Henri Michaux “ Passaggi”

 

Henri Michaux, Passages 1937 - 1963

A CERTAIN PHENOMENON CALLED MUSIC

The child, who has played with things for so long, with sand, with water, what will remain in him later of his power to play?

As an accomplished adult, the mammal no longer plays, or so little. In man, however, being with slow development, the game finely insinuated, having had time to become important, cunning to survive other than in tracks, and sometimes seeks and finds, in the midst of adult behaviour, a new playful organisation.

... There is what is called music.

It is also about waves, very small and to play with, not certainly by receiving them on wet feet but only, so tiny they are, in the deepest part of the ear that receives them vibrant and like a Secret. Invisible, they arrive in circular lines, which will soon surround it as if they came from everywhere, and in a huge tank keep it bathed.

These tiny waves relieve things, the unbearable "solid state" of the world, all the consequences of this state, its structures, its insluevable masses, its harsh laws.

They know how to do the night on the object, and on the beings when they have become like objects. They can disembody the flesh, abstract the concrete, de-problematise the situation. We breathe, we will relive, everything else forgotten, the good flood having returned to cover the earth that the geometry, the walls, the ugliness and the countless undesirable encumbered, which had been stuffed there and that it would have taken at least three wars and as many revolutions to eliminate, and not so well as this simple and prodigious cover will do.

Music, a wonder that surely preceded the fire. We needed it otherwise.

APRILE

 

Poesia persiana

What is poetry

If not that instinct to dust

The mirror of the veranda of certainty;

That perceiving,

The moment a flower blooms,

The freedom of the whole universe?

Mohammad Reza Shafiei Kadkâni

Poesia persiana

                                            Forugh Farrokhzad    da  “La strage dei fiori”

A window

A window to see

A window to hear

A window like the mouth of a well

Reach the bottom of the earth's heart.

And open along this continuous blue grace,

A window that in the nocturnal favour of the scent of noble stars

Overflows of little hands of solitude,

And from there we can invite the sun

To the exile of the geraniums.

I only need a window

I come from the country of dolls

Under the shade of paper trees

In the garden of a picture book

From the dry seasons of the arid experience of friendship and love

From the dusty paths of innocence

From the flourishing years in the pale letters of the alphabet

From behind the desks of an unhealthy school

When the children now knew

Write the word stone on the board

The confused flocks flew from the old trees.

I come from the heart between the roots of carnivorous plants

And my head still

He trembles at the terrible scream of a butterfly

Crucified on the album with a pin.

When my faith was hanged on the fragile ropes of justice

And in the whole city

They tore the heart of my eyes to pieces,

When they suffocated with the black handkerchief of the law

The childish eyes of my love

And from the pulsating temples of my hope

Blood flowed up,

When my life was no longer anything,

Nothing, if not the ticking of a watch,

I realised that I had to love,

To love, to love madly.

Sulla metafisica

  “I manichini sognano. Sognano di diventar statue, in mezzo a una piazza, e di esser chiamati ‘monumenti’“.

Palazzo Reale ospita Metafisica/Metafisiche. Modernità e malinconia. La grande mostra dedicata alla Metafisica e alle sue molteplici declinazioni.

Come scrisse Robert Musil:

“Si vedono sempre le cose in mezzo a ciò che le circonda e si prende l’abitudine di confonderle col significato che assumono nel loro ambiente. Ma se per una volta se ne staccano, eccole diventare incomprensibili e paurose, come dev’essere stato l’indomani della creazione, prima che le cose si fossero abituate le une alle altre e a noi stessi”.

La pittura nel tempo si è soffermata spesso sull’oggetto, sul rapporto con gli oggetti comuni. Già agli occhi degli antichi c’era da una parte il silenzio impenetrabile delle cose, immobili, e dall’altra, l’impressione che esse possano partecipare dei nostri sentimenti.

La mostra di Milano cala nella poetica della Metafisica, alla cui base c’è il mistero nascosto negli oggetti quotidiani decontestualizzati: ciminiere, navi in porto, prospettive di portici interminabili, statue-monumento, ruderi di templi classici, frammenti marmorei e, naturalmente, i manichini, riposti in ambienti a cui non appartengono, come il silenzio surreale di alcune piazze italiane. O un esempio particolare, perché parliamo di cinema, ne Il disprezzo di Godard, isolate dal contesto narrativo, compaiono immobili, colorate statue di divinità antiche.

Nei dipinti della Metafisica è inutile cercare significati e tantomeno simbolismi, va ascoltato il canto delle cose.

Oltre a de Chirico e Morandi, nelle mostre milanesi c’è spazio anche per gli altri protagonisti della Metafisica, a cominciare da Alberto Savinio, fratello di de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis, Carlo Carrà. 

Accanto a Palazzo Reale, il percorso si sviluppa al Museo del Novecento, alla Grande Brera – Palazzo Citterio e alle Gallerie d’Italia.

La mostra Metafisica/Metafisiche. Modernità e malinconia sarà aperta al pubblico dal 28 gennaio al 21 giugno 2026.

"The mannequins dream. They dream of becoming statues, in the middle of a square, and of being called 'monuments'".

Royal Palace hosts Metaphysic/Metaphysics. Modernity and melancholy. The great exhibition dedicated to Metaphysics and its multiple variations.

As Robert Musil wrote:

"You always see things in the middle of what surrounds them and you get into the habit of confusing them with the meaning they take on in their environment. But if for once they detach themselves from it, here they become incomprehensible and fearful, as it must have been the day after creation, before things got used to each other and to ourselves".

Over time, painting has often focussed on the object, on the relationship with common objects. Already in the eyes of the ancients there was on the one hand the impenetrable silence of things, immobile, and on the other, the impression that they can participate in our feelings.

The exhibition in Milan falls into the poetics of Metaphysics, at the base of which there is the mystery hidden in decontextualized everyday objects fireplaces, ships in the harbour, perspectives of endless porches, statues-monuments, ruins of classic temples, marble fragments and, of course, mannequins, stored in environments to which they do not belong, such as the surreal silence of some Italian squares. Or a particular example, because we talk about cinema, Godard's The contempt in which, isolated from the narrative context, immobile, colourful statues of ancient deities appear.

In the paintings of Metaphysics it is useless to look for meanings and even less symbolism, the song of things must be listened to.

In addition to de Chirico and Morandi, in the Milanese exhibitions there is also room for the other protagonists of Metaphysics, starting with Alberto Savinio, brother of de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis, Carlo Carrà.

Next to the Royal Palace, the route develops at the Museo del Novecento, the Grande Brera - Palazzo Citterio and the Gallerie d'Italia.

The Metaphysic/Metaphysics exhibition. Modernity and Melancholy will be open to the public from January 28 to June 21, 2026.