Sebastiano Vassalli (Genoa, 1941 – Casale Monferrato, 2015) lived in Novara from a young age. He graduated in literature under Cesare Musatti, defending a thesis titled “Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Art,” with Gillo Dorfles as co-supervisor. As he mentioned in an interview with Antonio Gnoli (La Repubblica, 2014), he entered the circle of the Group 63, defined as neo-avant-garde literature, as a painter, introduced by the poet Edoardo Sanguineti. He exhibited his works in two solo shows, in 1964 in Venice (Galleria del Cavallino) and in 1965 in Milan (Galleria del Naviglio); in the same year, he participated in the group show Premio San Fedele in Milan and Prospettive 1 at the Galleria dei Due Mondi in Rome. After seeing Pop Art at the 1964 Venice Biennale, he recognized his own themes in the works of American colleagues: “Today I could say that I was doing Pop Art without the slightest awareness,” he acknowledged its communicative power and decided to choose another expressive tool to continue his research, without ever abandoning his work as an artist, keeping it a private constant in his life.
He debuted in literature with poetic texts, establishing himself with some experimental prose works (Narcisso is from 1968), transferring the socio-political anxieties of those years to the page through linguistic fury and cultural satire. From that moment on, his literary career was a series of successes. One notable title is La Chimera, a 1990 bestseller that won the Premio Strega. “The great stories are in the past, or in the future. The present is the life of the condominium. There are some ideas that will become important, but we cannot grasp them, or, when they manifest, they do not need the writer. Television, newspapers, and the Internet will talk about them.” His words perfectly complement the core of the works, a mix of color, graphic signs, and collage that, in a critical tone with a Pop flavor, revisits the themes that played a part in the changes of those years. The comic style, which aligns with some characters of our present (the famous Minions), makes Vassalli’s works contemporary and full of aesthetic irony, transforming them into cultured and quality objects that rise above the uncritical void of contemporary productions.
The respect reserved for Art and poetry confronts, even in the last period of Vassalli’s life, his thoughts on literature. Those who write novels: “Are not required to communicate great emotions. They must engage, get inside, make people think about certain things and relive others. Period.”
© Studio Gariboldi
