L'Italo-Americano

LOS ANGELES ITALIAN COMMUNITY THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 28 L'Italo-Americano together, the works create a journey through history and geography, incorporating cul- tural references to the past, present, and future. You worked in adver- t i s i n g f o r m a n y y e a r s . How much of that experi- e n c e r e m a i n s i n y o u r approach to art? I've designed well-known logos for companies such as Fastweb, Lavazza, and Agne- si, among others. The differ- ence, however, is that a logo starts with a brief and serves a commercial purpose. A let- ter, on the other hand, comes from imagination and a free i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . O n e i s designed to sell; the other comes from an instinctive gesture, from the desire to express oneself. Logos and brands have a specific pur- pose, whereas my letters are created precisely to be free of one. What makes Los Ange- les an interesting place f o r y o u r a r t i s t i c research? I spend a good part of my time here, and I wanted to create a range of works unlike anything I'd done before: a k i n d o f a n t h o l o g y o f m y focus of artworks. But the i n d i v i d u a l l e t t e r h a s remained in the background. I'm interested in offering a new way of seeing it. I paint letters influenced by different artistic languages: a letter can be hippie, Futurist, or Surre- alist. I draw inspiration from the worlds of the past, pre- sent, and future to offer a new interpretation. Looking at your work, I felt a sense of lightness. Is that something you try to convey? Absolutely. Lightness, in the sense intended by Italo Calvino, doesn't mean super- f i c i a l i t y . I b e l i e v e D i s n e y films are an art form precise- ly because they bring us a sense of lightness. When you watch the news, on the other h a n d , y o u f e e l a s e n s e o f heaviness. For this installa- tion, I chose to use not only paintings but also large-scale reproductions of my work, originally created on wood, metal, cashmere, and other materials. I experimented with different surfaces, then r e p r o d u c e d t h e w o r k s o n transparent plastic that is also rain-resistant. It's a site- specific installation: brought alphabets. Los Angeles isn't a homogeneous city. It's an enormous space encompass- ing many different forms of language. I thought this exhi- bition could capture all of them. There's science fiction, there are cartoons, and there are all kinds of cross-pollina- tion. There's something else I like about Americans, too: compared with Europeans, they're more like children. It's a young nation, and you can feel it. Americans are capable of believing in any- thing, whereas we Europeans are more disillusioned. I real- ly like this almost childlike w a y o f l o o k i n g a t t h i n g s b e c a u s e m y w o r k i s a l s o about play, lightness, and fun. I n S e p t e m b e r , y o u brought TypeArt to the New York Fashion Week, transferring your work o n t o c l o t h i n g . W h a t i n s p i r e d y o u t o b r i n g your art onto the human body? It was an interesting expe- rience because I was able to apply my work to the human body. Anything I've never done before attracts me. I'm n a t u r a l l y c u r i o u s , a n d I believe the artist of the future will need to become creative in a broader sense. Until the last century, artists primarily c r e a t e d t w o - d i m e n s i o n a l works on canvas. Today, they need to know how to work w i t h l i g h t , s p a c e , m u s i c , d e s i g n , a n d a r c h i t e c t u r e . They need to be multidiscipli- nary. Here, they call it multi- tasking; we call it a humanis- tic education. W h a t o t h e r a r t i s t i c form would you like to explore with TypeArt? I'd like to create a multi- sensory TypeArt experience. I imagine a space where every letter can be seen, with an a r e a d e d i c a t e d t o v i s u a l works, and then other spaces where letters can be touched, smelled, and experienced through the other senses. I'd also like to create a space dedicated to fragrances. I've asked myself: what does A smell like? And B? And C? I'd like to create a journey that a l l o w s p e o p l e t o t a k e t h e experience of letters with them through all five senses. something forbidden. Today, it's probably the trendiest let- ter in the universe: there's the BMW X Series, there's The X Factor on television, there's SpaceX, and many o t h e r e x a m p l e s . I n o t h e r w o r d s , X n o w r e p r e s e n t s n o v e l t y a n d t e c h n o l o g y , whereas in the past it evoked something dark. There are other interesting stories, too. For the ancient Greeks, for instance, O was a symbol of God because it has neither a beginning nor an end. What would you like p e o p l e t o e x p e r i e n c e when they stop reading a letter and simply start looking at it? There's a quote by Marcel Proust that says the real trav- eler is not someone who sees new lands, but someone who sees familiar lands with new eyes. That's what I want to offer: a new perspective, a new way of looking at typog- raphy and the alphabet. For centuries, we painted people, portraits, landscapes, oceans, and flowers. Then abstract art emerged in the last centu- ry, and more recently we've also seen words such as love, hate, and hope become the W e are used to recog- nizing let- t e r s , p u t t i n g them together, and turning them into words that convey meaning. But what happens when we stop reading them and start looking at them for what they are: shapes, lines, and colors? This shift in per- spective is the starting point of TypeArt, the artistic prac- t i c e d e v e l o p e d b y I t a l i a n artist Lorenzo Marini, who has made the alphabet the centerpiece of a body of work that spans painting, installa- tions, and even fashion. Marini has been exploring this concept for years, and it has found a new expression in Los Angeles with We Are Letters: The Architecture of Language, an installation created for the Italian Con- temporary Art Day. Here, letters leave the surface of the canvas and multiply across semi-transparent panels sus- pended in space, transform- ing the alphabet into an envi- ronment visitors can walk through. "TypeArt was born out of the realization that lan- guage is becoming increas- ingly visual. Our lives are made up of symbols, images, and icons," Marini explains. "In the West, letters are tools for reading and writing, while in the East, calligraphy is c o n s i d e r e d a n a r t f o r m . I thought it would be interest- ing to do the opposite of what graphic designers have been d o i n g f o r y e a r s : g r a p h i c designers bring order, while artists create disorder." Was there a specific moment when you had t h i s i d e a , o r w a s i t a process that developed over time? It was a process. The inspi- r a t i o n c a m e f r o m s e e i n g men's shirt monograms, per- sonalized cufflinks, and the desire to have your own ini- t i a l . T h e n I n o t i c e d t h a t women were wearing the ini- t i a l s o f b r a n d s : t h e C f o r Chanel, the H for Hermès, the G for Gucci. I thought we could use letters as a form of art and personalization. Do letters have person- alities? T h e p e r s o n a l i t i e s w e attribute to them. Some let- ters also have a particular history. When I was a child, for example, X represented the unknown in mathematics, and in movies it indicated TypeArt: artist Lorenzo Marini's visual revolution SILVIA NITTOLI From left: artist Lorenzo Marini, curator Marisa Caichiolo, Italian Consul General Raffaella Valentini, and Emanuele Amendola, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, at the opening of We Are Letters (Photo: Veronica Maffei and James Riva)

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