75 erudite, but because he can read within the vibrations of nature. Art is capable of telling us things a moment before they happen», Tosatti wrote. «In complex systems, unpredictability and paradox are always present», Morin wrote, in Introduction to complex thinking (1993). We just spoke of unpredictability – or rather, of a form of prediction that cannot be attributed to the scientific method, but to a more powerful sensibility – by drawing the artist as Tiresias, or as a dowser. Here I come to paradox: I remember an episode of La fabbrica del mondo, a tv program aired in prime time in the first months of 2022, hosted by the playwright Marco Paolini and the philosopher of biology Telmo Pievani, dedicated precisely to the universal right to water. I remember Paolini's monologue. In Italy, six million cubic meters of water are consumed every minute, 40% of which is lost due to a water network of five hundred thousand kilometres in poor maintenance, «but this doesn't strike us, because it lacks an emotion». Joints, gaskets, holes, illegal withdrawals; but without an emotion, hardly a board of directors will make water maintenance a priority. Yet water, as we know by now, is a precious and not infinite resource. There is a real danger that the appeals of scientists on global warming or on the acidification of the oceans – along with the Fridays for Future of a Generation Z who show an infinitely greater capacity for vision and sense of responsibility than the one owned by musty armchairs in button rooms – will remain white noise until our collective past, our myths, our imagination, and the artistic gesture, won't be able to translate them into a powerful image, immersing raw data in the cultural heritage, to dress and invest them with an emotion. So, following the trail of a recent editorial by Ludovico Pratesi on the relationship between contemporary art, Theory of Complexity and sustainability, I am thinking of Imitatio Christi by Roberto Cuoghi, one of the works through which the Italian Pavilion presented itself at the Venice Art Biennale in 2017: a factory of casts of Christ on the cross, a decomposing christificium where the stench of humidity invaded you, where, as Pratesi pointed out: «The artist relies on the generative force both of chance and of the disorder coming from decomposition, capable of generating iconic representations that change unpredictably over time, creating a dynamic and emerging iconographic field in which the viewer is immersed». And I am thinking of Gian Maria Tosatti, of his history in art which leverages the visitor's experience as an enzyme of the artwork – full aesthetic experience, where "aesthetics" supports its etymology of aísthesis, perception – and I am thinking in particular of his History of Nights and Destiny of Comets at the Italian Pavilion. The press kit, on this occasion made available, told us about a continuous forum to deepen the research on sustainable life and development models, whose reflections can be consulted at www.notteecomete.it/public-program; of a project consistent with the sustainability commitment of the Venice Biennale, which collects data relating to its emissions by compensating them economically, with the aim of achieving complete carbon neutrality by 2030; of an explicit reference to the UN Agenda, touching in art all the themes of the seventeen sustainability goals, including not just the universal right to water – having a leading role, flooding the large loading area in the final act of the work, allowing spectators and Venice itself, a submerged city, once again to be mirrored – but also those related to the protection of nature, to the sustainable development with respect to the territory, to the rethinking of ethical models of production, consumption and profit. And beyond communication, above all, art stands. History of Night and Destiny of Comets is a total immersion in a space of two thousand square meters to be explored in solitude, re-emerging emotionally charged. It is a work with a theatrical syntax, evocative of the structure and function of Greek tragedy, whose first act is dedicated to the rise and fall of the Italian industrial dream – with his skilful pictorial interventions of gold and rust, gold as incorruptibility and rust as erosive corruption – whereas the second act, rippling water, darkness and the feeble, but still perceptible, glow of the fireflies, represents the deflagration of the cathartic element, purification after an impervious journey, sign of a still possible peace that could redeem the warning of 1975 by Pasolini: «I'd give the whole Montedison for a firefly». Here they are, fireflies, again; nevertheless, good care must be taken. In a recent interview for Flash Art, Tosatti was asked what the dimension of hope in art consisted of. I quote his words verbatim: «For me it is in tears, the ones I have collected from the visitors to this Pavilion. From these testimonies you can realize that the game is not over, that we are still capable of getting touched, because these things make our blood burn in our veins. I think that, in order to keep hoping, it suffices to note all this, our ability to still be alive, to vibrate, to still tremble». Tears, 98.2% water. That kind of necessary emotion that Paolini spoke of, to raise awareness of the universal right to water and, more generally, of the urgencies implemented by the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Here it is, the function of art in support of rights. And here it is, in my opinion, the ever-present paradox within the complexity of our times, applied to art and sustainability:
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