Emilio Isgrò (1937) - Sans titre

The most experienced collectors and connoisseurs will notice an incredibly rare peculiarity in this work by the maestro Emilio Isgrò, namely this nuance of erasure, these words left partially visible only for those who are attentive and curious.

This is a distinguishing feature for this screen print limited to 40 copies, which makes it a unique piece in the maestro’s pictorial cycle, who usually either erases the word completely or leaves it visible; here we have, instead, the addition of the "nuance of erasure".

Emilio Isgrò, with erasure, was a great precursor of signaling the devaluation and decay of the word, of language, of the value that words possess, a phenomenon that today we are experiencing more than ever.
The master began to denounce in 1964 what is now daily, plausible; we note this lack of value of the word, understood as a vehicle for ideas, capable of taking different forms—from television debates to print news, from dissemination by the mass media to the ever-smaller reading society we are creating.
Fewer words, less culture in circulation, but beyond critical debates about art, what does this mean socially?
The ability to reason, and I would add the ability to reason with a critical, independent thought, is dictated by the quantity and quality of vocabulary one possesses; we cannot think beyond the words we know, just as one cannot build a house without all the necessary materials—the more the material is lacking, the less complete, stable, achievable the house will be.
By limiting words, one also limits the concepts one can create and the ability to express them or express oneself.
Understood the axiom that fewer words equal fewer thoughts, Isgrò’s work thus acquires a very high cultural and artistic value.
Concealing words behind erasure is a way for the maestro to awaken curiosity in the viewer, a way to invite us to look beneath the word, to imagine what might be connected to what is left “free” to be read.
A conceptual, investigative process, of discovery, of reflection on words and their arrangement, almost as if Isgrò took on the pedagogical role of a teacher, as well as that of an intellectual.
But Isgrò is not only a “teacher”; he is also a creator of new syntactic and formal rules, a developer of new stories, but also a keen satirist—the maestro is what an intellectual should be, a “awakener of consciences.”
Emilio Isgrò thus positions himself in art history as a guardian of the word and, by extension, of culture, a role we need more and more.

The dimensions of the work are 80 x 60 cm.

The edition number may not correspond to the number of the photograph.

The provenance of the work is from Grafica Manzoni Gallery, which issues its certificate of authenticity.