Giacomo Verde artivista

Verde was born in provincial Naples in 195. He studied art in Florence, spent a long period in Treviso, then finally Lucca.

He was a pioneer of video art (a term he found a bit limited for him) in Italy, of video theatre, of performative arts combined with technologies: those poor ones he loved but also the digital ones, with virtual characters and interactive shows. He called himself a videoartivista (a mixture of artist and activist) or tecnoartivista (a mixture of techno, artist and activist), extending artistic activity to an insubordinate, irreverent exploration of technology and social, civil, political activisim in the true, high sense of the term.

Contasorie (Storyteller), which was set up in the ‘70s with street theatre, accompanied his video exploration with a dimension always deriving from a live situation; for example, animating a digital marionette from a distance (Bit, with Stefano Roveda/Studio Azzurro and Antonio Bocola), or creating on-the-spot electronic backdrops in the theatre, or narrating fables using closed-circuit video cameras and monitors, with fingers, biscuits, walnuts, woollen threads, pasta as the only characters (the TeleRacconto with Giallo Mare minimal theatre). To show that something different could be created inside the TV. Giacomo Verde la TV (susan: l’ho capito come titolo) also taught how to destroy it cleverly, in playful, liberating performances striking old monitors with hammers; and after the hammering, going away happily holding his piece of junk like a precious relic.

It is impossible to list all the collaborations, projects, works, shows, videos, installations, crossings of borders and crossovers of the arts: graphics, sculpture, video painting, music, with theatre as the common factor; even holograms, artificial intelligence and experimentations with the mobile phone. Verde loved and practiced the idea of a conscious artistic militancy guided by enjoyment of these actions, intelligent playfulness, an unreconciled militancy, tenderly mocking and at the same time serious and lucid.

We recall here the video Solo limoni (Only lemons, 2001), about the tragic G8 events in Genoa; the collaborations with Antonio Caronia, with Lello Voce; the interactive show Storie Mandaliche(Mandala Stories) created with Andrea Balzola, Anna Maria Monteverdi, Massimo Cittadini, the computer graphic animation Stati d’animo (States of mind) at Boccioni (Susan: presumo che Boccioni sia un posto? Se una persona, allora “at Boccioni’s”); the video theatre in the Padua prison with Michele Sambin and Pierangela Allegro; the online activisim and internet art. He was driven by the idea of spreading knowledge and artistic practice, an idea which was also expressed by his commitment to teaching: an innumerable series of workshops all over Italy, courses for adults, children, meetings, seminars, group projects, projects with teachers, interventions in conferences and festivals, always with a caring, lucid and kind sense of cooperation.

Verde was an anarchical experimenter of experiences and languages and he taught at Universities and Academies. He established a close collaboration with ALDES, the artistic and cultural association led by Roberto Castello, which was interested in the interrelationships among dance, visual arts, technologies. It was with ALDES that he gave his last performance in 2019, Piccolo diario dei malanni (Small diary ofafflictions). In Lucca in 2015 he also founded the theatrical web magazine Lo Sguardo di Arlecchino(Harlequin’s Gaze), with critical texts which deserve to be collected together. He collaborated closely with the circle DADA BOOM, the social art workshop of Viareggio, and the collective SuperAzione, with whom there were incessant inventions, proposals, initiatives. Verde was an alien, playful and light-hearted artist whose chosen homeland was “the whole cosmos”, an artist with untiring, shared creativity. (Sandra Lischi)