Marco Cassarà | Bones of Light
by Giusi Diana
Inspired by the expressive power of Paleolithic rock engravings (petroglyphs), Marco Cassarà presents his new site-specific installation at L’Ascensore, Bones of Light, from which the exhibition takes its title. The environmental and immersive work, a mixed technique on galvanized steel, halfway between painting and graphics, welcomes a flow of signs, scratches, and engravings that, like “bones of light,” form the luminous alphabet of a sidereal narrative speaking to us of inner processes and the emergence of the Imago, as an archetypal figure. The space is redefined by large vertical panels painted in oil, over two meters high, which completely cover the walls, transfiguring them. The reflective surface beneath the painterly material of an intense combination of blue, emerges luminous, through abrasion process and engravings by means of electric grinders. The work, thanks to Cassarà’s peculiar technique, which plays with the refraction of light on the metallic surface, is activated through the movement of visitors, as their point of view changes, with an alienating kinetic effect. As the artist explains: “I like to think that light is inherent in the material of the work, and that it emerges on the surface through the signs I carve, like the white of bones emerging from a wound […] The bones are within us, they support us, we feel their shape, they are sculptural lines. We identify with them. I can imagine how a primitive man would relate to the proprioceptive sensation of his skeleton; the association with pain when a bone is exposed by a deep wound, what seeing the bones of an animal, or the skeleton of a human being, could evoke in him. The association with death.”
Like in a multi-dimensional meditation chapel, Bones of Light welcomes us inside, with a tripartite structure, almost an iconostasis with three large paintings that, thanks to the abrasion of the metal, refract light, dragging us into an extraordinary perceptual adventure. An almost psychedelic effect that makes us doubt what we see. In theoretical physics, string theory tells us that one-dimensional elementary particles vibrate in a space of more dimensions. Some versions of the theory require up to 11 dimensions to be mathematically consistent. Cassarà’s work visually returns us the vertigo of those concepts investigated by quantum physics and philosophy, allowing us to surpass the boundaries of the first four dimensions of spacetime, towards a fifth dimension that we can intuit rather than comprehend. Finally, Cassarà entrusts to the secret words of the Braille alphabet, in his poetic composition present in the exhibition, the powerful image of “bones of light,” the vibrational energy that informs everything and constitutes the enchanted landscape of possible multiverses. An ancient hypothesis already present in Greek atomists and in the Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno, to be imagined strictly in the dark, through inner eyes.
Marco Cassarà and the Invisible Almost Unveiled
Interview By Carlo Corona for Ballon.
Deeply thoughtful, philosophically oriented, sharp and visionary, endowed with tempered wisdom and an introspective nature, yet at the same time, stubborn and conflicted. In the immersive, fascinating, and stimulating experience of the recent exhibition titled *Bones of Light* by Marco Cassarà, curated by Giusi Diana in the spaces of *L’Ascensore* in Palermo, many words could be found to describe it, as the work itself transforms, growing in complexity, vitality, and allure, bringing with it an intense energy and profound meaning. An ethereal and mysterious aura permeates the environment, evoking deep emotions, and those signs that cross the galvanized surface seem to engage in a struggle against their own contradictions and challenge the outside world with courage
Carlo Corona: I would start by asking you about the reason for the title Bones of Light, or Ossa di Luce, an evocative title in itself, deeply rooted in the body, linked to something intrinsic to our internal structure as human beings, to the skeletal legacy, as if the luminescence of light revealed the deepest mysteries of our being.
Marco Cassarà: When I started imagining Bones of Light, it was deep night, and I couldn’t fall asleep. I was in the throes of a delirium of spontaneous and visionary associations so energetic that they almost shook my bones. Among these was the “vision” of a skeleton of light, followed by all the images that come to life in the poetry featured in the exhibition. I began to calm myself by writing this poetry on the spot and interacting imaginatively with these objects. I projected this skeleton of light within me until it adhered to my skeleton, then I related it to constellations, projecting it onto sidereal scales. I thought of the constellations’ asterisms, also like skeletons of light. That night, I understood the deepest mysteries of our being, and I wrote them in that poem. That’s why I hid it using the Braille alphabet (laughs). Jokes aside, it’s a work that is deeply felt internally.
CC: Joke or not, the visionary and even revelatory aspect of the world’s mysteries is, I believe, a deeply characteristic trait of yours. What we might call a mystical vision coincides with the idea of intuition, understood as a direct and immediate understanding of divine reality and the spiritual universe, suggesting, in line with Jewish mysticism, that intuitive connections are inherently tied to the divine and cosmic truth.
MC: Artistic research can lead to spiritual enlightenment and can be a very visionary path if pursued in solitude. When I work, I am certainly “listening,” even if I listen to a lot of Techno.
CC: Before proceeding, however, let’s take a step back and return to the phase before the exhibition’s opening, when you were still working inside L’Ascensore and were engaged in creating the installation specifically designed for the space. I remember that among the tools and materials of your work, there were also objects, perhaps even more precious, the books, and in particular, I recall seeing three of them, including one on Nietzsche, one on Giordano Bruno, and another on alchemy and Kabbalah. I have always thought that books constitute a cultural model and a place of knowledge as precious as the work of an artist. I would like to focus for a moment on the influence these books have had on your work and your artistic practice.
MC: I brought to L’Ascensore some objects that are part of my studio, including those books, and also a walking stick that helps me release tension during moments of reflection. It’s an extension of my arm when I work, a numinous object. I never touched those books while working at L’Ascensore, but they certainly touched me; they are presences. The Birth of Tragedy by Nietzsche, on the artist caught between the tension of the Apollonian and Dionysian; The Shadow of Ideas by Giordano Bruno, a conceptual treatise on mnemotechnics that looks at the Hyperuranion (all artists should read it!); Alchemy and Kabbalah by Sholem, I brought it instinctively. There was also The Adventure by Giorgio Agamben (thanks to Stefania Artusi for giving it to me), this tiny essay is worth five “presences,” those he talks about: The Daimon, Tyche, Ananke, and Eros, and “Madam Adventure” who, from a Jungian perspective, represents the Anima that leads us to the Self through the tortuous paths of the unconscious.
CC: Let’s move on. The installation, with its three vertical panels of galvanized metal, envelops the entire space, as if dressing it, creating a layout that recalls the structure of a triptych. It’s an element that invites us to reflect not on a religious tradition but on a religious culture, or perhaps on something even more ancient.
MC: I would say about something deeply archaic. Imagining creating a site-specific work at L’Ascensore, I immediately thought of a cave. I liked the idea of relating to this work with the same primordial instincts of Paleolithic artists as they engraved the caves, immersing myself in them as they experienced the intrinsic meaning of the sign. I wanted to be guided by the same purity to bring to light forms and images from an inner dimension, like that of a horse that bursts directly from the unconscious. The use of electric grinders for engraving amplified this feeling.
I often pass by L’Ascensore at night and gather before the work with something religious in nature. It’s a work created in total automatism, a laic chapel, it has a strong resonance.
CC: Especially in the central panel and also in the left one, blue spreads with a dynamic and magnetic movement, even attracting, reverberating an intellectual fascination and a dark and mysterious initiation, being a color that captures the gaze as the most sublime, the color of the sky and the firmament, the color that elevates the spirit. Assuming that the color blue adds a sensory element to the experience of the installation, what is its significance to you? Why specifically blue, which carries with it a perhaps centuries-old history?
MC: I knew from the beginning that Bones of Light would be a “blue” work. When I start thinking about a work, I begin with a chromatic sensation that forms at the moment, a kind of vision. That famous night, amidst the delirium, I was pervaded by a very intense blue sensation, a blue aura. I did deep imaginative work, placing myself in the spaces of L’Ascensore from that moment, projecting onto those walls that inner sensation of blue, an archetypal blue. From there, those associations I mentioned earlier emerged.
Some passages by Derek Jarman from Chroma: In the pandemonium of image / I offer you the universal blue / Blue an open door in the soul / An infinite possibility / That becomes tangible.
CC: Bones of Light explores a narrative intertwining bodies, minds, landscapes, and perceptions in a universe of signs, colors, forms, and matter, revealing how abrasion on a metal surface can serve as a metaphor to shape matter through a process, a mode that, as Maurizio Calvesi masterfully explained in *Invisible Duchamp* (1975), falls within the subtle interpretative keys of alchemy.
How interested are you in alchemy, seen as a way of imagining reality, and to what extent do you think that process of abrasion on a metal surface just mentioned, and therefore the transmuted physical matter, projects itself onto the installation?
MC: To be honest, I hadn’t considered any kind of metaphor or philosophical speculation, but I can’t deny being fascinated by the alchemists’ idea of the “Philosopher’s Gold,” and I sometimes project this suggestion into my work. An artist’s creative processes have much in common with the Alchemical Opus, to the extent that thought is projected onto matter and manipulated with it, so the most significant transmutation happens on a psychic level. In my work, the abrasion process is a pure performative act entirely entrusted to automatism. It is in this gesture that, in fact, mind, body, and work; matter, sign, and color intertwine or “solve et coagula.” The creation of Bones of Light – who knows, perhaps even due to the suggestion induced by the metal – was something extraordinary, perhaps even a palingenesis. Certainly, the metal was a catalyst, and the light reflected in the abrasions a revelation.
CC: In the exhibition’s presentation text, the curator, Giusi Diana, writes that “the environmental and immersive work embraces a flow of signs, scratches, and engravings that […] form the luminous alphabet […] of a sidereal narrative that speaks to us of inner processes and the emergence of the Imago, as an archetypal figure.” I would like to delve into this aspect of the alphabet, which particularly interests me, whose legacy is rooted in many experiences of the early and mid-twentieth century, although, if we wish, we can trace it back to the beginnings of painting. Here, then, your signs, enigmatic, evoke ancestral images, similar to graphemes, cuneiform writings, or even asemic.
MC: I need to start from the origins of this sign language, how it began and where. I come from figurative painting, and the transfiguration of this was physiological, in unison with the maturation of my chromatic conception. I reached an important moment of awareness about color while working on Solar Plexus, a relatively small artist’s book (when open, 16 x 20 cm), with about two hundred pages rhythmically filled with rather psychedelic monochrome paintings. About a year of work, with layers, technical timing, and experimentation, during which I also explored spatiality and form extensively. The realization of this triggered a deep crisis: everything I drew or thought about made me nauseous, as if the color rejected it. The element to overcome was representation, in favor of something pure and heartfelt that would embody color, now the protagonist of my exploration.
Returning to the sign and the alphabet, the insight came underwater, at sea. Observing the seabed with a diving mask, I found myself absorbed in a sort of very deep contemplative meditation. Then, I saw a stone on the seabed with very interesting veins. I had found my Aleph (from that moment on, even today, whenever I go to the sea, I scan the stones convulsively). Thus, it was an immersion into the language of nature; I was inspired by its sometimes very slow processuality, such as the millennial metamorphic process of stone compaction and the formation of its veins. The truth and strength of these signs were telling me something. I began to explore them, catalog them, and project them onto surfaces to then trace them; I wanted something real. What gave strength to my language and made it become automatic was the use of electric grinders, which also took it to a performative level. The first sign was accidental, on a piece of leather I had hung in the studio for months, on which I didn’t know what to do; it would have been too banal to draw or paint on it, I was at the peak of that crisis. Then, by chance, my eyes fell on the grinder, and the stroke started: a sign that seemed like a hologram floating in and out of that leather, a revelation.
CC: Let’s stay on this aspect of the alphabet, which reveals itself as a form of writing between alpha and omega, situated beyond the boundaries of the conventional alphabet, in a primordial or post-verbal territory, where meaning and symbol merge in an elusive dimension. It’s a type of writing that, at its core, draws rather than enunciates, using symbols and pictograms rather than words. Do you think this form of linguistic deconstruction inherently carries the ability to convey meaning through its signs?
MC: Plato’s myth of Theuth comes to mind. The myth tells of the god Theuth who proposes to King Thamus, then ruler of Egypt, the invention of writing as a remedy for memory and wisdom. The king argues that writing could have the opposite effect: “[…] the discovery of writing will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who learn it, because they will rely on writing to remember from outside through external signs rather than from within themselves: therefore, you have found not a remedy for memory, but for recall. As for wisdom, you provide your disciples with the appearance of it, not the truth.”
In Homeric Greece, it was customary to begin a speech by saying “may I speak exactly what I have in my heart.” In the book by Giordano Bruno that I mentioned earlier, there is frequent reference to “inner writing within each of us.” I can imagine it as something that lies between word and image, perhaps even in the voice, but not in semantics. I believe Giordano Bruno was referring to an “inner truth” that we can all feel, too complex and abstract to master conceptually, and therefore could be interpreted through an image. Like something chthonic, living within us, to be captured and trapped in the immediacy of the sign. The last works of Klee come to mind, those large white canvases with a single thin graphite mark, dramatic as the image of a crucifix, but unlike it, quiet and beautiful. The perfect synthesis of a great artist like Paul Klee.
CC: Now let’s move on to another key point of the exhibition, that of the right panel, where the figure of a horse emerges, evoking, in my view, the duality of celestial bodies and the paganism of antiquity, from astrological reflections to representations of constellations. Can the figure, image, or symbol of the horse contain a complex network of meanings and values, emanating a core of deep importance and multiple interpretations? What exactly does this element, which seems to illuminate inner visions, embody, as if the horse, an enduring symbol, were a messenger from worlds beyond the visible?
MC: That horse was already there, inside the metal sheet. I didn’t think I would have the courage to bring it out, but when I laid the first flat base with green earth, the entire rear end, with the rump, tail, and left leg, was already clearly visible. It emerged in my dream world, breaking into the abstraction of my work. This Imago, so primitive and ancestral, with its head in a higher dimension, is also intertwined with a series of synchronic events, such as the discovery of the presence of the Pegasus constellation beyond the panel. As illustrated in the graphic project, throughout the production period at *L’Ascensore*, it was accompanied by a planetary alignment that was perfected between April 4 and 5, the day of the inauguration, and it was very suggestive for me. It seems like the most abstract work I’ve done so far, appearing as phantasmal as it was in my dreams. I fulfilled a great desire, that of trapping a dream image and being able to observe it with open eyes.