The art doesn’t come from Mars

You can often come across extravagant ideas, innovative concepts and bold shapes. Citing our interview, let us always remember that art does not come from Mars, even though it may sometimes seem to us to come from a parallel universe that offers us hints and ideas of boundless creativity.

Today we interview Sebastiano Zanetti, an artist from Verona. We invite you to read the interview imagining you are here in our office on Lake Garda.

Hi Sebastiano, it is a pleasure to have you here with us, can you tell us who you are and what your work is?

Sure. I am Sebastiano Zanetti, I live and work in Verona, I am an artist, although it is difficult for me to self-define myself, I cannot yet give myself a position, I can however, through my work and my research, provide some information to help clarify certain perimeters. My training started at the Liceo Artistico and continued through three Fine Arts Academies: Verona, Milan and Venice. Artistic and architectural design has always been a part of my life since I was a child: I think the triggering event was seeing my father draw every night until late at night, handing me and my sisters creations that for us children were pure magic. Parallel to my studies, I started to produce my own works, and in 2000 my exhibition career began in various foundations, museums, and public and private galleries in Italy and abroad to date.

What is Art for you?

Art is the medium I have chosen to express myself and to search for answers, it is definitely a means of transcendence between self, the world and everyday life. It is the truest answer to the ‘blank sheet’ is the enthusiasm of research and consolidation of knowledge. It is lapped up where I have met the most project-oriented and involved people, and I am not just talking about artists, but a much larger group of people who have chosen Art as the table for discussion and debate. 

Have you always painted the same way?

No, I have actually only returned to painting as my preferred medium in recent years. I think that Art has the possibility of being expressed with the help of multiple mediums, expressive needs lead to the identification of various possibilities, the same technique does not necessarily always work. I have never sought a recognisability given by a seriality of production but by a work ethic: that is why I have investigated each technique in depth and then used it at the right time. In the early 2000s, I only painted, only later finding new answers in photography; I then moved on to video art and environmental installation up to architectural design for public and private places with site-specific methodologies. Painting now made a powerful comeback with new awareness of gestures, signs, particularities that could only be expressed in their essence on canvas, and so collections such as the ‘Bubbles and Clouds’ series, ‘Hottest’etc. were born.

Art and Architecture thus marked the field of action.

Yes, Architecture, from the spoon onwards, I think it has an immense social responsibility, I like the load of responsibility of the dynamics in relationships such as the search for the perfect balance between form and function. These logics linked to those of visual art I think can create exciting alchemies of beauty and design prosperity. I believe in meta-design, but I also believe that for a work to exist it must encounter a world that will decide for it, hence the initial tension.

Can you tell us something about your past in writing?

Sure! It marked my past but it is still there: consolidated in my background and by an “attitude” that I retain. Already at the end of middle school, expressing myself in the small size did not satisfy me, the world of skateboarding brought me closer to the energy and vitality of graffiti and so spray can in hand I became one of the first Scala writers. Hip Hop culture with Break dance, Rap and the speed of the skateboard dictated a rhythm of sharing and colour. I still paint graffiti and get excited seeing the works of young writers. In 2014, together with Michele De Mori, I was the author of the book “Verona Writes” for the Cariverona Foundation, a volume in which we catalogue and discuss graffiti in the city over the last 30 years.

What would you recommend to a person who wants to approach the world of Art?

To live a daily life as a free person, without prejudice, not being afraid to get excited and moved, not to settle uncritically for what already exists but striving to contribute, proposing but also welcoming and researching through the work of others. Art can be an endless labour and at the same time the highest point of happiness. If, as Trilussa said: ‘happiness is a small thing’, it is up to everyone to learn to recognise it or make it happen.