CultureJo Skinrite

The Expansionism

September morn… We danced until the night became a brand new day…

This is the dance that, brushing the divine, is forever altered by that touch. It is in the way Cupid and Psyche cling to one another, forging a DNA not yet unveiled, but that the modern Fidia was able to sense in the rare entwinement of the exceptional, and that even earlier Bernini had so skilfully uncovered. These are the seeds that gave birth to Marco Ambrosecchia, born on September 8th, 1977. And in New York on October 6th, 2011, during an international press conference in the heart of Manhattan he will present Expansionism to the world.

With that smile that has painted a legend across the collective memory, even Frank Sinatra in his beloved Big Apple would have embraced such an event, certain that although night always turns into day, we must continue dancing, we must prolong the exceptional.

And that is just what Marco Ambrosecchia does, never surrendering to the art that has ceased to be the pillar of human civilization and universal ethic. He does so by going beyond mere criticism and giving indecency a hard slap in the face, nearly outraging the collective sentiment and thus choosing to dare.

It is in an extraordinary setting like that of Soho Grand Hotel, and at the eyes of the international press, that after a one hundred year lapse from the days in which Futurism made a name for itself, today both Italy and the world bear witness to the establishment of Expansionism. Unlike Marinetti’s text, the movement’s revolutionary Art Manifesto is not rooted in some school of thought inspired by an array of theoretical pleas – from the will to power and the “overman” described by Nietzsche to Sorel’s libertarian socialism to the notions on subjective duration of time and the relation of matter and memory elaborated by Henry Bergson. In fact, the Expansionist Manifesto is upheld solely by the theory that laid its foundation – a theory held in high esteem in the public sphere of universities. This, and the symbiotic relationship it bears to the manifesto itself, render it a unicum in all of art history. Furthermore, the Expansionist Manifesto was not privately promoted as was the 1909 futurist text which Marinetti published «paying out of his own pocket for its publication in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro»1. The Expansionist Manifesto was instead published in a public document with a universal scope in the sphere of international institutions. It underwent the evaluation of public institutions, that is, of the Italian University, which first granted authorization for its publication and then examined the text. The work then received the highest recognition possible, awarded by a lecturer of the aforesaid University2, Professor Emeritus Paolo Emilio Carapezza, and thus theory and Art Manifesto were inserted in a historical context.

Just like an illustrious predecessor, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, who published one of his works The Birth of Tragedy as his thesis, MARCO AMBROSECCHIA, and artist, theorist, and founder of Expansionism (www.espansionismo.com), presented the Art Manifesto in his thesis, giving origin to the Expansionism Movement. It was awarded summa cum laude, the highest possible level of academic honors. The “theory of All” also earned this recognition – the theoretical foundation of the Expansionist Art Manifesto, it is divided between a theory of consciousness and a cosmogony. In fact, Marco Ambrosecchia is also a theorist, and it was he who laid down this complex philosophical system in a text rich with images of his works of art. The great scientific value of the theoretical-artistic foundations of Expansionism was therefore indisputably made clear, definitively and publicly, establishing its prestige.

And as proof of Expansionism’s unique qualities, in the history of mankind no theorist having laid down a “theory of All”, divided between a cosmogony and a theory of consciousness, has ever coincided with the same person who created an art manifesto deriving from such a “theory of All” – and nonetheless with the artist himself. Nor has it ever occurred that these three roles should be played by the founder of a movement that bases its own foundations on the principles of that same philosophical system.

In fact, “Marco Ambrosecchia and Expansionism”, having already taken root in the history of the 21st century, was – next to names that have made history in the areas of thought and of art in the 20th century – one of the topics of a very important thesis presented at the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at an Italian University3.

Furthermore, Marco Ambrosecchia, thanks to the importance of one of his essays on Expansionism and its relationship to contemporary art, written with vibrant, rebellious language, has appeared at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, and the Italian Cultural Institute in London.

Upon embarking on this voyage – one that Marco Ambrosecchia has made clear that he wishes to carry out hand in hand with anyone who is willing to follow him – his eyes are full of song and transmit that unchanging emotion that rallies up:

September morning…still can make me feel that way…

And even “The Voice” would have given him a smile.

1 Gillo Dorfles – Angela Vettese, The Visual Arts, The Nineteen Hundreds, Protagonists and Movements, Bergamo, Istituto Italiano Edizioni Atlas, 2006 p. 134.

2 University of Palermo, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Department of Art, Music, and Performance.

3 Nadia La Pira, Transgenerational, Beyond Space and Time… A Synchronic Journey Among Lost Ties in the Family Tree, University of Palermo, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Psychology Department, academic year 2007-2008.

Joe Skinrite

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