Sequins and balls with Arbasino

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“As early as the 1950s, when I was attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, enrolled in the scenography course, I began to draw costume sketches for theatrical performances such as “Il Cid” by Pierre Corneille or Les Fourberies de Scapin by Molière, which I still keep in the Foundation’s archives,” says Giosetta Fioroni. We are with her in Rome, in her historic studio in the heart of Trastevere. The Goffredo Parise and Giosetta Fioroni Foundation , chaired by Davide Servadei and of which the artist is honorary president, was “born in 2018 from the strong desire I felt to protect the intellectual and artistic personality of my life partner and at the same time to unite our work paths in a virtuous partnership in the name of organicity and valorization.” Daughter of Mario Fioroni, sculptor, and Francesca Barbanti, painter and puppeteer, writes in the monograph dedicated to her a few years ago by Germano Celant, published by Skira, Fioroni was born on Christmas Eve 1932. She was not only a painter. Hers is a fascinating story of worlds, peoples and civilizations, contained in a corpus of works (drawings, sketches, sculptures and paintings) where there is a continuous comparison between the society of customs and the fairy tale, the cultural industry and childhood games, a 'true' that is always 'representation', a show with which to form an affectionate relationship.

“Colors, shapes, pencils and scissors have always been a passion of mine, perhaps also because of a certain adherence to what was my mother's profession, but the first great and unforgettable experience for me was the staging of “Carmen” at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna in 1967, with Alberto Arbasino as director, Vittorio Gregotti as set designer, Roland Barthes as prompter and me, precisely, as costume designer , a play that went down in history also for the flop that it was at the time: it was performed amidst boos and protests. I remember a silver ladder on stage, ping pong balls, metal nets, large sequins with a diameter of ten centimeters”, he adds. “The costumes I imagined then were made not only with those balls, but also with polystyrene, foam rubber, satin and plastic. Shapes and colours alluded with simplified symbols to the themes of the painting of the time. The polka dots, the signs, the stripes, the ornaments and the make-up, everything was stylised. It was an important event, which several years later was remembered by Luisa Laureati who dedicated an exhibition to it at the Galleria dell'Oca in Rome”. While he speaks to us, he looks us in the eye and shakes our hands: his is an affection that has an ancient flavour and that joins the simple gestures and words he addresses to the director of the Foundation, Giulia Lotti, and to his inseparable assistant Tristan Panustan.

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Again for Arbasino, Fioroni illustrated the book “Luisa col vestito” (Emae Edizioni, 1978), creating a wardrobe that reflected and recalled her childhood room with miniature dolls and toys, Little Red Riding Hood, a balilla in orbace, dried four-leaf clovers and multicoloured bird feathers that Fioroni often put on costumes and dresses. A recent project of hers was entitled “Vestiti”, “another moment of my production in which I certainly felt a deep connection with the world of costumes. A group of works created at the Bottega Gatti in Faenza that represents the heroines of literature through their dresses, female figures identified by their garments. In that case too I intertwined painting, sculpture, shapes and colours modelled in the material”.

Those figures – Ottilia, Isadora and Elettra – express with their sensuality and brilliance, elegance and beauty their refusal of any operation that could dispossess them of their identity . They are bodies in which the “flesh” is ceramic, a material animated by forces of an interior energy that creates a powerful, emotional, instinctive, thoughtful and lucid art. An art where appearance is intertwined with being as happened, years ago, working for Valentino: “An experience”, she recalls, “born precisely from a reference to the costumes of that “Carmen””. At the time, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, then both creative directors of the maison in Piazza Mignanelli, “gave new life to the project, creating a bridge between the past and the contemporary”, with their “productive and rich imagination and interpretative ability”. Inspired by those sketches from 1967, to which were added symbols that later became recurring in my production such as hearts, stars, trees, houses”. Everything, or almost everything, started from her wardrobe, in the house on the other side of the Tiber. A space in itself, full of life and memories, “an extension of myself. I love elegant clothes”, she smiles, “always characterized by an unusual detail that speaks of my personality. There is never a shortage of brightly colored scarves and dresses with original lines. I am also very fascinated by Asian and Indian-inspired garments, made with fine fabrics, decorated with floral motifs that seem to reflect the curiosity and sense of childish wonder that I have preserved over time”.

He says that “Goffredo, who had a keen eye for detail, really liked that wardrobe. I remember very well when he saw me for the first time, in 1963, at the Caffè Rosati. He would always remember my black and white diamond-patterned suit. He watched me sitting on the edge of the chair, almost ironically, but fascinated. He was struck by my slightly ruffled and bouncy gait. He had a very original personality, ironic and impertinent, unpredictable and quick. He was not influenced by anything, except his creativity. I always remember him with a cigarette in his hand, direct and incisive and with that inexhaustible curiosity and he avoided boredom, always looking for something that could surprise him”. He is moved, but then the tears, even if with difficulty, give way to a newfound smile and to the colors that are everywhere in his studio, from the large theater to the wonderful "Stanza delle acque", the bathroom room/studio designed by Luigi Scialanga which is an oriental and dreamlike place at the same time where you can stay, rest, bathe, talk and dream surrounded by walls that are like sheets of paper where you can write and tell your story in turn.

Coming out of there, we find the long corridor with photos of his friends, drawings, other works and other colors: his. “ The one that belongs to me the most is certainly silver . It has become so mine, so closely linked to my name. I also love blue and red, strong, decisive colors, that allow me to communicate precise, lively emotions, to enter into a dialogue with the viewer”. A narration that is a tool to claim an integrity based on the fusion between body and spirit, conscious and unconscious, personal and public where she liked and likes, like everyone, “Looking, looking at oneself, being looked at”, quoting the subtitle of “Speculum” - her exhibition last year at the M77 Gallery in Milan curated by Cristiana Perrella, new director of the Macro Museum in Rome – “An exhibition in which I perfectly summarized this continuous desire of mine to explore different points of view: looking outside of myself and exploring the world, looking inside myself, through the self-portraits that I have exhibited and finally being looked at, welcoming the gaze of others. I have always been interested in this game of glances, this exchange of perspectives, just think of the “Spia Ottica” of 1968”. It is her symbolic work that years ago the artist Francesco Vezzoli asked her to reconstruct for his exhibition at the Fondazione Prada. A woman (then she called her actress friend Giuliana Calandra) was spied on through a hole in the wall in her daily life and she was bored, she got up, she put on makeup and she got dressed. “It was a literary performance, because there was the idea of ​​entering a book or a play where everything is shrunk and seen as in a sort of magic lantern with movements that seemed slower” .

Another way of making art that for Giosetta Fioroni, “is a form of deep knowledge, a way to question reality and emotions. For me,” she adds, “it must always stimulate questions and provoke reflections. It cannot be just decoration, because it is a meeting place, a place of comparison with oneself and with others”. Which in a place like the one we are in, frequented by her every day, even just for a few hours or minutes perhaps in the beautiful raised garden with ever-green grass, flowers and sculptures, is never missing among exhibitions, events and initiatives. “My work, which is what I would like to be remembered for” .

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