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09/18/2008: "Alberto Sughi, That need of reconstructing the meaning of one’s own work." by Alberto Sughi
Although I have already done so in previous blogs usually I would prefer not to talk about my paintings, because the meaning that I attach to them is then transformed over time in the eyes of the spectator, into the thoughts of those who imagine something that the painter has not conceived, but which is still a perfectly legitimate way of interpreting the painting. Despite this, since I have recently spent a good deal of time reconstructing the meaning of my work (a reasonable task you will probably agree for an artist who will be eighty very soon) in this blog I will describe how almost twenty years ago I came to create a group of paintings (reproduced here alongside the blog) which I consider quite significant to understanding not only how my own work but also how a painting is born and how from this others may unexpectedly come into being.
In 1992, or the years before, there was the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of hope for an ideology that had affected the whole first half of this century and a conspicuous portion of the second half. Many people had believed in this ideology, the first great socialist revolution of the world. This idea of revolution was common place, the home of the thoughts, justice, and ideas that a great revolution promises. However, we know that all revolutions are unfortunately destined to be betrayed and, in the end, lead to corruption, fear and abandonment by the very people who had believed in them. And then I imagined a painting in red like the red flag of Communism, where the star is still visible, but everything is smashed and distorted. To create this painting I examined the painting of De Kooning in depth, because it seemed to me that, through those broken and continuous structures, I could more profoundly express the significance of this crisis. A man in the foreground, like a black silhouette, is leaving with a pair of suitcases, and the title is perhaps an indication to help understand the meaning. 
Going where? I immediately made another painting in this cycle still concerned with the same problem: Going where? Goodbye to the red house which also has writing going across the top of the house, in almost Cyrillic characters. Here, too, a man with suitcases is leaving this house, which is, perhaps, the house of his hopes and dreams. Then the subject became dilated and no longer concerned the fall, the implosion of Communism, but the destiny of man. So then, immediately afterwards, or, in some cases, even before this painting, I painted green paintings with men in a landscape or looking down from a terrace, and who seem to be lost in contemplation, all entitled Going where?, almost as though Man is in a critical, temporary situation and is searching for an identity inside a labyrinth, represented in this case by the natural world. This could have been a great moment, a problem set out before modern Man that he has to resolve, but as to how, that is a mystery. 
Then I made a very large painting, two meters by two meters thirty-five, entitled The game, more fantastic, or rather, more mysterious, in which I borrowed from Cézanne the silhouette of the two card players, while on the right a man looks as if he wants to know how this game is going to end. It is a red painting which, even if the characters’ silhouettes were not so clear, could be exhibited just for its background, almost like an abstract painting.
Alberto Sughi
For more info on Alberto Sughi see. www.albertosughi.com
