"Franco Battiato. Another life"the exhibition at Maxxi

A large panel projects the same panorama at two times of the day: the cornice of a terrace delimits the expanse of the sea from above against the background of a town. It’s the view thatFranco Battiato aveva da Villa Graziahis final home in Milo, on the slopes of Etna. “Meditation at sunrise and sunset” warns the caption. It is exhibited – among a series of documents, images, books, paintings, memorabilia, films, memorabilia – in theexhibition-eventwhich opens toMAXXI of Romeand which will remain on display until April 26th. It is titled “Franco Battiato. Another life”, to speak of the inexhaustible vitality ofsinger-songwriter, painter, directorone of the major protagonists of contemporary Italian culture. A tribute five years after Battiato’s early death, which makes his voice echo together with a film in cinemas from 2 to 4 February with the title “A long journey”.

Co-produced by the Ministry of Culture and MAXXI, organized by COR di Alessandro Nicosia, the exhibition is curated by Giorgio Calcara and Grazia Cristina Battiato, the artist’s niece. Who has a cracked voice when, in the face of the exhibition, she remembers her uncle: “Generous, full of lovetowards others, the gaze as pure as that of a child in the body of an adult. He never wanted to teach me, he hated being calledMaestro. He was capable of great normality combined with profoundspirituality“. The horizontal and vertical lines, as in one of his 2009 texts, “Inneres Auge”. “He was cheerful, don’t think he was serious – says Cristina Battiato, who is a lawyer and lives in Milan, mother of three children – He liked the art of the table, even if he ate like a bird. He welcomed friends for dinner and every evening had to end by watching a film, chosen by zapping.”

Electronic music and the first objects on display

Battiato’s objects, in the exhibition. The records, the posters, the posters (one, from 1981, advertises a “Great New Year’s Eve” of 1981, with “Franco Battiato and the Owls in the Tenda Theater in Lampugnano”). But also isynthesizersor the landing atelectronic musicof which Battiato was – it was the seventies – onepioneertaking inspiration from John Cage and Stockhausen. A screen, its carpets brought fromEastby which he was struck in one of his seven lives.

The years of training in Milan

Yes, seven destinations of his tireless curiosity and continuous research. And there are seven sections of the exhibition. Here’s the beginning, guyssixtieswhen Battiato leaves theSicilyand moves toMilanoslender, with big glasses, photos posed in front of the legendary Gallery, or in the sound studios for the first recordings, supported byGiorgio Gaberand advised to replace the name Franco with his birth name, Francesco, with which he recorded the first 45s.

Pop success and sonic innovation

Then came the transition from acoustic to electronic, in the following decade, with the albums “Fetus”, “Pollution”, “Sulle Corde di Aries”. Theeightiesthey mark thepop successbecomes a mass icon without giving up the depth of the lyrics, the originality of the music. “The master’s voice“is the first Italian LP to exceed one million copies sold. It’s time to “Permanent center of gravity“, “I want to see you dance”, “Bandiera bianca”, “Up patriots to Arms”, “No Time no Space”. Five hits that come to life in as many original video clips projected inside an octagon, the beating heart of the exhibition (“reminiscent of the musical scale”, explains Calcara) where eleven speakers are placed, each capable of sending a musical track back with the systemDolby Atmos. The spectator has the sensation of being at the center of the orchestra and thevoice of Battiatoit is close as in a whisper.

Spirituality, painting and the return to Milo

From refined pop to the East, to an interest inEastern Philosophyfor esotericism andSufismand it is the time of mystical songs and great cultured works such as “Genesis” or “Gilgamesch”. Again, philosophy, the twenty-year association withManlio Sgalambroand dense pages emerge from the collaboration. The Battiato man consolidates himself as a moral figure, rigorous and ironic at the same time. Leave Milan, return to Sicily, aMiloin the house to which he gives the name of his mother, Grazia. He meditates, reads, paints: in golden frames – irradiation of light – hispaintingsall of which entered her granddaughter’s collection: on the gold background there are dancing dervishes, bearded Sufis, close-ups of Arabs. A self-portrait from behind, next to an easel and the screen brought to the exhibition. A parrot and a sparrowhawk, portraits of Sgalambro andGiuni Russowhich he launched together with Milva and Alice, who won the Sanremo Festival in 1981 with his “Per Elisa”.

Cinema and the humanitarian legacy

In recent decades it has ranged overcinema: films like “Perduto amor” and “Musikanten”, documentaries, soundtracks: a mass of evidence defined tout court by Elisabetta Sgarbi as “Franco Battiato’s cinema, which bears his unmistakable imprint”. His figure, his voice, his thoughts, everything bounces back from the exhibition. And the images of his are movingBaghdad concerta humanitarian initiative from 1992. Long Beard, sitting on a Persian carpet, sings the iconic songs of his repertoire in Italian and Arabic.