Emilio Isgrò (1937) - Sans titre

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

This is a distinctive trait for this silkscreen print limited to 40 copies, which makes it a unique piece in the painterly cycle of the master, who usually either erases the word entirely or leaves it visible; here, however, we have the addition of the “shade 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, feasible, evident—note this lack of value of the word, understood as a vehicle for ideas, decline-able in all its forms, from television debates, to the front pages of newspapers, to media dissemination by mass media and in the ever-diminishing reading society we are creating.
Fewer words, less culture in circulation, but beyond critical discussions about art, what does this mean for society?
The ability to reason, and I would add the capacity to reason with a critical, independent thought, is dictated by the quantity and quality of the 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.
Limiting words also limits the concepts one can create and the ability to express them or to express oneself.
Understood the axiom that fewer words equal fewer thoughts, Isgrò’s work takes on a very high cultural and artistic value.
Concealing words behind erasure is a way for the master to arouse the viewer’s curiosity, a means of guiding us to explore beneath the word, to imagine what might be in relation to what is left “free” to be read.
A conceptual process, of discovery, of inquiry, of reflection on words and their arrangement, almost as if Isgrò were taking 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 master is what an intellectual should be—a “awakener of consciences.”
Emilio Isgrò thus places himself in the history of art as a guardian of the word and, by extension, of culture, a fundamental role that we increasingly need.

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.