The Istituto Italiano di Cultura (the Italian Cultural
office in Singapore) invites me to the Marina Club on Sentosa Island later in
the month to witness an extraordinary event;
“On August 24, famed artist-athlete Alberto Cristini will attempt to
swim around Terkukor Island, about one mile away from Sentosa, whilst
completing a painting in less than two hours.”
There again, it may all be a joke. And I’m all for that. There isn’t enough humour in the arts, and while commentators moan and groan about cutbacks, paltry government funding, lack of interest, blah, blah, blah, I think a good belly-laugh is what’s needed to encourage us to enjoy art rather than complain about it.
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Alberto Cristini in his studio |
Wow!
When it comes to pointless pursuits in the name of art, the
Italians have hit a new high. I’m not
sure what, as a spectator, I will precisely see; presumably a soggy Italian
bobbing up and down between the oil slicks and the buzzing Indonesian
ferry-boats with an inflatable easel and waterproof paints will be there somewhere,
but if he’s a mile off-shore (and why this sudden move of the Italians to
Imperial measures?), even the most powerful binoculars are unlikely to
offer conclusive evidence of his feat.
There is a fine tradition of great artists coming from
Italy, and it is good to know that the heritage of Botticelli, Canaletto,
Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Giotto, Michelangelo and Raphael continues with
Signor Cristini. And if Canaletto, for
example, never thought to swim in the Grand Canal while painting scenes of
Venice or in the Thames while committing Westminster Bridge to canvas, more
fool him! I want to see one of the great
Italian painters at work, and if I have to do so from a man-made beach in the
South China Sea and through a high-powered telescope, that’s a small price to
pay.There again, it may all be a joke. And I’m all for that. There isn’t enough humour in the arts, and while commentators moan and groan about cutbacks, paltry government funding, lack of interest, blah, blah, blah, I think a good belly-laugh is what’s needed to encourage us to enjoy art rather than complain about it.
Music, luckily, has always had its sense of humour. Percy Grainger was a fantastic composer, but
gave us all (and continues to do so) a good laugh along the way (I still double
up with mirth when I recall Andrew Davis carrying on a life-size cardboard
cut-out of Grainger to the stage of the Royal Albert Hall when he conducted a
live performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto where the soloist was Grainger’s
own piano roll), Haydn’s jokes still cause a chuckle while Malcolm Arnold had
the knack of turning the ridiculous into enjoyable music. The wonderful RCO celebration in 1966 – Organ
In Sanity and Madness – showed that organists could laugh at themselves, while
Gerald Hoffnung’s cartoons still adorn music studios the world over with their
hilarious caricatures of musicians at work.
And almost exactly a year ago I reported in this blog about the antics
of one Stefan Aaron who liked to play his piano on tops of mountains.
The theatre is, of course, full of humour, and a
preponderance of silly sculptures in unexpected places gives a lovely touch of
humour to travelling around Europe. I’m
not so much into dance that I recognise humour or satire there, but I’m told it
exists. So it’s only in painting that
humour seems in really short supply. So
we must be grateful to Signor Cristini.
There remains, though, a niggling doubt. Might this actually be a serious artistic
endeavour? Surely not; nobody would be
that weird, even an Italian painter. All
the same, I’ll be there, cheering on this modern-day water-colourist from the
beach, glass of Chianti to hand.
Dear Dr Marc,
ReplyDeleteTruth can be stranger than fiction. And your story made me curious to know what other artistic exploits Alberto Cristini may have undertaken, in the pursuit of art or humour. The following is a comment on the website examiner.com :
Quote:
Italian artist Alberto Cristini recently swam from Alcatraz to Crissy Field while pulling two performing musicians with him. Adding to this, he crafted drawings during his swim, a seemingly impossible task. In true representation of art within nature, his moving exhibition was captured on video.
Seeing the team shiver at the end of the video reminds us of just how difficult their journey was, and that creating art is often as physical as it is emotional or mental. It also shows humanity at one with nature, while exhibiting the idea of "escape" that Cristini sought to convey.
Unquote.
A photo seemed to show that the hardy musicians were a trumpeter and a percussionist.
Wonderful !
Enjoy the event. And I look forward to any subsequent musings that this may inspire on what is art and why.
Dr Peter