Romeo and Juliet, God, 2019, acrylic on canvas, on book, mounted on wood, 18 57/64 × 26 11/16 × 23/32 in.
©Foto Massimo Listri
Emilio Isgrò (Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto 1937)
Emilio Isgrò is an artist, but also a poet, novelist and playwright. With his cancellature (erasures), he has created one of the most revolutionary and original operations in the international art scene of the second half of the 20th century. Isgrò was invited to four editions of the Venice Biennale, won first prize at the São Paulo Biennale in 1997 and has exhibited in prestigious international museums such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, MoMA in New York, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Isgrò’s work was featured in many anthological exhibitions, including at Centro Pecci in Prato, Taksim Sanat Galerisi in Istanbul, Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna in Rome, Palazzo Reale and Gallerie d’Italia in Milan, and Fondazione Cini in Venice. In Brescia, in 2022, the artist created the monumental exhibition Isgrò Erases Brixia. His works can be found in the collections of international institutions, such as the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna and Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome, Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He has also made numerous public works, including the Seed of the Most High in Milan, created for Expo 2015, The Abjuration of Galileo at the University of Padua, and The Malavoglia Butterfly, acquired by Fondazione Sicilia.
At Villa Firenze, Isgrò exhibits Romeo and Juliet, a tribute to the links between Italian and anglophone culture. The choice of erasing Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, specifically the third scene of the first act, is highly significant. In the first place, it evokes Isgrò’s profound relationship with the United States, as the artistic practice of erasure arose as the answer of a young artist—who was already an established poet and journalist—to the pop art presented at the 1964 Venice Biennale. At the time, Isgrò, who had met John Kennedy and formed a friendship with Peggy Guggenheim and Michael Sonnabend, intended to bring art, and especially literature and poetry, to the general public. This is why he decided to merge writing with images and embraced visual art as a paradox, inventing an artistic language that is as autonomous as it is original: erasure, which borrows the communicative immediacy of pop art while maintaining a distance, and avoids all consumerist ambiguities to focus on the written word, with an approach that veers toward the conceptual. The choice of Romeo and Juliet reveals the artist’s method. While erasing a classic of world literature line after line, Isgrò emphasizes its importance by “sparing” certain words, which encourage the viewer to re-read the original text and discover new meanings. Here, it involves a few sentences said by Juliet’s nurse: taken out of their context, they summarize the protagonist’s plight. The mysterious question “Wilt thou not, Jule?”, saved from oblivion, urges us to reflect on the inevitability of fate. Isgrò’s erasure sustains memory and opens to free interpretation, opposing any form of censorship or “cancel culture”; through the very act of veiling, it unveils unexpected concepts. It is a timeless visual and verbal language: sixty years ago, it left an indelible mark on Italian art and, thanks to its visionary force, it seems more relevant every day, now that our time seems to mirror the artist’s language. (Renata Cristina Mazzantini)