PHÌLO-POÈM 2021

International Contemporary Art exhibition

May, 21 - 31 2021

Concept edited by Art Curators

Massari Giorgia - graduated in Cultural Heritage Sciences

Stagi Martina – graduated in Cultural Heritage Sciences

Viesti Martina – graduated in Communication and Marketing

“Philo-poem” term coined by Carlo Greco, art director

The word “Philo” comes from greek φιλεῖν (phileîn), “to love” or “lover of”; “poetry” instead comes from greek ποίησις (poiesis), meaning “creation”, “to make”. The combination of these two words creates the compound word “philo-poem", which literally is: "lover of creation, lover of producing.” Love and create are two human prerogatives and two indispensable and intrinsic needs in human nature. The term, even more, refers to the union of two disciplines: philosophy and poetry, whose concepts arise from the real issues that involve humans and which, at the same time, influence their being. Both of them are related to the keyword “lògos”; however, philosophy and poetry differ in the approach with which they intervene on human consciousness. On one hand, philosophy, thanks to Pre Socratic thinkers of VI-V sec B.C who have made this discipline move away from ancient theories characterized by myth beliefs and they began to constitute the first steps of rational thought. It will then become the identifying feature of this matter, attributable to Hegel’s principle according to which “All that is real is rational, all that is rational is real”. On the other hand, as if it were the dark side of the moon, the poetry reveals itself as an emotion that finds his thought and thought finds its words, as Robert Lee Frost states, thus declaring the irrationality of this art form. Therefore, we could define the “Philo-poem” term through an equation that combines two terms which are equally influential on humans but in an extremely different way and that let act much the emotional sphere as that of consciousness. Their voyage is parallel but at the same time they coexist, relying on each other. Both operate in a non-material way on the world, focusing on subjectivity. Philosophy and the thoughts of philosophers, submit poetry to existential questions that arise in the poets’ emotions, lending them into producing verses. Conversely, the indirect questions of poetry and the human emotions that the poets bring on paper, inspire philosophy to question human behavior and the functioning of the world. Philosophical thought questions itself through poetry and develops a discourse in which the words are questioned in their historical and present role, in order to provide again a reflection to philosophy, which with the only use of his arguments it cannot find, but only thanks to poetry. For this reason, it is not possible to consider this relationship as subordinate, on the contrary, it is a relationship in which one gives to others what is lacking, in the common attempt to understand reality. Philosophy and poetry are born as a necessary response to human restlessness. In the first book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics the philosopher says that the origin of philosophy comes from wonder. Wonder is not to be understood as a “simple” wonder but refers to the dismay, the anguish towards pain. There is a continuity between philosophical and mythical-poetic knowledge: poets in fact, like philosophers, are lovers of truth, because the myth is built by things that arouse wonder and to which you try to make sense through the word (mythos). It is precisely in this that the presocratics are the first to approach the two disciplines because with the introduction of reason within human thought, they lay the foundations for a conscious assessment of reality. The connection of philosophy with poetry is dramatic because they are confronted with the same object and both claim their supremacy, that is the ultimate meaning of reality. The poem reflects on humans, just think of the tragedies of Aeschylus in which suffering is a vehicle for knowledge or those of Sophocles in which man is marked by unhappiness. Therefore, both subjects, philosophy and poetry, have arisen from questions that are asked to understand and research the reasons for pain to which man is subjected. Even the love implications that poetry undertakes for the most part come from the negations, just think of Dante and his unrequited love for Beatrice, or Leopardi and his beloved Silvia. Philosophy and poetry are indispensable to art, which also springs from the emotions and existential questions. Subjectivity predominates, in a search and in continuous need of being able to express oneself. Let’s talk about Expressionism, Abstractionism, Surrealism, Futurism, Conceptualism, Figurativism... art in all its forms is united by the artists’ need to represent their own truth, their own vision of reality and their own thought. Many thinkers have questioned the role of art in the world, emblematic is the thought of Schopenhauer according to which the world is unknowable, only our body is knowable, but this knowledge produces pain, as the will to live inevitably collides with death. According to the philosopher, in fact, art can lead to a state of disinterested contemplation, which can suspend, at least for a few moments, the pain of living. It is clear that none of these disciplines is disconnected from the others, it is not even a unique relationship, but rather a neural network of feelings, questions, answers and ideas. The relationship between arts and poetry was already considered by ancient poets, an example is the latin poet Orazio who, in XIII th century b.C. expressed the sentence “ut pictura poësis” that literally means “as in pictures such in poems”. During the centuries artists have created a lot of artworks inspired by epic poems: “Didone’s Death” by Guercino from the IV book of Virgilio’s “Eneide”; “Dante’s boat” by Eugene Delacroix. Dante himself can’t be considered only a writer but his reflections such as “De Vulgari Eloquentia” have something to do with philosophy too. In that sense Surrealism is the perfect example of how philosophy and poetry regain possession of artists’ mind driving them into visual production. René Magritte said: “being surrealist signifies to go beyond the visible searching for the invisible”. In the very well-known “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dalì are depicted clocks in a fluid and deformed texture that we usually define as “flaccid”. The artist with his work asks himself about the relativity and the perception of time: each clock marks different times while dissolving as if they want to say that time doesn’t exist it is only a mere human creation and a necessity for everyone to seize the moment. In this sense M.A.D.S. propose to captivate artists not only asking them to present their artworks as something ‘aldready done’ and ready to be exhibited but encouraging them to reveal their artistic essence with transparency and to permit the viewers to catch the emotions and the feelings that chipped them to the realization of their pieces. The aim of this exhibition is to push the artists to listen to themselves intimately and reveal their own personality by their art permitting themselves to be driven by poetical words or philosophical concepts. Thoughts become the main characters of this event; different realities will be presented on the screens of MADS Gallery each one with its own interpretation.