Cutting
and Gluing
ALVVINO
Alessandro Maffioletti aka Alvvino, is a freelance art director and illustrator based in Milan.
He likes to think that one day he’ll be back to seaside where he belongs.
Cutting
and Gluing
I sit, I sit, I sit still; My eye, I close it;
I sit, I sit, I sit still; My eye, I unclose it.
Am I making you up inside my head?
Alvvino, cutting and gluing and cutting; Alvvino, you laugh in your blue cardigan; Alvvino, gluing and cutting and gluing.
Am I making you up inside my head?
Daze, gaze in maze;
I question – breathing in but out but in – a quest, formal quest for air;
Daze, gaze in maze: (you, me, you) plunging in waters, waves, waters.
△ The narration of the story begins in Milan. Which color do you constantly associate with the city?
First, I am not from Milan. I came here in 2000, to study. Without any doubt, in the beginning: grey (as far as I knew at the time, the stereotype was confirmed). When
I came back, after a period in Berlin, I reconciled with this constantly evolving city: I would say green now. From monochrome to polychrome, my progress in the working environment reflects this description.
△ Leopardi, Giacomo Leopardi wrote: “It is certain that truth is not beautiful. Yet even truth may sometimes bring some pleasure; and, if, in human affairs, beauty is to be preferred to truth, whenever beauty is missing, truth is preferable to anything else.” Do you agree that there is beauty in truth’s absence?
Yes, absolutely! I have fun at night – every night – creating fantastic worlds. The collage, the unreal. I use magazines, paper and glue and try to create beauty while narrating fantastic worlds. Is this a transposition of (my) everyday life? Yes, sort of, maybe!
△ What is the common element that unifies your production?
First, research of the abstract. I am fascinated by the interpretation, or reinterpretation – through a new language – of what already exists. Second, the search for the unreal and surreal. My approach is not editorial: in the selection of images, instinct and liberty prevail.
△ Would you describe the nature of the emotion, the sensation felt on paper?
As an illustrator, I feel like a fetishist: I love the embossing and grammage of the paper, the sound it makes when it is crinkled. I love the physical work from the beginning
of the past century, playing with the material while it gets rough or turns yellow, giving a new life to the picture – from paper to digital image. I really like this point of no return, the ellipsis created by the act of gluing, cutting, gluing.
△ Flaubert, Gustave Flaubert wrote: “If there is a single hallowed belief on the face of / the earth and in the midst of all the nothingness, if there is something holy, pure / and sublime, something which complements the immoderate desire for the infinite / and the vagueness that we call the soul, it is art”. Do you agree that “art” means “universal”?
Yes, I think it’s true. My involvement exists, it will exist and it will evolve. Art, I hope it can save us. My involvement, being personal, does not correspond to other people’s involvement. As for art, I am a receptive person, a very receptive one.
△ You talk about involvement. What does involvement mean in the age of image?
I worked abroad, in Berlin. A bustling city: artists, photographers, illustrators. I noticed that the offer, though wide, is poor in quality. Art, a form of art is – specifically – more accessible every day. I think that the figure of the critique has changed: the notion of “work of art” is more relative than ever.
△ Could you explain the function of manual and traditional art in honoring the ephemeral (the object and subject of everyday life)?
Time, the value of time. The time it takes to cut is functional to the evolution of the composition. To dedicate time means to pay attention. The time it takes to cut is functional to the discovery of one’s own essence. The beauty, the composition in an infinite multiplicity. Sometimes I sketch out a project by defining the shape or dimensions. Nevertheless, the idea evolves by shrinking and cutting the image.
I believe in the return of figures who employ care in their work.
△ The narration of the story ends with the words: “He likes to think that, one day, he will go back to the sea he belongs to”. What is the memory that is evoked again and again by the reflection of the waters?
Personal memories, regarding my childhood and adolescence. Growing up in a small reality with a promise of tranquility (…that the sea offers). Poetic memories, very poetic ones: air, sun, the air of Liguria. Nowadays I look for such a positive force in the environment: the impulse to carry out a religious operation.
△ Can you please finish the following phrase: “Art and fashion (thus, art in fashion and fashion in art)”?
Fashion is art, a form of art. The composition has a strong reference – between definition and saturation – to the reality I interact with: animated collages. In the collaboration, there is a strong interest in analyzing how one image shapes onto the other. What is the nature of the interaction? Bidirectional!
△ One last question: if I say “number one”, what do you say?
I believe in the return of figures who employ care in their work. The tools and the daily relationship with paper will change: there will be fewer magazines, though more peculiar. I believe in the return of figures with manual skills. So, I say: “good luck for the first issue of this magazine”. ▲
