ANTHONY MOLINO: Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi, I’d like to start by trying to contextualize your work, before moving on to explore its distinctive features. The monochrome was born with Malevich at the start of the 20th century, and throughout the century its trajectory developed via the researches of artists such as Klein, Reinhardt, Barnett Newman and, where Italy is concerned, via the experiments of Mario Schifano and Piero Manzoni, best known, perhaps, for his achromes. In a catalogue of yours, the art historian Mauro Abba suggests that monochrome painting has long reached its apex in the pictorial, and not only pictorial, art of the West; and yet, notwithstanding its decline, that it resists as a potential hallmark for the inauguration of “a new Renaissance, a starting point for future generations to rethink and re-orient their relationship with the art of tomorrow.” Do you share this radical and peremptory thesis? And how, or where, do you situate your work along the sway of this particular pendulum that marks the history of the monochrome?

ALFONSO FRATTEGGIANI BIANCHI: In the history of the human species (leaving aside, for the time being, any others), mutations and evolution have occurred. If we limit ourselves to the matter of “mutations” then Abba’s statement can be construed as radical and peremptory. Whereas if we privilege the evolutionary point of view, I would consider his statement a most lucid observation. A certain history of painting, at least of our so-called “Western” painting, takes up about 3800 years of our epoch before the “monochrome” makes its appearance: an appearance that takes place in the context of the famous exhibition of Kazimir Malevich, I do not remember if in 1913 or 1915, with the placement of his Black Square in the so-called sacred corner. Malevich’s painting is dramatic, as was his placement of the painting in that exhibition. There have been various approaches to monochromatism: if I follow your list, one has Yves Klein’s somewhat “decorative” approach along- side the conceptual slant of others. I would however focus on one name that is missing from your list: that of Mark Rothko. The royal element in painting is color; color is matter, and in its materi- ality shape and structure are inherent. Yet in his magnificent use of color Rothko fails—although there is an attempt, in a work of 1968 exhibited at the Thyssen Bornemiza Museum in Madrid—to extricate himself from a kind of Pythagorean form in which color has contours. Perhaps Abba has intuited, among other things, that in works such as mine matter ends up being observed, and color is elaborated using the qualities that inhere in matter: this, even where parameters typical of paint- ing, such as composition and perspective, are concerned.

A.M. Your reference to Rothko—whose name I had intentionally omitted, knowing that both of you are featured prominently in the collection of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, of whom we’ll speak— brings to mind some pages by the great American artist on the difference between what he calls illusory beauty and plastic beauty. In his words:

The tactile plasticist wants the picture in itself to be beautiful. In other words, the picture in itself is his object – that is where the beauty resides. To this end the tactile artist’s plastic components must so interact with one another that the manifest relationship will in itself provide that exaltation . . . In other words, a new being has been created in the terms of plas- tic invention (M. Rothko, The Artist’s Reality, Yale University Press, 2004, pages 66-67).

These words of Rothko seem to ref lect your creative process, along with your monochromatic “invention”: from your understanding of color as matter to those distinct tactile qualities, or fea- tures, to which I alluded before (such as the stone supports you favor or the pigments you spread you with your fingers). Would you like to comment on these words by Rothko, and on your own creative process?

A.F.B. Rothko’s claim is a strong one. I myself do not seek to define “beauty”; it seems to me that beauty is the result of emergent memories, be they clear or vague; or, in a worst-case scenario, fixed and unmoving. One’s personal memory (or the part of the species’ approach of some Russian authors (Rothko, Rauschenberg, Majakovskji, Dostoyevsky, Cvetaeva, to name but a few), there is an element of “sentiment” that is congenial to their very being. Personally, I gladly welcome in my thoughts any and every approach to the configuration of a work; it seems to me, however, that my approach differs from Rothko’s given my distance from the “Russian spirit”. The perception of the factors that lead to a painting is composite and, I repeat, benefits from the individual painter’s perceptual faculties and from what I’d call the “favor” of the environment.

A.M. Your reply takes issue primarily with Rothko’s idea of beauty But while there is no doubt that the favor of an environment or community is of fundamental importance to both the conception and reception of a work—and we’ll later explore your own in this context—I would like to hear more about your particular invention. Of its conception, of the intuition behind it, of the very prac- tice of your art; and of the undeniably deep relationship between the materials which distinguish your presumable evolutionary contribution to the history of the monochrome…

A.F.B. To talk about beauty is, roughly, like talking about pesto in Genoa, every household in the city claims to know the only real recipe!
I started painting towards the end of 1998/99. My first paintings were on MDF support, on which I applied a layer of glue, usually vinyl, and on that I’d lay the pigment. The results were good but not fully satisfying. The glue took on a predominant agency in the process, for reasons such as drying time, density, etc. What interested me most—the qualities of color, the possibilities of its manipula- tion, the study and the “research” involved—were conditioned by the inf lexibility of the glue. (I also tried with oil). In a nutshell, I was looking for the way, for ways, to release color and my work from those irksome constrictions.
Thanks to my persistence, to my ever-curious eye, and the whim of chance, I ended up trying out the pietra serena (“serene stone”), a sandstone used in Umbria and Tuscany in construction work. (Think, for instance, of 16th century Florentine portals.) It is a stone which, if properly treated, has a degree of porosity that seemed to accommodate my intentions for spreading the pigment. I made some initial, and admittedly exciting trials, which nonetheless did not convince me altogether. So, I
sought out the expertise of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, who appreciated my experiment.

A.M. How extraordinary, to link the idea of beauty to taste!
I try to imagine you about twenty years ago, at the verge of turning fifty. With no formal artis- tic training or experience, save for the renown of being a distinguished musicologist. And yet . . . yet something pushes you in the direction of your experiments with color. What happened at the time? How does your invention come about? In a beautiful penta-lingual catalogue, actually more of a book, published by the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research (otherwise known as CERN) entitled The Elementary Particles of Painting, the neuroscientist Franco Federici has this to say about your work:
As to the choice of the stone and pigment, as a neurologist I sense that the artist has previ- ously been challenged by questions, answers, doubts and assumptions, in an effort to con- vert into image a philosophical extension of models and forms, together with the Gestalt within which reality manifests itself to his mind through perception. (Federici p. 16)
This interests me in particular: in the context of your life story, what can you say about those ques- tions, answers, doubts and assumptions—of the motivations, in short—that led Alfonso Fratteg- giani Bianchi, towards the end of the 1990s, to his particular re-invention of the monochrome?



A.F.B. I referred earlier to the condition of the (human) species and its so-called “evolution”, and it seems to me that the latter does not respond to “regular” rhythms, as per the dominant algebraic criteria that from Aristotle onwards poison a good deal of human thought and activity. (Please for- give the chronological inconsistency between algebra and Aristotle.) There are movements that I ignore whether or not they correspond to rhythms inherent in the organism of the world, rhythms that lead to degrees of evolution. Moreover, I would like to understand if what we call chance is but a caprice of fantasy or, if it is indeed part of the system, in what way does chance partake of the system?
Throughout history it seems to me that there have been periods in which some disciplines have enjoyed a privileged position in this process of evolution. At times philosophy, at others music, even superstitious theology has leapt over or exploded a few steps in the course human knowledge. I like to underscore the difference between progress (of the technological kind) and evolution . . . While we, and our perceptual faculties, remain aware of these apparent leaps and bounds, we now find ourselves at a time in history when the study and observation of matter hold an advanced position in the process of knowledge acquisition. And many are the fields in which the study of matter is furthered, ranging from the LHC of Geneva (large hadron collider) to the more modest little finger of the writer, with which I apply pigment on stone.
Regarding the observations of Prof. Federici in the article you quoted, I can only agree. With regards, instead, to your question of my transition from music to painting, I see an obvious affinity between the two disciplines, if only one’s approach avoids the ossifications of academia.

A.M. In a previous conversation with Vincenzo Scolamiero, a painter who collaborated with com- poser Silvia Colasanti in the context of several Spoleto Festivals, we talked about his relationship to music. I profess a degree of ignorance on the topic: could you specify what you see as the deep affinities between the two disciplines, and how your transition from one to the other came about?

A.F.B. There is decorative music, there is descriptive music; there is descriptive painting, there is decorative painting . . . and then there’s the good stuff. It seems to me that there are several ways to approach the affinities between painting and music. One is to deal with the “location”, if you will, of tones in space, with the resultant perspectives and compositions and countless alterations. And, not always, of course, or not forever, is a horse taller than a dog, or a donkey smaller than a horse…
For centuries there were rules that went unquestioned in both music and painting. From Guido d’Arezzo (990 A.D.-1033?) onwards, for a thousand years or so, Western music was conceived on the basis of—or in conjunction with—the heptatonic system, save for a minor variation, of little consequence, introduced by Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique. (Something I view as Viennese music without the requisite heptatonic scale.) This situation prevailed until John Cage (1912-1992) proposed and applied new parameters of composition, interpretation, and execution. Consider, for example, his Variations IV; or his most famous composition, entitled 4’33”. For this piece, the per- former, usually a pianist, begins by activating a chronometer. He or she then remains inactive, for all three of the score’s movements, for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The intent, and effect, is to dignify every sound event produced in the course of the performance (a squeak, a sneeze, a buzz, etc.), thus challenging—or perhaps trusting in—the listener’s ability to perceive, and to take in, the ennobled sounds. Regarding Cage, whom I knew and greatly admired, I should point out that all three of the score’s movements, for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The intent, and effect, is to dignify every sound event produced in the course of the performance (a squeak, a sneeze, a buzz, etc.), thus challenging—or perhaps trusting in—the listener’s ability to perceive, and to take in, the ennobled sounds. Regarding Cage, whom I knew and greatly admired, I should point out that I’ve edited two publications on the man and his work for the Quaderni Perugini di Musica Contem- poranea: one, with Ulrike Brand; the other, if I recall correctly, in a limited edition, for the L’Epos Editions book series.
A parallel can be drawn here with painting, where perspective has changed, perhaps evolved. Think of Cimabue, whose work surpassed that of the Byzantines (consider his Crucifix, exhibited in one of the first rooms of the Uffizi); then of Paolo Uccello and his triptych “The Battle of San Romano”; more recently, with Picasso and his “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”, we see the first inkling of a break with academic perspective (of the type: a watermelon is larger than an apple . . .); this in turn leads to Rauschenberg’s “White Paintings”, where one can experience, at one and the same time, what is both perceived and imaginable. A benevolent critic, unbeknownst to me, has now suggested that my paintings have taken another small step in this direction.
Personally—to answer your question—having worked with such brilliant and imaginative peo- ple as Cage himself, with Siegfried Palm (my one and only “mentor”), Giacinto Scelsi, Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Ulrike Brand, and many, many others who were never constrained by questions of tech- nique, I did not find the move to painting traumatic. To the contrary, I have to say that it occurred quite spontaneously. For years, as a musician, I dealt with tones of sound, with the matter that is sound. Now instead I deal mainly with chromatic tones, with the materiality of color: which in itself is quite sensitive to environmental alterations and manipulations: to the pressure of a pinkie, to friction, to light, etc.



A.M. Earlier in our conversation, you cited the “favor” of the environment in which a work is gener- ated and allows for its fruition. In an interview with Mauro Abba published in a 2001 catalogue for a show of yours in Palermo, Giuseppe Panza di Biumo talks about your native region of Umbria, of its colors and countryside and sandstone quarries, that together nourish what Panza calls the “violent assertion of the purity of color” inherent in your work. He goes so far as to compare its chromatic quality to that of the immense Piero della Francesca, who like you was also born in Umbria . . . What about this environmental favor, its effects on your painting, and the great tradition within which by virtue of necessity you operate?

A.F.B. In all likelihood every animal is endowed with the fur that its environment provides. For example, the first thing I probably saw in my life were the decorations and ceiling frescoes of the house into which I was born, my father’s. No matter, I became cosmopolitan early enough. Il va sans dire that I find the comparison with Piero della Francesca made by Panza di Biumo f lattering. Let me say however that for bureaucratic reasons Piero was Tuscan, as he was born in San Sepolcro. But the area, nonetheless, is still Umbro-Tuscan . . .

A.M. With regards to Panza di Biumo, how did the two of you meet, and how did you end up in his extraordinary collection?

A.F.B. When I was overseeing the Institute of the Quaderni Perugini, I had organized an exhibition at the National Gallery of Umbria with works by Adrian Schiess, Phil Sims, Mark Rothko, Günter Umberg and Ulrik Wellmann. I think it was 1995. My friend Phil did a painting for the occasion. The exhibition was delayed by a year—I had to adjust to the rhythms of the Italian Ministry for Culture and Tourism—and in the meantime Sims’ painting was acquired by Giuseppe Panza, from whom I then requested the painting on loan for the exhibition that finally took place in ‘96. He lent me Sims’ work, and as a result we became acquainted. He came to Perugia for the opening of the exhibition, which he agreed to introduce; at the time I still hadn’t started painting.
We stayed in touch, and I went on to organize an exhibition of the Panza Collection in Gubbio, at the Palazzo Ducale of Federico da Montefeltro. A relationship of mutual esteem had taken root. Some years later, on one of the occasions when he and his family were guests of ours, his eyes fell on a work that was off to the side. By then I had started painting, and the work was mine. But so as not to inconvenience my guests I told them it belonged to an acquaintance.
Panza’s curiosity was such that, after singing my praises, he insisted on visiting my studio. From then on, our friendship grew, and almost every day we indulged in long telephone discussions not only regarding painting but about physics, winemaking, and livestock as well. He even took an interest in a small sheep f lock of mine, a family source of exquisite meat. Alongside these interests Panza developed one for my work. He began to collect my paintings and arranged for them to be viewed in both the private and public wings of Villa Panza in Varese. As you may know the public wing of the Villa has been donated, together with its collections, to the FAI—the Italian Fund for the Environment—which oversees it admirably.
As Panza di Biumo was my first collector and his collection being world-renowned, my work began to garner attention outside of Italy, and collaborations resulted with a number of prestigious gal- leries throughout the world. I must say, a fairly rare quality for modern collecting, which made the fame of the Panza Collection, lies in the collector’s approach. Panza would “buy with his eyes”: he never looked at art as an investment, but always trusted his refined, erudite and cultured aesthetic sense, which was always open to new developments. And while he admitted to making an occa- sional mistake in his journey as a collector, he had an almost infallible eye.

A.M. What a splendid evocation, both of your relationship with Panza and of your beginnings as a painter! In the light of your account, I’d again like to take up the theme of the environment and its culture. I get the impression that a profound ritual element animates and structures your work, in a context where its apparent repetitiveness invariably evokes the rhythms of the monastic experience, of which Umbria is one of the world’s centers. Indeed, your work, for me, suggests something of that experience, if I think of the rituals of the monks’ work and prayer as well, of course, of the solitary nature of their “vocation” . . .

A.F.B. Your impression is reinforced by the fact that my studio is located in a former 12th-century Benedictine monastery. (I like to remember an expression of H.K. Metzger, who with regards to the Order of St. Benedict had this to say: “the Order that opposed the barbarian invasions with the concept of stabilitas loci.”) I used to believe, years ago, that monasticism had the capacity to bring the world into the cloister. This was probably the case at the time of its origins, and perhaps so through the Middle Ages . . . but nowadays it looks to me like a lobby.
To create a painting, I need a table in front of a window that preferably gives diffuse light; the rare days of fog are best. To achieve this condition, with a stone whose porosity suits the pigment I intend to use on any given day, I must work on several fronts. Finding a suitable stone is something I find laborious and tiring. The first sorting is done either at a quarry (rarely), or at a large marble factory where heat, cold, dust, water, cursing, noise, mud and frantic engines hold sway. The second sorting, in my studio, is quieter but not necessarily more serene. The subsequent preparation of the stone, for packaging and shipping after I’m done painting, is almost as much of a nuisance as making the wooden crates for shipping.
More than anything ritualized, what I confront is a need to adapt elements of “technique” to a given occasion, elements that each time vary between four or five inf luential categories. I refer here to the conditions of matter and materials (for example, pigments are sensitive not only to my finger but to temperature, moisture and, of course, light: light that is rarely the same as that of the previous day); then I have to deal with shipments, have the works photographed, review authors’ texts; and then with publications, invitations, installations etc. In short, all this resembles a Renaissance painter’s workshop more than a monastery. Once all the technical concerns are out of the way I can get to the small table where I paint and do what I prefer.
Each work I paint is a different experience, not only because of the aforementioned annoying tech- nical concerns, but because every day my approach is different. Even if apparently similar, or analo- gous, to countless other times, it is never the same, and each painting takes on its own reality. If you get to visit my studio, you’ll see a work consisting of five small paintings, each measuring 21x14 cm and made with the same pigment; and yet you’ll probably grasp how each one differs from another, with changing shades of blue, depending on your point of observation. To paint I absolutely need to tolerate the pigment I use. I need to highlight its qualities as they appear to me, qualities which are never the same, and whose variations can be of the micro or macro order. And I need to match my aim or intent to these qualities; or I need to bend them to match my aim.
In case you’re interested, let me share something about the question of rhythms. At almost every exhibition I attend someone will invariably ask: “How long does it take you to paint a work of yours?” The time of a painting is the time of the painting: a time, I would say, not commensurate, not com- parable, to that of other human activities (at least of those with which I’m familiar). It encompasses other dimensions of time, sometimes of epochs; it entails the synthesis and the sum of multiple per- ceptions and forms of knowledge; it evidences, and may involve, an approach to the non-experien- tial. Often enough, if one thinks of time, one cannot help but evoke space . . . Then again with regards to the qualities of a painting, in order to satisfy me it must not be “contained” within the borders of its own size . . . Do you want to know something? The hidden question of those gentlemen and ladies is really another: “How long does it really take you to earn ten thousand dollars?”

A.M. Fantasies and fetishes of the art market, where nowadays a work is consumed, and often burned, in supposed investments . . . But back to us: you used the word intent earlier, saying you aimed to match this intent of yours from time to time with the qualities of a given pigment; or that you’d try on occasion to “bend” those qualities to get them to conform with your original intent. If I try to imagine the process of your painting, I have a hard time when it comes to intentionality. I’d have thought that your decades-long dedication to the monochrome was driven by something akin to a transcendental ambition, that motivated all your work. Never would I have imagined that every single work of yours is individually “inspired”, let’s say, each time by a different intent. What can you say something about this? My question, of course, has to do with the potential, or perhaps the unspeakable ambitions, of color itself . . .

A.F.B. It is very likely that color has no “intentions”; this seems to me to be a practice of animals, especially of monogastric ones . . .
I must say that I have a difficult time locating any “original intent,” even if Augustine were to be called upon. (I think of his treatise On Free Choice of the Will.) Instead, I believe there is an element of curiosity (perhaps this, in itself, is originary) that serves as an engine, a motor of sorts. But on this too I’d have to ref lect, especially if I think about the inhibitory function that some neurons exert on others in the cognitive process.
Personally, I think it is necessary—in order for me to maintain a healthy distance from the Acad- emy—to take always into account, sometimes even for decades, the possibility of new parame- ters: parameters perhaps ignored or neglected, or too far removed from any common viewpoint. Of course, we do all swim in the same sea . . . I think of Alexander Fleming, and his search: he too was looking for something, and then found penicillin. But what he found he was able to assess.
These days, a painter’s work cannot be isolated from the knowledge fermenting around it, as was already the case in the Renaissance. Indeed, it would seem to be itself one of the prime movers.

A.M. Quips aside, the word intent, which you yourself used, was meant to refer to your approach to painting; to what motivates you, personally, to paint. At the same time, I’ll grant that the figurative phrase regarding the ambitions of color is one I’ve coined. And, of course you’re right, it’s very likely that in-and-of-itself color has no “ambitions” . . . But what interests me, as our conversation winds down, is to revisit together a moment of postwar Italian painting, when along with you at least three other noteworthy painters have, each in a radically different way, explored what I like to call the full potential of color. I think here of Salvatore Emblema, who’d visited Rothko in New York and for his researches on the interactions between light and color used Vesuvian pigments, on so-called “unwoven” canvasses; of Elio Marcheggiani, who as part of the pittura analitica or “analytical painting” current, during the full course of the 1970s, experimented with his grammature of color; and finally of the late Ettore Spalletti, who from a quasi-monastic retreat in his native Abruzzi also dedicated his life’s work to the monochrome. I invite your ref lections not only on the work of these colleagues, but on this evolutionary moment in the history of Painting, which obviously transcends Italian borders; of this moment when four distinctive artists all investigate, in an almost scientific way, what I come back to call the “ambitions” of color . . .

A.F.B. In the sense you suggest, I would say that the ambitions of color are indeed potent ones, and can be expected to persist, at least for as long as painting is around. It bears repeating that without color there is no painting. But not only painting works on, and with, colors: so does physics, so do other sciences. In the publication you cited earlier, The Elementary Particles of Painting (which has as its subtitle “The Perception of Color”), there are contributions from figures such as the afore- mentioned neuroscientist Franco Federici, who writes, in fact, on the elementary particles in paint- ing; or the physicist Ermanno Imbergamo, a researcher of experimental particles, who has a paper there entitled “On quarks, color, and multidisciplinary physics”.
My personal intent is to utilize, experiment with, observe, pander and confront color. And, of course, to paint. My previous answer begins, not with a quip, but with a kind of warning with regards to positions - not yours, I must say—that endow colors with mystical qualities. The twentieth cen- tury, in painting as in music, marked a kind of renaissance: already at the beginning of the century Paul Cezanne began to question color’s function as a filler of anthropomorphic and geomorphic forms. (I think of his many unfinished works.) Where Western music is concerned (I cannot speak of other traditions), I think of Webern and his Drei Kleine Stucke for cello and piano, which for the first time resorted to silence as an integral part of a score: where the compositional value of silence, employed not only to mark a pause, was dignified in the same way as tonality . . . And as you say, all this regardless of Italian or other geographical boundaries.
These processes have fomented new ways of thinking and working among those who busy them- selves with music and painting and activated cognitive processes for anyone who approaches the two disciplines, even if marginally. Italian painters as well, including those you cite, constitute a piece of the great mosaic. Already as a boy I liked Fontana’s cuts and Burri’s cretti, both of which I still appreciate and whose importance I think I’ve come to understand.

A.M. I’m glad that we should end our conversation on the topic of color and its centrality in paint- ing. And I’ll take a cue from your stated position to invite your comments, especially in light of your familiarity with recent studies in perception, on these words of the designer Riccardo Falcinelli, quoted by Massimo Pamio in a recent book entitled Sensibili alle forme (“Sensitive to Forms”).
In his own book entitled Cromorama: come il colore ha cambiato il nostro sguardo (“Cromorama:
how color changed our gaze”: Einaudi, Turin, 2017), Falcinelli writes:
Nowadays most of the images we deal with emit light, just like an episode of The Simpsons. This gives color a liveliness that it has never before had in the history of human artifacts, except for stained-glass Gothic windows, which however make for a special case. Thanks to the screens that surround us we are forever in the company of charged and brilliant colors, which have become the standard by which we measure the purity of all chromatic phenomena. Whoever has known the colors of television can no longer see the world through the eyes of the past. We may not be fully aware of what I’m about to say, but we have in mind the yellows of The Simpsons even in front of a Renaissance fresco.
What does Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi have to say about Falcinelli’s claim? How does your work, your art—which has always had color as its core concern —situate itself with regards to the sup- posed “purity of all chromatic phenomena” that screens everywhere invade our eyes and lives with? Is a sandstone of yours and a screen glaring out at us with The Simpsons expressions of phenomena and artifacts, perhaps of worlds, that are fundamentally incomparable albeit contemporary? And finally: do you believe that a contemporary of ours can approach the color of a stone of yours with- out being deeply conditioned by the standard postulated by Falcinelli?

A.F.B. I do not understand if the “we” invoked by Mr. Falcinelli is of the royal kind, or if it refers to an intimate circle of his. What I do know is that if I look at a fresco, I am not the least bit fazed by The Simpsons, and the same holds for many ladies and gentlemen I know. I also disagree with the purported uniqueness of stained-glass Gothic windows, nor will I bore you with a long list of vividly colorful artifacts, ranging from the dazzling elegance of African and Indian ladies to the refinement of Gauguin or even Cezanne. Having said as much, I do not think that the advent of recent techniques and practices should however be juxtaposed to the past. To find oneself thus amazed, with or with- out regret, is analogous to the expectation of those who waited for a double sulky to be attached to the first cars—to get them started!
To get back to your question, I am intrigued by new techniques and practices. On one hand I do not demonize television, although I do find it trivial and often boring, arrogant even when it forces the same spoonful down everyone’s throats. On the other hand, if I think about how a younger genera- tion of artists deploys today’s technology, there are things I find interesting, aspects similar and/or parallel to the dominance of screens. I should however say that I also perceive a danger, something we’ve already witnessed in the past. Take for example the case of electronic music between the
1950s and 1990s: what happened then, and what continues to happen, is that the object in itself, the technique, is elevated to a degree of quasi-totemic primacy when compared to the other com- ponents of artistic practice.
To continue on with your stimulating questions: I do not sing the praises of my painting, nor do I fear the possibility that it not be well-received. I merely limit myself to reporting some of the expe- riences people have had when standing in front of my paintings. These range from amazement to indifference, from applause to the question “ but is this painting?”. I am pleased to report, in the meantime, that I have not yet heard the famous homemaker say: “But even my son can do this!”
In closing, let me say that there are three types of visitors to my studio: 1) those altogether unfa- miliar with painting; 2) those with a modest degree of familiarity: i.e., amateur painters, establish- ment art critics and historians and the like; 3) those whose familiarity with painting and studies in the field is up-to-date and tested daily. Visitors from the first and third categories are able to access my work almost immediately; the same cannot be said for those from the second category.

ALFONSO FRATTEGGIANI BIANCHI

Born Perugia, Italy (1952)
Lives and works in Rocca S. Apollinare (Perugia) Italy

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2020 Soresina (I) DAV Dipartimento Arti Visive Natura

2019 München (D), Galerie Renate Bender Erde Stein Pigmente with H Dirnache
Venice (I), Orler TV
Mannheim (D), Sebastian Fath Contemporary W. Hermann Abrel
Mannheim (D), Sebastian Fath Contemporary Monochrome II

2018 Perugia (I), UniPG Liaisons / Dialoghi Gipsoteca
Venice (I), Orler TV
2017 Rome (I) Montoro12 gallery Lost in Color Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi with Stuart Arends
Varese (I), Villa and Panza di Biumo collection, FAI Velvet Effect Basel (CH) Galerie Gisèle Linder Solo exhibition with K, Kunz Venezia (I) Orler TV
2016 Venezia (I), Orler TV
Gèneve (CH), CERN Conseil Europèen pour la Recherche Nuclèaire The Elementary Particle of Painting, The Perception of Color with E. Imbergamo (physicist)
2015 Perugia (I), Museo Comunale Palazzo della Penna Ritornando a Casa
Venezia (I), Orler TVy
Roma (I), Consiglio di Stato della repubblica Italiana, Palazzo Spada omnia tempus habent aula di udienze,
permanent installation (catalog)
2014 Venezia (I), Orler TV
Lugano(CH).Per L’arte Contemporanea, Switzerland L’alchimia del Colore
2013 Venezia (I) Orler TV
Roma(I) , Montoro 12 Gallery Qua Coloris Natura Declaranta
Berlin(D) , Podblieski Contemporary, Project Room
2012 Venezia (I), Orler TV
Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Triptichon Mestre, Venezia (I) Galleria Orler Dalle alpi alle Piramidi München (D), Galerie Renate Bender Pure with S. York
2011 Madonna di Campiglio (I), Galleria Orler
Venezia (I), Orler TV
2010 Cerqueto, PG (I) ,Mariotto di Nardo di Cione, Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi
2008 München (D), Galerie Renate Bender Umbrische Bilder
Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Umbrian Paintings
2008 Perugia (I), Armory Arte Contemporanea Dipinti
Mariotto di Nardo (Firenze 1394-1424) Fondi oro A. Fratteggiani Bianchi - Dittico Rosso
2006 Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Umbrian Paintings
2005 Köln (D), Artothek (catalog)
St. Louis MO (USA), Schmidt Contemporary Art
Panicale (I), Cappella del S. Sebastiano del Perugino (catalog)
2004 Heemstede (NL), Bleeker Gallerie Stuart Arends and Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi
2003 Köln (D), Renate Schröder Galerie
2001 Milano (I), San Fedele Arte Monocromi (catalog)
Palermo (I), Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa Phil Sims, Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi (catalog)



GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019 San Francisco (USA) Brian Gross Fine Art Summer Group Exhibition Brussels (B), Montoro12 Contemporary Size Matters (Think Small) Landshut (D), LaProject Material Matters
Santa Fe (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Monochrome
München (D), Galerie Renate Bender Weiss
2018 Mannheim (D), Sebastian Fath contemporary Weiss
2016 Mannheim (D), Galerie Fath Contemporary Monochrome
2015 Rome (I), Montoro 12 - Art Quadrennial 2016 An Italian Vision
2014 Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, NY It’s Magic!
Rome (I), Montoro 12 The Cosmic Spectrum Monochromes and Beyond
Berlin (D) Gecelli Aterliers, Dialog with Gecelli.
2013 Berlin (D), Mies Van Der Rohe Haus Hauptsache Grau
2011 Mestre, Venezia (I) Galleria Orler Il Tempo dell-attesa
2010 Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Primary Intention Cerqueto PG (I), Cappella di S.Agostino One day exhibition München (D), Galerie Renate Bender Monochrome I
Scottsdale AZ (USA), SMoCA Thirty Years of Collection
Basel(CH) Galerie Gisèle Linder Monochrome
Madrid (E), Galeria Cayon Primario
2009 New York (USA), Betty Cuningham Gallery Core
Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Back to Basic
Milano (I), Università Bocconi New Installation
2008 Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art The Big Red Show
Oberhausen (D), Verein für Aktuelle Kunst Ruhrgebiet A.Fratteggiani Bianchi, T.Kemper, U.Wellmann. Malerei Buffalo NY (USA), Collectors Gallery at Albright-Knox Art Gallery A. Fratteggiani Bianchi, W. Roeth, P. Sims and D. Simpson
2007 Buffalo NY (USA), Albright-Knox The Panza Collection: An Experience of Color and Light
2006 München (D), Galerie Renate Bender Open Art 2006
München (D), Galerie Renate Bender Don’t touch - Der Reiz der Oberfläche
Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Clockwork Orange
Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art That’s Hot
Milano (I), San Fedele Arte Sentire con gli occhi (catalog)
2005 Milano (I), Università Bocconi La collezione Panza in Università with F. Beckman, L., Carrol, D. Simpson
Heemstede (NL), Bleeker Gallerie
Santa Fe NM (USA), Charlotte Jackson Fine Art Back to Basic
2004 Rovereto (I), Palazzo Libera,Villa Lagarina Storie di Colore (catalog)
Heemstede (NL), Bleeker Gallerie Stuart Arends and Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi
2002 Milano (I), Museo di S. Donato Milanese Giorgio Morandi e i Morandiani (catalog)

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Varese (I), FAI Fondo Italino per l’Ambiente
Collezione Panza di Biumo, Villa Panza Di Biumo
Köln (D), Artothek
Milano (I), Università Bocconi
Buffalo, NY (USA), Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Scottsdale AZ, (USA), SMoCA
Hohenems (A), Otten Kunstraum
Roma (I) Consiglio di Stato della Repubblica Italiana, Palazzo Spada
Fondazione Istruzione Agraria , Perugia
Universita degli Studi , Perugia

BIBLIOGRPAHY
In the Beginning was Color: A Conversation with Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi Anthony Molino by ARCANE, January 2020.

La Percezione del Futuro, la collezione Panza a Perugia, Con scritti di T. Severini, C. Vanoni, M. Abba, C. Bon Valsassina, F. De Chirico Fabrizio Fabbri Editore, Perugia, 2015.

Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi, Ritornando a Casa - Coming Home a cura di Carlo Vanoni. Catalogo della mostra Palazzo
Penna, Perugia 15 febbraio, 6 aprile 2015.

Hauptsache Grau, Wita Noak, Mies Van der Rohe Haus Berlin 2013.

“A Meditation on Color” Ursula Hawlitschka, Qua Coloris Naturam Declarat, Montoro12, Roma 2013.

“Den Mond kleben by Reinhard Ermen”, Kunstforum International, Sept./Oct. 2008 “Pietra, Pigmento, Mignolo, Cer- vello” by Carlo Vanoni, Dalle Alpi alle Piramidi, Orler Books 2012

“Spirit in The Material World”, Elizabeth Cook-Romero, The New Mexican, March 28- April 3, 2008

“Pure Color: Fratteggiani Bianchi Monochromes Charlotte Jackson”, Kate McGraw, Albuquerque Journal, March 21, 2008

The Panza Collection: An Experience of Color and Light Louis Gracos, Douglas Dreishpoon, David Bonetti, Giuseppe
Panza di Biumo The Buffalo Fine Art Academy, Buffalo, 2007

La Collezione Panza in Università (Testi di) Angela Vettese Università Bocconi, Milano, 2005

Testi sulla pittura/Writings on the painting of Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi (Testi di) Mauro Abba, Matthias Bleyl, Pierre
Albert Castanet, Franco Federici, Angela Madesani Guerra Guru, Perugia, 2004 (Italian, German, French, English).

“Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi” in The Panza Collection (Testi di) Giuseppe Panza di Biumo Skira Edizioni, Milano, 2002.

Anthony Molino is a well known psychoanalyst and award-w inning translator of Italian literature into English. Based in Italy, where he is also active as acurator and arts promoter, he collaborates with the New York-based Journal of Italian Translation and the Italian online art journal ARACNE, both of which publish his conversations with noteworthy Italian artists.
IN THE BEGINNING WAS COLOR was orig inally pulished in Italian by ARACNE in January 2020. It is one of a series of conversations, to be published by Edizioni Mondo Nuovo, Italy.
Email: tony molino at hotmail.it

Conversation: Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi and
Anthony Molino © January 2020

Atelier Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi
Rocca di S. Apollinare
06072 S. Apollinare (Perugia) Italia
E-mail: af b.ub at libero.it
Site: fratteggianibianchi.com

Design and Photographs (except pages 4 & 32)
copyright © 2020 Susannah Hays

Susannah Hays
7 Loma Oriente
Santa Fe, NM 87508
E-mail: sunprint at earthlink.net
Site: susannahhays.com

COVER IMAGES:
Gobbini Marmista (stone cutting factory), January 2020
Tavernelle di Panicale, (PG) Italy