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An article written 10 years ago, in the summer of 2011. My macro photography artworks in the review signed by an authoritative art critician: Lino Lazzari, professional journalist, writer, priest in love with art and life, dean in Italy of communication on art, a long editorial militancy for the newspaper “L’Eco di Bergamo”, author of essays and studies, including the monumental work on the “Carrara” Academy of Bergamo. Lino Lazzari passed away yesterday, September 14, 2021. I like to remember him with this text, which shows all his professional competence and his artistic and human sensitivity.

BY LINO LAZZARI

One of the fundamental principles of physics says: “In nature nothing is created, nothing is destroyed”. “Nothing is created” because each reality that is invented by men, comes from a pre-existing reality and “nothing is destroyed” because a reality defined as “destroyed” or ” consumed” it is actually “re-created” or converted, buying a whole new identity.

And that is what Roberto Alborghetti can do with posters that appear on walls or on the expositive spaces in the streets of our cities, “destroyed” by the time, or torn by unknown. The interest for those posters that, while being exhibited in public, clearly appeared, no longer exists. There remain only shreds of paper, colourful images of which you can’t “read” anything of the advertisement that was announced before, meaningless “things” to be thrown in the incinerator.

Roberto Alborghetti, however with a surprising insight, thought to give those images a new identity, to transform them into other images, in a word, to re-create them. But for which purpose?

Easy for him, but unimaginable for us.

The purpose of this “re-creative” act was that to snap what remained of those “pieces” and, perhaps, drawing meaningful “artistic subjects.” Impractical project? Not at all. Looking carefully at these completely insignificant remainders, it’s possible to notice that these remainders are really “artistic subjects” with precise, new messages, completely different from the original and from those which had the poster when it had been posted up. Saying that Roberto Alborghetti has managed to do all this, is simple observation.

Those “tears” of posters, “re-created” by Roberto Alborghetti, have become true artist’s paintings: at first glance they can be attributed to contemporary avant-garde painters, with authentic and precise messages on which our attention should linger. The observers may see in these paintings blue skies and seas, beautiful sunrises and sunsets: the scenery would call “bucolic” and so on. All this with a clear and understandable “language”.

As described here, can all this be defined as artistic expression? I would say so. In fact “Pop Art” has done the same, so it isn’t difficult to associate the pictures of Roberto Alborghetti to the real ‘”Pop Art”. There is both the “creativity” of the artist and his sensitivity to the beauty of chromatic variations, his emotions for those images which really lead to the marvellous vision of new reality “ri-created” by a lively fantasy and a genuine poetic feeling that can’t leave nobody indifferent. Visual art is all that, thanks to the imprinted images on canvas or on sculptures, can arouse feelings in a context of values that can be deeply appreciated.

For what concerns the technical side, it requires a just settlement of the spaces (we refer in particular to painting), a chromatic, harmonious “game” or a balanced structural composition, an image that is not static but, on the contrary, in continuous movement. The “paintings” by Roberto Alborghetti have all these features, so the great appreciation from the artistic critique goes to this artist.

We are confident that Roberto Alborghetti will continue this artistic “journey” because he doesn’t lack the artistic ability. And the successes obtained with the presentation of his works in several shows will continue to occur. His paintings deserve attention: from those “torn pieces” of billboards, now “re-created”, comes an authentic message of poetry, of serenity, of admiration for everything that objectivity can present as beautiful and artistic. The material used to create a work of art and to convey positive messages of humanity isn’t as important as the ability to use “tears” of coloured paper to exalt the features of a reality that becomes a striking, persuasive image for what concerns the dictates of visual art.

Roberto Alborghetti has given evidence.

Lino Lazzari