further on in order to introduce it now in full detail. The idea is to produce a work directly within the space of the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter KĂśln in 3 CONSECUTIVE STEPS: 1) realization of an action painting performance, 2) rework of the materials, 3) assembly of an installation. STEP 1 - ACTION PAINTING PERFORMANCE For the arrangement of the action painting performance a double nylon cloth (10x10 ms) will be outstretched in the middle of the central nave to protect the floor. A platform (80x80x40 h cm) will be placed in the centre with 4 white canvas 2x3 m around it. The nylon cloths widen up to about 2,5 m beyond the canvas, which is enough to include the necessary painting materials and to prevent dirtying. The spectators can stand in the surrounding external area and obviously up on the gallery.
The execution of the performance is the following: at the beginning Astrid Fremin sits in meditation on the platform and I sit on the floor in front of her. At a due point, I begin to paint the canvas freely, moving clockwise around the centre. When the painting action ends, we bow to each other and we swop the place. I sit in meditation on the platform while Astrid walks on the fresh painting. At the end we bow again to each other. The concept of the performance, as enunciated and illustrated by documentary photos in the previous pages, is to represent the struggle of Jacob, in which the painter is Jacob and the meditator is the angel. Jacob, provoked by the preponderant purity of the angel, fights with the matter, the material, not to dominate it, but to recognize its divine nature and his own in it. Purified himself by the struggle, worn but firm, he conforms himself to the angel and the angel blesses him touching the transformed matter with his feet. The duration of the performance is about one hour. Hypothesizing that the performance will take place in the afternoon, the morning will be necessary to organize the arrangement, plus 1 or 2 following days to allow the canvas drying in situ. 13
A video of the first edition of this performance, entitled " PRIMA DI VENDERE GLI ORGANI ", realized on May 17th 2015 at the Punto sull'Arte in Sant'Albano Stura (Italy), is available on YouTube at this web address: https://youtu.be/gVBuOtI-Aoo. STEP 2 - REWORK OF THE MATERIALS When the canvas will be dried the arrangement of the performance will be dismantled. Then 2 working days and a minimal amount of space at Sankt Peter (i.e. on the gallery) will be necessary to rework the produced canvas. The fluctuating book and the Italian writing "il libro è vuoto" ("the book is empty") will be painted on one canvas. The other canvas will be cut in strips and the text of the Bible will be transcribed on them. These materials will be used for the final installation. During these 2 working days everyone can attend our operations. STEP 3 - FINAL INSTALLATION Eventually, during the last day, an installation will be set up to remain assembled for the whole established time. The following images illustrate the approximate structure of it. The exact position and composition will be discussed and otherwise agreed with the Kunst-Station management, as well as varied in progress. The concept is to recall to the truth beyond the words, to the transcendence as a silent intimate experience, without which the language is Tower of Babel, a bitter accumulation of concepts and ambiguous and controversial interpretations, a corrupted transmission. Recognizing the silence behind the text illuminates the words. In the installation the TEXT springs from the EMPTY BOOK and spreads in the CHURCH. As it’s evident in Poetry, that uses the words to suggest the inexpressible, the general prerogative of Art is to use signs to open gaps and to overcome the limits of the language itself, of the categories and of the personal conscience. LAST REMARKS This proposal is not finalized to the regular exposure of an artwork, but it means to offer a creative process in its conceptual, performing, elaborating and technical aspects, an alive work-in-progress week within the Sankt Peter context, finally testified by the material result, by the installation. It is desirable that the whole process could be video-documented and that the video could be enjoyed in parallel with the installation during its set-up period.
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LUCIO MARIA MORRA
Biographical notes, contacts, references, images
Lucio Maria Morra was born in 1952 in Fossano (Italy). He studies Mathematics at the University in Turin. In 1976, at the threshold of graduation, he interrupts the studies and the debuting university career to devote himself wholly to Art and to undertake the painter profession. In 1977 he moves to Brazil, where he resides until 1983. Since 1977 to 1980 he works in close cooperation with the painter Luiz Hamen in Santos, developing an intense silkscreen activity. Returned in Italy, he lives permanently in Province of Cuneo. His prolific and multifaceted production within figurative arts (pictures, decoration, restoration, graphics, design, computer graphics, webmastering, etc.) has continuously been integrated by a substantial activity of study and cultural promotion. From this versatile prerogative his interest in Gnomonics, the art of sundials, rises up in 1984, becoming his principal professional activity in 1986. In 2012 he decides unwaveringly to bring his free pictorial production to foreground again. Beyond the professional dimension, he has always interpreted his own artistic path mostly an internal path. Since 1998 he is a Buddhist monk in Zen tradition, disciple of Master Roland Yuno Rech and person in charge of the Dojo Zen Sanrin in Fossano (italy). Lucio Maria Morra Via TrinitĂ , 28 - 12045 SANT'ALBANO STURA - CN (Italia) +39-335-1937905 - info@luciomariamorra.com WEB SITE ACTION PAINTING PERFORMANCE PERCORSO D'OPERA PAINTINGS SUNDIALS
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www.luciomariamorra.com/en-index.html https://youtu.be/gVBuOtI-Aoo https://issuu.com/luciomariamorra/docs/percorsodopera http://www.luciomariamorra.com/pitture/en-opere.html http://www.luciomariamorra.com/meridiane/en-opere.html
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ASTRID FREMIN
Biographical notes, contacts, references, images
Astrid Fremin was born in 1963 in Normandy (France). From 1991 she lives in Italy, in the Province of Cuneo. She is a mother of three children born in French Polynesia and in Italy. During her youth she makes several formative journeys through Europe to Spain, Germany, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Istanbul, Italy and Greece. She is graduated in General History of Art at the Louvre School in Paris, with a specialization in African and Oceanic Art. In 1986 she moves to New York where she meets a stimulating artistic environment (Antoine Boots, Andrea Grassi, Gonzalo Fonseca) and she decides to devote herself to carved sculpture. She works stone, mainly marble. In 2009 she starts to realize spider webs in hemp rope that, from 2010, become interactive installations. In 2012 she is initiated to the poetic-visual painting by the painter Dario Damato, personalizing the process in a more bodily and interactive form. In 2013 with other six women she realizes a cycle of great canvases denominated DONNE SELVATICHE. In 2015 with Lucio Maria Morra she creates the action painting performance PRIMA DI VENDERE GLI ORGANI, reusing afterwards the cuts of the produced canvas to compose a new sculptural cycle entitled IL FRUTTO DEL NOSTRO VENTRE. Astrid Fremin +39-346-3611208 - astridfremin@gmail.com GOOGLE+ BEHANCE ISSUU FACEBOOK LINKEDIN
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https://plus.google.com/u/0/106900761948465980399 https://www.behance.net/astridfremin https://issuu.com/astridfremin https://www.facebook.com/pasta.alpesto.3 https://www.linkedin.com/in/astrid-fremin-736b3543
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