Vinicio Capossela
Camera a Sud

Between Modern and Post-Modern 

The times have faded when the artist was given the role to interpret - and often to be - a troubled soul, dealing, tangled, with a precarious and chaotic life, juggling with long-term projects that weren’t simple to him by deliberate nature. How fascinating was the dissolute life of the Artist, eternally balancing between being and appearing, between emotion and sensation. But the current times are different. The solid structure, the order constituted by the strong and arrogant higher powers, by the modern positions, against which the Artist fought with strenuous ardor, no longer exist, today they have left the battlefield, the institutions have dissolved in front of the fire of an extra-territorial capitalism, they call it "globalized"; an empty field, without reference points: liquid. In the current state of the art, a gesture of coercion would resonate as a caress, as a gesture with human warmth, proof that still someone above us and for us, guides the collective action, directs the long term. Today precariousness and the extreme ephemeral nature of things, relationships, projects are for everyone; we must be artists, freedom is free, indeed it’s better, it’s cheaper for governments and we can all savor its bittersweet taste. Artists, by force or by love, seem to be the only way to live in the extra-territoriality that takes and crushes us all, in globalization that takes away every sure point of reference, denying us the possibility of any medium-term collective project.

Our Mother Uncertainty 

I read "1994" on this awkwardly purple cover, little more than a decade, but how much more time has passed, dear Vinicio... You were still there, leaning and drowsy, steeped in overseas bohemian fumes and charm, still playing certain notes and words, making yourself fascinating. Certain atmospheres described by Capossela in this beautiful album already consign it to the historical archive, to a recent but profoundly different past. This album is historicized by its own words within the last glimmers of late modernity. The "seasons" sung by Vinicio, which have the emptiness inside the fridge and a malox as a friend, the endless vigils within the throats of dark and deep nights, to us men of the liquid post-modernity, today, seem like nice clichés, bring forth that restrained smile of those who hear (others) speaking of their own daily life.

Relics of a Past Time

After this long introduction, also a bit unnecessary, we can try to sketch a portrait of this young Vinicio and outline the boundaries of his purple-colored work. Camera a sud returns to us a Vinicio quite different from the one known in the latest acclaimed albums. In this good work the Corvotorvo still remains within a register of full Italian songwriting, dignified but also very rigorous, devoid of the magnificent and imaginative adornments of the moment. Perhaps it’s the cast of musicians, or the arrangement by a prevailing hand like Antonio Marangolo’s - both inherited from the Contian stables - Capossela seems much more rigid and framed behind that piano, than the baroque and post-modern artist who today strides our stages dressed as a Minotaur or who knows what else. Some slightly South American tint, some milonga, a certain swing flair, but ultimately the wink is aimed at our tradition and nothing is new compared to the first nocturnal works. Beyond the inevitably refined arrangements (accompanied by such skillful hands), melodies and words are already flour from his abundant and prolific sack, denote a melodic stature never predictable or banal, very little soporific and above average, like a good literary potential, but not yet refined, slender, light, playful, and harmonious, like today’s. The themes revolve all around the struggles and the precarious condition in which life throws us, between the irony of songs, like the popular Che coss'è l'amor?, a journey between "the hells of bars" that echoes a certain taste for description - which (fictitious and personal vision) I have always associated with Boogie by Paolo Conte - or Il mio amico ingrato, a snapshot of a marriage at the limit of impudence, and other more lyrical and romantic moments, like the poignant Non è l'amore che va via or Amburgo, the resplendent Fatalità. The descriptive nursery rhyme is also the homonymous Camera a sud that offers us a privileged point of view, a window, from which to observe a Mediterranean noon among tuff, jasmines, and tamarisks.

Elusive Talent

A tepid start for an absolute talent that would strip away in the years to come. Today Vinicio Capossela is one of the best Italian artists still having feather-like hands and a voice of salt, with that beautiful taste for refined words, for the more traditional melody, for the imaginative suggestions from the cinema, with his Austro-Hungarian waltzes and all that corollary of sources that he wisely suggests without enveloping himself in definitions.

This excellent work, which I don’t recommend, shows once again how, even without the aid of mean escapism, a noble craftsmanship result can be achieved, perhaps artistic. I often wonder what the line is that separates artistic production from craft production. I ask myself what is the fine, subjective, vacuous boundary that makes us point to one or the other. As Saint Augustine wrote in the Confessions about time, I personally intuit the difference between what is art and what is craftsmanship, but I would not be able to express it, to give a precise definition, to draw a clear line of demarcation.