ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 289

The first book I ever read was “La Formica Argentina” by Italo Calvino and I was eighteen years old. OK I had read Tintins but I mean proper grown-up books. Even the books we had to read in school I didn’t read, I got by by picking up what was said in class.

I did read the Gazzetta dello Sport almost daily though, I would devour it; first I would read all the articles about Inter and Italy, then I would move on to articles about the rest of the Series A, before working my way through Serie B, C and D before moving on to other sports. Tennis, Formula 1 but also basketball, volleyball, I read it all, table tennis, Ice Hockey, never got into American football. On some days, lets say during a World Cup or the final days of the Mercato, I would also get Il Corriere dello Sport and Tutto Sport. It’s crazy, In Italy there are three major daily newspapers who cover just sport. 

So I was 18, in London, and Nicola Bocca passes me a book and asks if I have read it. I was going to tell him that chances are I hadn’t as I have never read a book but I said “No, I haven’t read that book” and he lent it to me.

I read it and really enjoyed it. It was probably not the best Clavino book but it got me into then reading most of Calvino’s books, “Se Una Notte D’Inverno Un Viaggiatore” being his best in my opinion. Until then I hadn’t realised how enjoyable reading was and in a way it was fortunate that the first book I tried was by an excellent author. I then read “Fontamara” by Igniazo Silone, Alberto Moravia and then started reading most of Graham Greene’s books from my grandparents library (every book of his is a masterpiece) and many many books by P. G. Wodehouse (he makes me laugh so much). Then of course Umberto Eco, “Il Pendolo di Foucault” was an amazing immersive adventure. These are the books that started me into reading, I don’t read much any more and I miss it, I don’t have much time and the little bits of time I have I waste looking at my phone. I need to start reading for pleasure again.

Reading “ The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths” by Rosalind E. Krauss was not a pleasurable experience. It was during my BA in Fine Art and I was thinking that I should get into clever art theory. This book is a collection of essays and I remember looking at the titles and thinking that if I read all of them I would become cleverer and more knowledgeable and my art would benefit from it. I was going through a crisis with my painting, I didn’t think it was enough just painting stuff, they had to mean something, have meaning and where could I find meaning? In books. And this book seemed to have a lot of meaning I could steal (borrow) and introduce into my work.

Well, I failed. Reading it was torturous and had difficulty understanding what I was reading. Sometimes I would read several pages and then realise that I was reading the words but not understanding anything. I would of course understand the words and even paragraphs but I couldn’t understand what were the points being made. I remember starting again and re-reading phrases several time and not move on until this chunk of information was understood. 

The first Essay is called “Grids” and I read it all and introduced grids into my paintings but I couldn’t carry on, I couldn’t get past essay 1. I’m looking at the contents now and some of the other essays have interesting titles: “Reading Jackson pollock , Abstractly”, “Photography’s Discursive Spaces”, I’m tempted to read them now, maybe it’s going to be easier now, maybe it’s going to make me more knowledgeable. Or maybe, instead, I should re-read P. G. Wodehouse and enjoy myself. But either way, I think i should start reading again. Actually I am going to re-read “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John kennedy Toole.

I AM STILL ALIVE

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