Marco Almaviva

Almaviva was born in Novi Ligure (Province of Alessandria, Italy). His father, the sculptor Armando Vassallo, Francesco Messina's first teacher and close friend, was one of the most representative of the small circle of artists who have distinguished themselves for their research potential and originality, representing alternative lines of research with respect to the dominant models in the Italian artistic culture of the Thirties. In contrast to the directives of fascism, Vassallo rejected the dominant classicism in the field of sculpture.^[1] He was the protagonist of a particular artistic journey: from his early experiences in liberty and art déco, through a significant intervention of stylistic reduction, in the mid-twenties he reached original solutions, characterized by the convergence of floral linearism with the volumetric essentiality attributable to the instances of Novecento Italiano.^[2][3] This research perspective led Vassallo to join the avant-garde group "Sintesi", inspired by the principles of Second Futurism.^[4] By the time Vassallo moved from Genoa to Novi Ligure, he had taken part in two Venice Biennals (1928 and 1930), and the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris; he had established relationships and worked with major exponents of art and culture of his time, from Adolfo Wildt to Arturo Martini, from Edgar Wood to Rino Valdameri, Giovanni Pastrone and Gabriele D'Annunzio,-drawing one of the posters of the blockbuster Cabiria.^[5] Anyway, Vassallo had already begun to express dissent against the fascist regime as far as art was concerned, openly criticizing its leaders, with his consequent exclusion from the public exhibition circuit. One of Vassallo's last presences in an official exhibition was in September 1933, together with Arturo Martini, with whom he shared the urgent need to renew Italian sculpture and art.^[6]

The dramatic events in his father's life led Marco Almaviva to have a technical-scientific education, far from the world of art.^[7] His artistic interests began to take shape in the late 1950s when he started frequenting the Brera environment in Milan, also to gain a deeper understanding of his father's artistic history and work. This initial need became one of the primary motivations for an unvarnished analysis of the art world, founded on a critical approach towards artistic officialdom, a characteristic that would shape the entire career of Marco Almaviva.^[8] In this perspective, he came into contact with Francesco Messina, spending time in his studio and dealing in particular with the interest that, at that time, the Sicilian sculptor had shown for new materials. In the early 1960s, in Milan, Almaviva is in contact with Peppino Ghiringhelli of the “Il Milione” gallery. He knows Carlo Carrà, Dino Buzzati and the avant-garde circles.^[9] In the mid-1960s, he meets Giorgio Kaisserlian, a fundamental reference for Lucio Fontana’s work.

The meeting with Kaisserlian (1965) had a crucial impact on Almaviva's artistic choices. The Milanese critic introduced Almaviva to the revolutionary consequences of Fontana's Spatialism. Fontana had brought about a radical transformation with the act of tearing the canvas, particularly in works like "Expectations," which eliminated the traditional two-dimensional foundation of painting.^[10][11] As Kaisserlian clarified, this rupture in the support structure meant that there was no longer another surface or "reserve" on which to continue painting. To persist as a painter would have implied working without the canvas, an unfeasible and paradoxical solution -attempting to create an "oil on canvas" without the flat support on which to apply the paint. The concept of an "oil without having the plane/canvas" explicitly reveals the revolutionary scope of Fontana's gesture, as it effectively nullifies the possibility of providing a relevant response to Fontana's breakthrough within the confines of traditional painting.^[12] In this regard, Kaisserlian made a significant observation that, despite Fontana's act of eliminating traditional painting, the essence of Spatialism was born from within the realm of painting itself. To move beyond painting, one needed to confront and engage directly with the medium, passing through the canvas. This implied that one had to be a painter to effectively express oneself in this context. Considering this perspective, Almaviva chose to stay within the realm of painting, also because he found that a purely formal approach to art did not satisfy him.^[9]

Since its beginnings, Almaviva embraced a vision of art and life that couldn't ignore a fundamental observation, which consists of acknowledging the violence that characterizes the entire natural hierarchy. It is the incessant struggle for survival, the recurring element that pervades, first and foremost, the biological sphere in which human reality is inevitably placed. This was the underlying assumption to which Almaviva referred in all his evaluations concerning everything he had acquired, not only in relation to art but, more generally, in connection to every idea on which to base any possible conception of reality. Consequently, there was a rejection of any conception of existence that aimed to justify a world marked by oppression and suffering. Painting, therefore, became Almaviva's initial response to the drama present in nature to this state of affairs. It became a way to “reorganize one's morality” in terms of bearing witness to the drama present in nature^[13] (dominated by Zöe^[8]) against all possible mystifications of reality. Based on these premises, he aimed to create a pictorial structure capable of fully visualizing a world in which everything was engulfed by the biological sphere, unable to break free from the primal instincts that dominate in nature. For this purpose, in 1967, he developed Tonaltimbrica, a pictorial style whose formal structure is conceived in strict correspondence with the irrepressible biological antagonism that, in Almaviva's conception, characterizes existence.^[13] In the same year, he made his debut in Milan, at the Rotonda della Besana, in an exhibition organized by the Centro Verritré, showcasing Palpito Primordiale (Primordial Beat) considered the emblem of the new tonaltimbric sensitivity.^[14]

The Tonaltimbrica was presented as "a two-dimensional painting in a single figurative system."^[15] Stylistically, it is characterized by the extreme reduction of its two constituent elements: on one hand, the "tonal" element that outlines the masses in the background of the painting using a color base that defines spaces through variations in tone within a uniform chromatic range; on the other hand, the "timbric" sign, consisting of the relief texture of pure color that structures the tonal masses in the background of the picture.^[16][17] It is through the interaction of these two distinct components (tonal+timbric) that a representation is achieved that is "rough and poignant," "able to make one feel the struggle and drama that continuously unfold at every level of life."^[13]