Lisa Licitra Ponti

• 

  print May 1986

  ON THE RIVERBANK: A PROJECT FOR ARTFORUM

  “IF THE WORLD WERE to make it to the year 5000 (I don’t really expect it to), and if people were still painting—that is, if men continued to have houses with walls—they would smile at our problems regarding whether or not painting is dead. They’d say, But who did they think they were, the ‘last’ generation? It’s like when you read about people in the year 1000 who believed it was the end of the world because there, where they lived, it was the year 1000—but in Arabia it was the year 600. . . . ”

  It’s lovely, listening to Salvo. Salvo, speaking, gives you many keys to his painting, and none opens

• 

  print November 1985

  HOPES AND DOTS

  I don’t plan dramas or tragedies, but I find myself in their midst.
  —Mario Nigro, 1969
  

  In the light of what has happened in contemporary art over the past few years, it is necessary today to bring to notice the painting of Mario Nigro, from the ’50s up to now Nigro’s “line” projects the idea of the totality of the artwork, a totality intended as poetic ideology; this idea is a fundamental issue in Italian art, from Lucio Fontana to Piero Manzoni to arte povera, and even to Nicola De Maria. The conversation below took place earlier this year.
  —Lisa Licitra Ponti
  

  Lisa Licitra Ponti: You are