Momento Singolare
Maxyn Dorz
An artist, in his studio, brought within a breath of a musician in Milan. Art which manages to transcend its time. Another Messenger.
An artist, in his studio, brought within a breath of a musician in Milan. Art which manages to transcend its time. Another Messenger.
Edited image of Battisti, Bertoli, and Mercury, by Maxyn Dorz.
PART ONE: BATTISTI
A child is born in Italy.
It’s not a peaceful moment to be born. Mere months into the future a great and terrible dictator will fall, with more death and fighting to follow.
Meandering down the slopes of Mount Rosato—the commune of Poggio Bustone—its orange barrel clay tiles, verdant green fields and fog-touched valleys are trembling with one long, low note of agony.
Good morning, good people said St Francis so long ago when he greeted their humble home, his holy visage lighting the streets. In German, Guten Morgen, liebe Leute. Or see: their monastery damaged, sacred objects destroyed; civilians killed.
Perhaps that makes it more special, then, that this child is born.
Through one cracked window on the beautiful blood-drenched slope, moonlight finds the curves of round cheeks and clenched fists: tiny fingers and soft curls. How can a thing be so gentle at a time such as this? Can’t it hear the screams?
This child, however, is not born alone.
From the shadows of his eyelids and in the crook of his elbow, beneath his heel and under his tongue lurks a presence, ages old.
It emerges now, stretching languidly.
Good morning, good people.
Creeping out from behind the child’s ear, it leans in to whisper, the words echoing down into the cavity and beyond; Sing for me, Lucio.
The baby cries.
And the presence retreats once more, laughing softly, sinking between pores to settle at the child’s core.
Lucio is seven when his family leaves Poggio Bustone. The quiet embrace of Mount Rosato is but a faint fairytale in the frenetic streets of Rome. In the 1950s, there is not a more alive city on Earth. Artists, filmmakers, designers. Nightlife and highlife and starlet glamour. As if gripped by amnesia, the city shrugs off war and horror to reveal a dazzling, evergreen soul underneath.
It’s true what they call it, the Eternal City. The old thing in the shadows likes this name.
And among the noise of a hundred strutting models and a thousand glittering movie stars, a few stray music notes go unheard. A teenager in Rome—surrounded by a nation’s history and its future—begins to play the guitar. And he doesn’t stop.
Soon, the music is everything. Milan beckons.
When music is played in Italy, all notes drift towards Milan, as if magnetised. It’s where songs are born and remade and retired. It’s also the home of Giulio Rapetti. Mogol. A lyricist and a key made specifically to unlock the potential of a young man from Poggio Bustone.
Together, Mogol and Lucio rewrite Italy.
To shape an era means breaking the bounds of that which is current. The songwriting duo meld melody and lyric into something more that transcends them both, twisting through the streets of Milan, cracking ancient pave stones, pooling in crevices, leaving the city and venturing all the way (as roads are accustomed to lead) to Rome and beyond.
But the songs they write are sung by strangers.
For a while, Mogol can ignore the odd feeling. A disembodied whisper that seems to watch him from the corners of recording studios. It’s almost like catching the note of a song not yet sung. Then one day he finds himself asking; Sing for me Lucio.
In 1969, he’s singing Un’avventura at Festival di Sanremo.
Questo amore è fatto solo di poesia
(This love is made only of poetry)
It’s gentle, euphoric and optimistic. It’s a love song delivered by a voice formed in a town screaming. All his songs are love songs. Protest songs. Strong, authentic, original; his vocals drown out the most painful, discordant notes of Italy.
Non è un fuoco che col vento può morire
(It is not a fire that can die with the wind)
Ma vivrà quanto il mondo
(But he will live as long as the world)
The crowd moves together, shoulder to shoulder. If they were paying attention, they might notice something else among them in the congregation. A presence. But their eyes are too firmly fixed on the shock of curly hair before them.
And now the audience knows Lucio Battisti.
Domani e sempre
(Tomorrow and always)
Sempre vivrà
(He will always live)
The year continues.
It’s 1969 and he’s performing Acqua azzurra, acqua chiara at Il Festivalbar.
Ogni notte ritornar
(Come back every night)
Per cercarla in qualche bar
(To look for her in some bar)
And where his music goes, so does the presence. Murmuring beneath an outward breath and erupting in the highest notes, tripping people’s feet so they dance and massaging throats to make them sing. An occult ritual of the masses, all singing Lucio Battisti.
The singer feels it too. Lingering in his lowest notes, seeping out into the crowd, clinging to sweaty necks and sucked deep into lungs alongside cigarette smoke.
Somehow, in this moment, Lucio knows his eyes are not his own. The teeming crowd before him shudders and morphs as time stretches beyond its boundaries. He hears a baby crying on a hillside and he is announced winner of Il Festivalbar. He sees his first meeting with Mogol and a record label, just them. A debut album. More albums, many more; countries far beyond Italy. And a woman. Young, beautiful; then older, holding the hand of a small boy. Then she’s paper in hand, composing with him, both singing, smiling. Too soon just her and the boy, tears in their eyes.
Ti telefono se vuoi
(I'll call you if you want)
Non so ancora se c'è lui
(I don't know if he's there yet)
Here, in this moment, in front of this crowd, the music binds them to each other. To the country they stand on, to the fountains, the piazzas and the wonders of a future just within reach. And they can all tell they’re on the cusp of something magnificent.
Sono le quattro e mezza ormai
(It's half past four now)
Non ho voglia di dormir
(I don't want to sleep)
The year continues.
1969. What a year to be Lucio Battisti. What a year to be Italy.
A bomb explodes in Milan.
PART TWO: BERTOLI
A child is born in Melbourne.
The year is 1969, and there it pauses. Time.
It’s still 1969 when he produces his first solo exhibition, Damiano Bertoli.
And his next, Lagrange.
And then Frightened of This Thing That I’ve Become.
And:
Continuous Moment (1969 2003).
Continuous Moment (1969 2005).
Continuous Moment (1969 2006).
Continuous Moment (1969 2008).
Continuous Moment (1969 2009).
Continuous Moment (1969 2010).
Continuous Moment (1969 2011).
Continuous Moment (1969 2014).
Continuous Moment (1969 2016).
Art school in the 1980s and 1990s is rife with time. Transition. Countries collapsing, internet sparking, art movements evolving, communication expanding. Damiano blooms in the cracks between stone pavers, at cross sections, correlations, collaborations. Contrasts to knit his bones and kaleidoscope his vision. Such multiplicity is only visible in his artworks where past, present, and future converge to throw the linear historical art world into disarray. Ghost figures of revolution dragged into contemporaneity. The artist spends his hours in whatever time he wishes, while never once leaving his own. And through it all, he’s still there. That continuous moment.
It starts when everything starts. 1969.
On December 12, a bomb explodes in Piazza Fontana and it’s been exploding ever since. This is the beginning. Anni di Piombo, named as such for the bullets upon bullets flung across streets, lead littering the lives of every Italian as political terrorism reigns. More bombs, kidnappings, arrests, anarchists, assassinations. What a year to be Italy.
And among it all, a voice.
Truthfully, a mediocre voice, but it sings love songs, soft and sanguine. That’s what it’s all about, really. Counterculture, counterculture, counterculture. The people are challenging things and demanding things and they’re breaking all the rules. They’re broadcasting on the radio and discovering that there’s a voice in their chests eager to burst free. Women’s rights, civil rights, protests and referendums. The lead may drip from ancient overhangs, but progress triumphs in Italy.
The musician’s voice, a sound unrefined and authentic. Compelling, witty, modern. Apolitical and simultaneously a sermon to the working-class, enrapturing the masses. A voice to define a country wading bravely through transitioning tides. A voice which lingers long after it’s left, deeply engrained in generations enduring. A voice for first kisses and road trips and dinners and heartbreaks.
It’s almost like Damiano can hear him now. He’s singing Un’avventura at Festival di Sanremo, 1969.
Ma vivrà quanto il mondo
(But he will live as long as the world)
They shared a moment, the artist realises.
This is where he begins.
But how to carry the message across such time and distance? How to reach into that moment as it still occurs? An effort so monumental requires divine might.
He thinks of Italy, of the greatest contradiction of all: modern and ancient. He thinks of aqueducts and water parks. Billboards and statues.
Like two radically different countries, superimposed.
And who else to make the journey through such incongruity than a deity of that old country? A god of messengers and travellers.
Carefully, carefully, he lets them touch. The effect is immediate. Battisti is altered, made regal; eyes become solemn, weighted with knowledge beyond his comprehension. Imbued with divinity, an immortal connection is forged.
Sight confounded by anachronism, Damiano bleeds old worlds together, watching as gods and musicians shake hands across centuries.
It seems fitting that each have their own planet. 9115 Battisti, discovered near Poggio Bustone, and little Mercury rubbing shoulders with the sun. Mercury and Battisti sharing a sky, flecks of light reflect in Damiano’s eyes as he looks up, searching.
The exhibition spends some time in London, but really, it first breathes in Melbourne, coddled by the graffitied streets and overcast skies that birthed it. People come and linger, time stretching, unable to remove themselves from the singular moment their attention is seized by the heavy gaze of one Lucio Battisti. Soon, there’s a ghost crowd lingering, caught in long exposure. The piece holds them like a pitcher plant. Superposition #6, it says.
The visitors see a man and a god in dialogue, many years apart. They think maybe this god has been reincarnated, or perhaps the man is just his disguise. A double life. Some think the god is really the man’s soul emerging, just briefly, like a spectre caught on camera. Others are sure they sense the whisper of something … some words.
Good morning, good people.
Though, it could also be a song.
Domandare "ciao che fai?"
(Asking "hi, what are you doing?")
Damiano stands among his works, his doctrine, fingers tapping out a rhythm against his leg.
In fondo all'anima
(At the bottom of the soul)
Ci sei per sempre tu
(You are always there)
And perhaps, in the shadow of those fingers and the corner of his eyes—curled behind his exhibition pieces and slinking around the ankles of visitors—is a presence.
Age-old, but never weary.
Mercury, Battisti, Bertoli. They will live forever.
PART THREE: MERCURY
A god is born in perpetuity.
He’s not constrained by time like mortals are. He’s just an idea, really, so what could confine him?
He struggles, however, to speak.
God of messages, reduced to murmurs. The irony spits at him. What good is eloquence if the people refuse to listen?
He’s a clever god, though. That’s why they made him translator, traveller, trickster. Unbound by time, the deity reaches out to humanity
stretching
grasping
They’re pliant beneath his suggestions. Their mouths move with his and their hands dance on strings. Not quite possessing, perhaps a little like haunting. Mostly, they’re carrier pigeons. Messengers.
He feels it when the singer performs; the spreading influence of his godhood as people hear and they repeat:
Altre voci piano piano
(More voices slowly)
Stan crescendo da lontano
(They are growing from afar)
And every single one of them becomes the Messenger, anew.
Timelessness means the god is also present when his messages are received.
An artist, in his studio, brought within a breath of a musician in Milan. Art which manages to transcend its time. Another Messenger.
They don’t live forever, of course, the musician and the artist.
Battisti passes in Milan, 1998. Bertoli in Melbourne, 2021.
Ricordo, sono morto in un momento
(I remember, I died in a moment)
But, for now it’s 1969.
Smoke is in the air; a deity sings on the radio and a child is born in Melbourne.