Francesco Gallo Mazzeo
Art critic
Naples is boundless, has no low, has no high, does not have right, has no left, no horizon, no walls, has nothing of what is normal, taken for granted, narratable, explicable, to be judged. His epic novel it is a sublime that touches everything, escapes everything, unleashing an invisible force, an unknown power, which can be said with poetry, with a song, with music, with large smiles of joy, as with long cries of sadness. In it everything is embraced, life and death, to say it with good and evil and at the same time happens with one (but why one ...) variable that knows everything and knows nothing, going from a deep, deep, deep, where they meet (because so many have seen it, in a certain dream ... and where otherwise ...) windy words of the Sibyl, with the experiments of don Raimondo, while Angevin males and females are invited to dinner liars. All theater, all staged which means that it is only envy, of those who are out of the world, because you have never seen Naples, when it is day and stones speak and plants laugh, when it is night and you hear the chosen spirits that tell of Virgil, while the Dionysian dance, sing and drink. Each time it’s a first time. Like a big dawn that has not seen sunset, there is no repetition, there is no refrain, both when the mountain is breathing and when the net is inflated and Parthenope comes, and Pulcinella is having fun. In its streets, in its districts, in its squares, in the alleys and in boats, everything exudes a miracle, every love becomes comedy, every contest becomes an abyss and never come half measures, either on one side or the other, because there isn’t virtue in the middle there is no history, there is nothing, like the blood of St. Gennaro, who now does not exist, now it does, like a hidden treasure that proud of himself, shows to whomever he wants, the others are left on the road, outside Porta Capuana, on the road to Pozzuoli or on that to Milan, without sounds and without fanfare. Naples cannot be sliced, a little yes a little no, you take it or you don’t take it, because there is the myth, the legend, the history, the reality in it, all merged together, so you have to be in love, soothsayers, alchemists, astrologers, as well as surveyors and doctors, to appear in this great mirror, without being absorbed, bewitched, transformed, by Circe, daughter of the Sun, who dwells further north, from Parmenides who lives a little further south, making a circle of it, a destiny, of a much nature, multiplied, multiple, of enchanted atmosphere where each one it is one, just as no one is anyone, a hundred thousand is a metaphor and a right one destiny. As soon as it knocks, the door opens, but woe to enter completely, you have to stay at the door, you need to translated the falling in love into love, because eyes see, ears hear, hands touch, without winning a strange syndrome (of Stendhal) that makes you lose and you find yourself, like a bag and a surf, so much that makes one say that everything is useless and Naples does not change, but it will change you. Everything we talk about, has already been discussed, everything that we wants to do is already done, it seems that even the clouds recite a subject and the birds of the sky themselves are part of a picture that does not admits ignorance. Everything is at risk of a great echo, for this we must precede point by point without getting caught up with excess narcissism following off- tracks that lead nowhere, because when operating in a complex space, such as a millennial city, even when it is not a matter of modifying the structures, but to wear a festive dress, this must be a bit upset it is true, otherwise what role would fantasy, invention and the same word art have a work made at art, it would have no meaning, but drawing a path that everyone can follow, the slow, the fast. It is not a question of pursuing a frantic originality, but of being guided from places and people, without thinking of overwhelming everything, regardless to the weight of years, of uses, of customs, thinking that reality is subjective, scientific, incontrovertible. Reality does not exist, it is a desire, it is a aspiration that everyone sees in a way, what exists is the realty that governs each of us with idols (of which Francesco Bacone spoke), illusions, ghosts of the mind, the experience itself, due to our own mind, impressed by things, through senses, often distorting, abstract. Take two steps forward, take a step back and then to the right and left side, make the horse’s move, not keeping the checkmate and without going to look for it with the impatience of a fatal Icarus, knowing that a force can do so much, but it cannot do everything and must have a method without making challenges that recall hyenas and jackals, listening to the rustlings of lions and royal tigers, because the metropolis is forest, it is woods, as well as good and how nice, going with Daedalus first, always thinking about the Arianna’s thread. Yet we tried, answering with surname and name, like in elementary schools and like an Esposito Gennarino, met in a dream. di Luggo Annalaura: present. Gallo Mazzeo Francesco: present. Colella Bruno: present. Pera Graziella: here I am. This is us (with Marco, Maria Sofia, Olindo, Marcello) and then those who we call others, starting with the many scugnizzi with headphones, tight jeans and faded hair, in a big choir where he did and then did it. Imagine the cosmos in chaos, the garden in the forest, the degree of degradation, paying no attention to the flowers of evil with the character of those who harvest the grains of wheat after the sack is broken, that a trace a cardo, a decumanus, paying homage to the martyrs of the freedom with a shining bow, honoring birth in the light of all of us, trusting in the tree of the good and evil, setting eyes of the heart to watch over in the dark, making a wholly transform mantra, for things to remain good and meek and not to change in horror and in fatuous fires. Napoli/Eden, not by chance but with precision intuition, per exempla, born from long turns, vaults and revolts, on feet or carriage, running or scanning the steps, because only in this way exchanges can occur between those who think that similia cum similia curantur and who instead, contraria contrariis curantur, as to say that Apollo speaks with the voice of Dionysus and Dionysus feigns Apollo, to be loved by spirits, as well as by the bodies and intone a beautiful choral that indicates a way, that is not the way, but it is not absolutely wandering, the error, the drift, the hallucination or the depression, but a lucid madness that seeks and seeks a hidden harmony with it, that takes a journey, taking a step, which can doubt of everything except for himself who doubts, following a star, looking for light.