More airplanes than stars or how I turned hell’s flames into sunset ponchos

Life is getting faster and faster. I was going to delay this post and thinking to write a longer one for the end of the year. But there are still a couple of hours left before starting to plan what to bring back to London, after almost two months here at home, and it feels like I should open a txt file and let it flow.

Life’s reached a whole new level of complexity, but I’m getting better at life, or at least I feel like that. It still hurts trying to write about those first days of this year. It was very cold and I was trying to warm my heart up by getting attached to a girl who was living on the fifth sixth floor of a brown building in north-east. It’s always surprising how irrationally those love things work. There were no reasons to get so much into her. But is there ever a reason?

Bad marks came with the worst timing. My heart was broken and my mind felt like falling into the abyss. I felt terrible and didn’t go to school for two weeks.

It was very hard, and I still remember that pain in my chest that lasted for months. A nice guy didn’t give up on me. He kept popping up in my studio, sharing nice words. I’m thankful to him.

In the meantime, I moved to a new house, closer to college. It was still very cold outside and even if it wasn’t easy to get used to my new small room, that house felt warm. I had terrible nights there, and one night I broke down in tears on my pillow. I thought that if she wanted to be my friend for real as she said, she wouldn’t let me cry that way. I stopped talking to her. and didn’t see her at school that much anymore.

Talking to the new flatmate felt nice. I kept going to the studio everyday, even if it seemed impossible to get rid of that pain. I felt very lost. My art practice was totally overlapping my private life, invading my thoughts at any time of the day. Then, an unexpected email hit my inbox. It was an invitation to a reading group. On Postinternet. Texts attached.

The general ignorance surrounding Postinternet in my course started to make me feel frustrated. I remembered that one of the things I wanted to do at Goldsmiths was to figure out what Postinternet was and I realized that I had kind of put myself in the position of waiting for some great mind to enlighten me. But the more I was waiting the more those answers were not coming to me. One day I took a deep breath and finally accepted that responsibility. No other chance.I became the postinternet guy of the course. Head down, I read a lot.

I went to the reading group, met some old friends and had a nice chat at the pub. Words started to finally make sense. That night, without even noticing it, I started to fight back depression. There was still a long way in front of me, but on a sleepless night not long after that day, some old thoughts finally got into an order. I was about to write my first essay on Evangelion and Tumblr. It was a relief.

It was still hard, though. But being more aware of what I was pursuing in my art made me feel less helpless and I could start to enjoy the talent of my fellow students again. The upcoming spring and those slanting sun rays that hit the wooden floor in a late Thursday afternoon gave a tiny sparkling light back to my eyes.

I can’t remember exactly why I printed sunset skies on silk. And don’t know exactly why Andrea came to my studio that day. Don’t know exactly where I found the strength to get out of the studio and start to go to openings again. Don’t remember exactly how that bad time ended. But it did.

At the end of the second conference of workshops I still didn’t have many clues, but that day a better time was about to start. I had written a draft for a research essay that put down in words thoughts that I have had in my mind for years. And I didn’t take any break during Easter holidays. I thought that it could be the right moment to work even harder. I carefully planned everything ahead and worked non-stop for four weeks.

When the following term began, tutorials started to go better. And I received an invitation to be part of a show. One day, Andrea told me something that sounded pretty much like this: you’ve put your roots down and been quiet for a while, now that the spring sun is rising you’re starting to blossom.

When I felt that things were getting better I just kept going. But today, what pushed me to write something before going back to London is that, so far, everything went so fast that I couldn’t really make my mind up on how I managed to overcome that hardcore depression, turning it into a series of pictures of the sunset on my and my friends Instagram.

I think it might have started with some group tutorial, or maybe at some party at school but not really cuz I was always avoiding them. Maybe going to openings with friends from the course, who brought some other friend, I dunno. Maybe exploring the Instagram thing and trying to be smiling and it just happened, you know, it’s London, it’s about chatting with strangers all the time.

Ohh wait..!! I remember now. It’s like things happened when I went to pee behind that church. I remember now! Talented, funny and smiling guys. I started to call them friends! That was the moment when I thought that, in some way, I could manage to survive.

This is how it went.

I went to the postinternet reading group and talked to Paolo and Marialaura

felt amazed by Frederique’s talent in putting together the delusion of the detail performance

was invited to take part to 6pm YLT

documented my palm trees piece and heard nice words from Roel

went to The Sunday Painter and felt surrounded by the warm hearts of the Rietveld crew

had studio visit with Attilia

went to the Seventeen chatting and instagramming with Saemi

went to vegetarian barbecues in the park right behind home

danced like crazy with Sam Smith in Angel

went to the RCA degree show with second year’s

and then the interim was ready.

I felt the best that night.

I felt totally happy.

and like I achieved my goal at 400%.

Three days after, it was at the graduation show opening night that I saw that girl again. She wasn’t alone. They were high on drugs and disgusting.
It didn’t feel totally right and I soon left the party. My mind was already on something else. My first show in London outside of college was coming in a week.

Thinking about the show, now I can really see how much my friends supported me that night. Once again, their warm hearts managed to turn my unstable emotional mood into good memories. 

#area51 #magichour #6pmeu #favpeeps

Una foto pubblicata da frederique pisuisse (@100.kenny.pdf) in data: 22 Lug 2015 alle ore 13:26 PDT

But right after the opening, I felt exhausted as never before. Never wanted to go back home so much. It looked like I achieved every single thing I wanted from my first year at Goldsmiths. But no energy was left. The day after I had a pizza, packed my luggage, wore my hoodie and took a plane.

Time has gone by very quick here at home and that great feeling of being back didn’t last long. I love the quietness of hearing the wind blowing through the leaves in my garden. But I also love waking up in Milano, looking down from the window singing 883 with Clara. At the same time, I love everything I left in London, because only there my art can fully make sense. Everywhere I am there’s always something missing. But actually, I’m not craving for a perfect place, so probably, what I’m missing is something else.

There must be an airport not far from my house. I see so many airplanes taking off and landing every day. But when I look up, instead of the sky there’s always a thick grey curtain of clouds and the only bright things I can see are those lights at the tip of airplanes wings.

It was back in April, I think, one night I was on my way back from school, probably stayed at the studio till late, tired and hungry, I heard the sound of airplane engines right above my head. But that night, when I looked up, the sky was clear and I saw a plane flying and all around it a bunch of sparkling stars. I just like to think that in some way, I managed to put my ass on one of those fucking planes and it is going towards those bright stars, because yes, I still dream to be one of those stars one day, and I never felt so close to them as I feel right now.

Italian summer, pt.3 - Summer notes

I started to go biking on March 31st.

I sent a twit to Serebii's Joe Merrick!!!

I unpredictably met the great mangaka Yoshiyuki Sadamoto!!!

Then, I even went to this year Pokémon Day.

On July 27th I turned 25! These are some of my birthday wishes that came true: ichi, ni, san, shi.

And these are two bonus songs from my recent summer vacation!

~ the 1989 worldwide #1 smash hit The Lambada performed by Kaoma

~ ポケモンかぞえうた

I would say that I like pretty much London even if I have conflicting feelings about it. I see London as a very chaotic city and everything goes very fast over there. Sometimes I didn't feel strong enough to live there.

However, if I look at all the things I did in the last years I see that applying to uni is the decision that makes more sense than anything else. Also, it is what I want the most, together with a girlfriend, easygoing and clever friends and traveling around the world.

Even though it's still warm I feel that summer is ending here at home and soon the flock of Gruccione birds that lived near my house in the last three months will be back migrating to Africa. 

I will be back in London instead, because it seems like I'm already back on board.

See you space cowboy.

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Italian summer, pt.2 - I wanted to see the whole world

In late August while I was spending a week on vacation I also wrote a letter to a person who knows me since I was a little child. Last time I had chance to meet her was last year. Again, I wrote about what I did in the last eight months and this is a sum-up of my letter.

Hello my dear,

hope you are well and everything is fine. I apologize for not having written to you in the past months. I went through a busy and tough time in my life.

At the moment I am spending a week on holiday in Liguria. As you might know my grandparents have a small apartment in Chiavari and I am staying here to take a rest after a couple of stressful months. This is a nice chance to write you a bit and to say that I am sorry if I did not call or write earlier.

If I am not wrong last time I wrote you it was from London. It was in February when I was there to visit a couple of schools. I've been traveling a lot since last year when I started to write reviews for magazines. I had to go around to see exhibitions and visit art fairs. I went to Bologna for a week, several times to Milan and Reggio Emilia and in April I even went to Rome for three days where I met three artists working in a museum. I recorded interviews with them for the art website I am used to contribute to. People started to contact me to review their exhibitions and I had several chances to meet established artists and people for the arts field.

In addition, in May I worked in Venice at a festival of emergent artists and after a couple of weeks I was back in Venice again as a journalist to visit and write on this year Venice Biennale. So, between May and June I spent almost twenty days in Venice. It was so rewarding to be invited at the opening of the Venice Biennale!

However, while I was traveling from my home to Rome, from Rome to Venice and so on, I started to feel bad. I felt lonely and I became a bit sad. It was like I was always with great people that I like very much but none of them was a friend of mine. I worked with them and I enjoyed that but every night when I was ready to go to sleep I was alone without a real friend close to me.

Actually, I met new friends and inspiring people but they often live in other countries. I am always in touch with them, sometimes my asian friends send me postcards and gifts from Korea or Japan but I am talking about that kind of friend that you can talk to when you are a bit sad. If your friends are living miles away what can you do? Do you know what I mean?

Regarding my old friends, it is sad to say but we became too different and now I find hard to share my interests and thoughts with them. This made me sad for a while, I felt increasingly alone.

This story ended in mid June when I went to London again and I visited the last university left on my list. That was a very uncomfortable trip because I even got sick. I do not know if it was because of the unpleasant London weather or just because I was sad and depressed but I did not feel well during I was staying there. I did not even enjoy to see my friends that I met in London last year. It was like we had become more acquaintances than friends…

That was a real turning point! In my heart I felt that it was the right moment to take a decision on my future. I needed it. I had visited all the schools I could visit and I had to choose one of them.

So, as soon as I got back home at the end of June I looked inside myself and I decided to do what I like the most. I started to work very very hard on my artworks because my final aim was and still is to work as an artist and hopefully to move to London for a couple of years if I will be good enough to enter one of my favourite art schools. I worked hard and I created lots of new interesting things! I will make a portfolio and finally I am going to apply more than one university within December.

Working at my home in Castelnuovo I recovered from sadness and loneliness. In the last two months I focused my attention just on my feelings. I really enjoyed staying at home close to my family. To be honest I had been away since last year when I spent six months abroad. Once back in Italy I started to travel again from here to there and I had never spent more then three weeks in a row with my family… I was enthusiastic and I wanted to see the whole world… I am still enthusiastic and I will definitely see the whole world but I also understood that sometimes I need to take a rest in Castelnuovo where I grew up and enjoy my time with my family that love me and always support me.

That's the clue I guess.

Recently, I also got some great news I want to tell you. I am going to end my vacation in Liguria earlier than expected because I got an invitation for a movie premiere at Festival del Cinema di Venezia starting next week! It will be a documentary about a very important living artist and it seems I got some good friend that managed to put my name on the VIP list.

But most important in October I will be back in London working at Frieze Art Fair as I did last year. They already confirmed my position at the Press Office. Frieze is one of the best three art fairs in the world and if they want to work with me because last year I did a good job I must be happy.

end of Part 2

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Italian summer, pt.1 - Once again, Carlo

A letter that I wrote to my friend Carlo was a nice chance to sum up what I've done this year so far. This is the English transcript of the most interesting parts of the email I sent him in early August.

Hey man!

Please, forgive me if I'm late writing this letter! I wanted to write earlier but recently I couldn't focus my mind on anything else but my work…

However, I decided to take a rest till late August and I'm going to send you an email as first thing. To be honest I wrote quite a lot but I hope it will be interesting to read it.

It's weird to think that last time we met it was more than a year ago while we were both in London. In these days last year I was moving for a month to your room in Brighton Road. I feel that I grew up a lot since that time…

When you wrote me last month I was in London, again. Actually, since I came back home last year in September I went back to London every two months to visit art schools and universities. In fact, this past June I visited the last university left on my list and the time for the big decision has come. 

Let me say that all the things I did in the last twelve months began in a lucky week in September 2012 when one of the three world's most important art fairs offered me a job (Frieze Art Fair London) and a painting of mine was selected for the annual exhibition of a Brooklyn-based non-profit institution called NurtureArt. Sending my first painting to America made me think I was doing great. However, the real turning point for my present and future professional career was working at Frieze London in October.

Frieze is one of those places where it does not matter how you got there but you know that in those five days of the year the best, the most important, the rightest people will be there. In the journalism field Frieze could be compared to The New York Times or BBC maybe… I don't know… you must know it better than me :)

Encouraged by my experience at Frieze I sent and actually got published some reviews of mine on a couple of Italian online art magazine and from then I started two regular collaboration: the first one is with Artribune (the most popular Italian news website which is based in Rome) and JulietArtMagazine.com, the newly born website of paper magazine Juliet.

I published about twenty reviews so far and I also went around in Italy to meet cool people. I've been to Padua, Turin, Bologna, several times to Milan and even Rome. Also in May I've been to Venice where I was the correspondent for JulietArtMagazine.com from this year Venice Biennale! To be honest, I lived that experience as a life achievement :)

However, that was the cool side. There was another less cool side. From October 2012 to May 2013 I never been at home for more than three weeks in a row, I was often on a plane to London or on a train to somewhere in northern Italy. I was surrounded by people and alone at the same time, always speaking to people older than me – sharing with them my interests – but none of them was actually a real friend of mine. So, I started to feel very lonely and that feeling affected me for a couple of months.

And it is not matter of money. I'm not paid for what I write but I knew that rule from the beginning and I accepted it when I decided to play this game. When I decided to postpone my application to uni in London because I did not feel ready as an artist I could not do anything else except investing my time in meeting people that could support my artistic career in the future. And I would say I've been successful, now people I was dreaming to work with write to me, know me, invite me, work with me as colleagues. This makes me happy and proud even if I can't have a regular salary.

In other words, while I was traveling I felt as I did not have any friend of mine interested in what I was doing. I'm not talking about those new friends I met, I mean one of those friends that have known me for a long time, since before the moment I started this new path. I almost don't know anything about my old friends' recent activities, none of them seems to be interested in contemporary art as much as I am anymore. Most of them found their places away from those subjects we studied at high school and university. From my point of view they seem to be far away from my nomadic and sometimes international experiences…

Sometimes I feel that the only two people that can understand my feelings are you and Martina. In my opinion we did better than the others and you even got a job on TV!

She has been around as well recently: Rome, Turin, France, and last month she moved to Switzerland. A couple of months ago we were at home, both back from our experiences abroad. We met and talked about what we did in the last year and a half. She understand me as no one else. And it might be the reason why my sense of nostalgia seemed to get strong since then. I felt sad thinking at those girls I hanged out with between London and Italy in recent times – I don't find them as much interesting as Martina was and still is.

However, she got a new swiss boyfriend. At the same time she couldn't find any proper job in Italy so she decided to move abroad. I knew she is brave and I wish her a very bright future. We promised each other to keep in touch.

Fuck off then! That thing made me feel very bad. Double fuck off! I'm not used to give up, so I put my ass on my bike and biking helped me a lot. For four months now I went biking every day, I lost four kilograms and now I feel better than ever. I got interested in fitness and I exercise at least a hour every day. Perhaps I just had to stop for a moment and listen to my body.

I am serene now. I never lost my enthusiasm but I must admit that sometimes it was hard to keep my mind focused on the right things to do! However, I am still on the track. I worked (and also suffered I'd say) a lot and the big moment has come.

I looked inside myself and I felt it was the moment. I did't write reviews for magazines for a while and in this past month I only focused myself on the creation of new artworks that I will include in my portfolio to apply to uni. Last week I also presented my works to an international curator that I've followed for many years now and I got positive feedbacks. I reached him through my activity as art journalist and now everything seems to make sense to me…

And here I am, back from a year-long full immersion but from today I'll be off at least till the end of August. The next deadline that I already have clear on my mind is next January when it'll be time to apply to the MA in Fine Art. That will be my ultimate test. If I will be successful I will achieve my aim and I will study in London from Sep 2014.

On the other hand, if my work won't be good enough to enter uni I won't be sad. I like to have a couple of B-plans that I like as well. Contemporary art is not just an interest anymore for me, it is the environment in which I breath and I know how to breath and I won't go away from it. But now I have to think step by step, I didn't get the IELTS yet and I will need it within January, so I got the next thing to do.

I could tell you thousands of other stories but the email is getting long enough, I guess. We didn't meet for such a long time! Forgive me if reading this email will take a bit more than usual. However, I know you like long letters and I needed to write all these things that I couldn't share with many people in recent times.

Before ending the letter, let me say that I agree with what you write in your email. I love Italy very much too. After my last wet summer in London I decided to spend this summer at home and you're right saying that our colorful Italian countryside is beautiful. I can see it every day while biking. Spending summer time in my native small village with my family helped my health, I'm sure.

end of Part 1

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