Zen in Art - per un estetica Zen

 

 

In February 2014 Franca Franchi, sculptor, and Massimo Tosini, painter, have founded the Artistic Movement "Zen in the Art - for Zen aesthetic ". It may seem odd that two contemporary artists, to make art, recall the centuries-old tradition of Zen thought, a stream of Mahayana Buddhism developed between China and Japan over 1000 years ago!
Actually the Zen thought, which has shaped the man and the Arts of the Far East in an absolutely unique way compared to our Western experience and our (limited) Classic and Judeo-Christians horizons, only recently has joined in cultural (and spiritual) horizons of Western man especially by the great popularizer who was D.T. Suzuki, author of the basic work "Zen and Japanese Culture" (1938), published in English in the United States in 1959 and recently translated in Italian (Adelphi 2014).

In the field of Art, however, should be noted as they are not lacking in the not too distant past, especially in the 50 and 60 of the '900 and in the North American context, where the Zen thought penetration had taken place much earlier than in Europe because of the presence, especially on the Pacific coast, of a strong Japanese-American community, examples of artists who in some way have recalled to Zen.

Come to mind especially some North American Abstract Expressionism Masters such as Franz Kline, Sam Francis, Marc Tobey, Gordon Onslow Ford and the same Jackson Pollock who have had been influenced by Zen, in particular by the Japanese traditional writing (sho-do).

Beyond the formal aspects related to sho-do (especially Kline and Tobey) we can say that some aspects that are now fully part of a common heritage consolidated in contemporary art as the automatism and gestures find in Zen thought their deepest roots.

What was probably missed in these experiences was an adequate theoretical development and perhaps a deeper awareness of the fundamental importance of Zen in the construction of an aesthetic deeply linked to a contemporaneity that can’t ignore the spiritual dimension according to a vision in which Kandinsky is first laical prophet, a vision that unfortunately many confusing and contradictory experiences of Contemporary Art seem to deny.

Theoretically we can’t in any case forget the fundamental contribution of Gillo Dorfles. The great critic,  an artist himself not surprisingly defined by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle "zen painter" has, in numerous writings, stressed the importance of Zen thought for contemporary art research mainly lingering on some fundamental characteristics of Zen thought and aesthetic as the asymmetry and the vacuum from which it derives the dorflesiano concept of "interval" (G. Dorfles "the lost interval" 1980)  

If the choice of doing Zen the keystone of his artistic work can be considered unusual, is not a "oddity" since Zen places itself in a very specific cultural context of contemporary thought, but rather is "uniqueness" of choice in the sense that the way that artists have decided to go was rarely beaten and largely unexplored.

Franca Franchi and Massimo Tosini are themselves figures of quite singular artists. Both come to art through a non-academic path, driven by life events that, at different times of their existence, have imposed the creative process as an essential and unavoidable moment of human and spiritual growth. Both have practiced the profession of lawyer for many years, that only in very recent times have left to devote more energy to art and in particular to the "Zen in Art" project. They are both close to Buddhist thought and attend the Soto Zen Monastery Fudenji Bargone (Parma-Italy) under the guidance of Master Fausto Taiten Guareschi, who has encouraged them right from the beginning in their artistic initiative. Truthfully, the first push to a research about the relationship between Zen thought and art was born from a pleasant and rich discussion between the artists and the Master Fausto Taiten Guareschi on Far Eastern art characters ascribable to Zen and particularly if it was possible an "Zen aesthetic" and with what characteristics.

For the theoretical development of the Manifesto of "Zen in the Art - for Zen aesthetic" Movement was fundamental encounter with the work of the Master Zen and Japanese thinker Shin’ichi Hisamatsu (1889-1980) author of "Zen and Fine Arts ", a fundamental text although unfortunately not available in Italian translation. On the other hand also an author like D.T. Suzuki, far more known than Hisamatsu, being the first popularizer of Zen thought in the West, repeatedly cited by Gillo Dorfles in their writings on Zen, has been translated into Italian only in 2014 (DT Suzuki, "Lo Zen e la cultura giapponese", Adelphi 2014).

The work of Hisamatsu was actually fundamental because, while Suzuki gives a general picture, although analyzed and well-documented about artistic phenomenon in Zen field, Hisamatsu, through the identification of standard of beauty that characterize the work of Zen, falls in detail thus simplifying understanding of difficult and often - for a Western spirit - hard concepts although at the price of a schematization as inevitable.
The seven rules of Hisamatsu’s Zen aesthetics are reported in detail in Manifesto of "Zen in the Art - for Zen aesthetic" Movement (see). After the establishment of the Movement artists believed necessary compare with Gillo Dorfles, who has repeatedly studied and realized the enormous potential for contemporary art research of Zen. Initially the great critical, indeed, didn’t fail to express his doubts about a definitely ambitious and difficult project.
13th September 2014 was inaugurated, under the patronage of the Province of Milan and the Consulate General of Japan at the picturesque setting of the "Tower of Time and Art" of Milan's Idroscalo Park, the first public exhibition of the "Zen in the Art - for Zen aesthetics” Movement, after a preview in August at the Soto Zen Fudenji Monastery in Bargone (Parma), entitled “Time without beginning and without end - Zen meets Contemporary Art ".
Dorfles, visiting the Exhibition, although expressing appreciation for the aesthetic result of Franca Franchi’s works, maintained, on that occasion, all its reserves and few days after the visit appeared in the Corriere della Sera of 8th  October 2014 an article of presentation about the Italian translation of D.T. Suzuki's "Zen and Japanese culture" with the significant title "Free to be inspired to Zen but the artists missing enlightenment."
Months of hard work and serious research have allowed Franca Franchi to hone her artistic language more and more in the direction of deeply Zen essentiality, and especially Massimo Tosini to adopt a completely new artistic language expressed through innovative means such as painting with gold foil and metal foil that avoids approach to informal like in Pollock and Rauschenberg’s works expressed by Dorfles in the article in question, reflecting on Massimo Tosini’works.
So great was the satisfaction when the great critic has agreed to curate the Franchi and Tosini’s exhibition "The sign and the Light" took place from 7th June to 5th July 2015 in the historic medieval town Vigoleno (PC), choosing the works and writing the presentation.
Dorfles said: "Both these artists thus far could be considered as belonging to an informal current that is close to the American one of Pollock, Rauschenberg etc., but in fact the similarity to the Americans was only apparent because, instead, studying closely the their works, we realize that they have some elements that are reminiscent of some Zen works. Here, for example in the case of Franca Franchi we are faced with important crystal structures, transparent but also colored that are more than just a sculpture because they constitute also a way of being very particular opposite to the surrounding environment. Also in the case of Massimo Tosini we have a resounding example of these elements because the artist uses, among other things, numerous paper and canvas items completely black on which he is able to create with the gold foil some structures that can be considered decorative but actually are real organic structures."
The artists are present in the anthology of critical writings by Gillo Dorfles "The artists who I met" (Skira 2015 pp. 848-849).
In December 2015 Franca Franchi has created a new series of jewels/sculptures called Haiku, about which the critic wrote: "These jewels have something in common with the atmosphere that emanates in listening to a Haiku. This is the meeting between the executive precision and the ambiguity of the elements that compose it."
Finally Dorfles has curated the exhibition of Franca Franchi "The Crystal wins Symmetry" at the Galleria Rossini - Jewelery Gallery, Viale Monte Nero 58, in November / December 2016, providing an effective critical reading of the works presented.