Interview with Filippo Grespan

By: Riccardo Maddalosso

I met Filippo Grespan a few years ago in Rome while he was focusing on photography and I was moved by his work. I walked by a store in Largo Argentina and saw his pictures in the shop window, all accurately disposed in their elegant black-and-white style. A few months later, when I met him, I was not surprised to learn that they were all sold in less than 20 days. It’s quite amazing if we bear in mind that, at the time, he wasn’t well known in the Roman art scene. What impressed me most was the genuine quality and originality that characterized his work. Earlier this year, I found out that he painted as well and was happy to ascertain that he transposed all his sensitivity and class to his paintings.

Catalyzer, 2010

Rain or Shine, 2009

Mamma, 2010

Mirror Portrait 2, 2010

Mirror Portrait 1, 2010


Menù 2, 2009

Panic Attack, 2009

Swedish Shadows, 2010

Rosa Morta in Siberia, 2009

All his works are quite “primitive” and “artistically honest” in some way, as one can see from the few works here reported. He never got over his passion for photography, as he often collages his photography with paint, sprays and color pencils. What interested me most about him is definitely his interdisciplinary style; he’s a photographer and a painter, and for a living he works as a film director’s assistant. (Grespan has worked with many of the most important directors in Italy, including Francesca Archibugi and Paolo Virzì, and he has a predilection for video art (Bill Viola in particular).

In this interview I sought to make him talk mainly about his professional and personal backgrounds.

RM: What did your parents do for a living?

FG: My parents owned a travel agency. They worked and traveled a lot so as a child I was often home alone with my brother. After a while, they divorced. My mom stopped working and my father started a career in public relations, marketing and curating. He also pursued his writing career, which he maintained since he was 23 while he was living in Venezuela. I actually never saw him write but his first novel came out 5 years ago and was met with relative success in Italy.

RM: Were they interested in art?

FG: Oh, definitely. My mom had a predilection for modern art and my father, an incurable romantic, venerated the Venetian school, among whom, Caravaggio, of course. My mom was pretty active in “furnishing” activities and she used to hang stamps on the walls beside statues and masks of demons from different parts of the world; she loved to have pictures of Mirò and Jazz musicians around the house. Also, at my place, music was playing all day long. 

RM: How did you gain interest in art?

FG: I actually couldn’t tell you. What I do remember clearly is that my life radically changed when I was 14. I basically started visiting every psychoanalyst and psychiatrist in town because I started suffering from panic attacks on a warm summer day. I was standing there with my friends, killing time, and all of a sudden I started shivering and I thought I was going to die at that precise moment. From that exact time until now, I’ve never gotten rid of them. During first two years, I couldn’t leave my room. I would go out just to go to school, giving me a lot of time to think; maybe even too much time. At that point I figured out that I had thought so much about death that I could actually use all my feelings towards it to create something. When I graduated from high school, I decided to move to Rome to study cinema, directing, photography and anything related to movies, because I was convinced I would eventually become a director. Those two years definitely formed the way I see things artistically and aesthetically. I have to say though, that was a big delusion of mine—that business is rotten and filled with people with no values and principles. Anyway, while working, for some pretty well-known directors here in Italy, I started painting, without any clue about what I was doing. I had no technique, and I don’t have it now. In fact, I wouldn’t define myself a painter.

RM: Did you take any painting courses after that? 

FG: Actually, no. I started painting a lot after I got back from Congo, where I went to shoot a documentary for an Italian NGO. I initially focused on photography, basically cropping parts of pictures I took, sticking them on thin plywood panels and then painting over that. I have to say that in that period I was quite influenced by the books I was reading. I focused on the concept of the universe as a tidy chaos and tried to recreate that amazing chaos in my works, focusing on the concept of an uncontrollable brush; that’s what I like about painting, you know? I like to think that you can be as good as you want to but can’t have 100% control on every movement of the brush and on how it interacts with different types surfaces. It’s like in a movie!
Every scene, singularly, doesn’t make much sense, but when you start editing you can create whatever you want.

RM: Who inspires you?

FG: Well, I actually can’t think of an artist in particular.
I never took other people’s works as models. I don’t have a good technique so I wouldn’t even be able to imitate anyone properly. I’m kind of happy though, cause in this way I never try to emulate anyone and I keep my own style. I usually just stay in front of the canvas/plywood panel or whatever and wait to see what happens. I’m usually very concentrated and that helps me avoid depression (laughs); I love that because everything is very spontaneous, like photography, in some ways.

RM: What do you think about the Italian art scene?

FG: The problem is that in Italy you can’t be an “artist,” there’s no “social space” for it. No one takes artists seriously and that’s probably related to the low cultural level and politics. It’s not only the populace’s fault. Artists themselves stopped searching for good aesthetics and beauty; everyone is so obsessed with being original that they often end up creating something that most people don’t understand. Here in Rome there are kilometric queues to see Hopper’s exhibition, but for example no one would ever go to see a Cy Twombly exhibition. Most artists here don’t get the chance to show their work, so they don’t get in touch with the “audience/crowd” or the art market. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of talented young artists here but the most of them resigned; they work as bartenders, designers, etc. Nowadays, it’s not about being good anymore; it’s all about being communicative; it’s more important to be a good “image seller” than a good artist. Moreover, right now Rome and Milan are full of hipsters, pseudo intellectuals and all that crap. All they do is promote themselves and their “art,” but it’s not art, it’s just a trend. What I want people to understand is that this country is full of “real artists” but they spend their time at home painting and drinking!

RM: What have you been focusing on lately?

FG: I’m currently working on a different series of paintings. I’m exploring new materials and incorporating paints traditionally for industrial use. I’m also collaborating with my father to curate the forthcoming Jack Vettriano exhibition here in Rome. As soon as I’ll be done with this painting series I will probably show my works here in Rome and in my hometown, Treviso. I’m also working on a project called “paint your city” which is financed by the city of Rome; it’s basically a video art project that aims to make video projections interact with monuments. The first projection is scheduled for September and for this first one I’m going use the Palace of Campidoglio (Rome’s City Hall, e.n). I’m very excited because it’s the first time I get the chance to show my video art projects in an open air space like Piazza del Campidoglio. I can’t tell you more because I’m still working on it and I don’t want to mention anything I won’t end up doing. That’s pretty much it!

Riccardo Maddalosso studies International Law at LUISS “Guido Carli” University in
Rome. He lives, studies and works in Rome where he collaborates with local artists and
managers, through which he curates gallery exhibitions and organizes art related events. He co-curated “Shunga” which featured works of Utamaro and Hokusai.He just started managing local artists in order to promote them abroad. He recently started collaborating with TS+ Projects their Rome/Italy dispatcher at large.  
He may be reached at 241161@gmail.com

Filippo Grespan is an Italian-Venezuelan artist born in 1985 in Treviso, Italy.He received
his B.F.A from “the European institute of arts and design” in Rome in 2007.He started
working for the NGO “amici di Cortina” in 2008 and he went to Congo and Burundi
to shoot a documentary about the life of orphans near Bujumbura and Kinshasa.He
completed his first series of photographs in 2009 and all of them were sold during his
first exhibition at “Linearia” in Rome. He started focusing on painting in 2006. His art
is a way of expressing personal life experiences and inner sensations through the use of
multiple mediums to make collaged works. He also collaborated to organize the event “trash people”, an installation by Ha Schult. In 2009, he worked as a director’s assistant for the movie “La prima cosa bella” by Paolo Virzi
He may be reached at grespan.filippo@gmail.com

 The Day Will Come, 2009