Interview to
Francesco del Drago

 
Search art market info and auction records about:


[Del Drago Home] [NeT-ArT Magazine] [NeT-ArT Home]
Many art historians think you are a star in contemporary painting, how do you feel about last century?

Fauvism, Cubism, Abstractism, and Dada with surrealism, changed the way of doing art. Color raised to an expressive autonomy never reached in the previous centuries. I think i've given something to this revolution.
Duchamp and friends practiced "anti-art" and "anti-painting" succesfully; painters, critics, and museum managers had a very good answer to it, and this is certainly bad.

Did we move forward?

We don't move forward with art; we get better techniques and we change problems. To move a step ahead it is necessary to deal with people who came before us. I studied Leger and Picasso (shape study) who i well known and lived with; Bonnard and Matisse (colors) who i studied in museums.
After 1950 with geometrical abstractists, especially my friend Dewasne, who introduced new elements in the plastic field. I changed, as many others, oil colors with acrylic colors, upgrading my technique day after day.
I never dropped with figurative. At my las exhibition in Paris, i've been proud that Dewasne, absolutely non-figurative, found interesting even nudes and portraits. And i have many co11ectors that prefer real subject water colors as well. I keep many different interests, i like it and i need it. It is always important to create something new.

You are about to have an anthological exhibition in Los Angeles, what do you expect from it?

Americans are lucky, they do not have great artistic traditions. Artists do not almost need any practice. Keith Haring became a star in only three years. I've been studying 40 years, alive and in museums, ancient and contemporary artists to abtain positive results.
Nobody knows, in America, the fourth basic color, cold red, that gave me the opportunity to enlarge my gamma. Nobody knows the "right couples", to create cinetic effects, as well as "slow authomatism".
I hope american artists to be interested in my theories, and to exploit it obtaining a result and an evolution of it. I already had two exhibitions in New York, but the advertisement didn't go in the right direction, and so i couldn't give the real message. I hope this time things will get better, ...need to be patient. I know my painting and my theory is quite complex, and require a lot of time to be understood. Merchants always protect their products and are afraid about new stuff.

And what about China?

Good. Chinise are enthusiastic. They understend very quickly and they don't have any market to protect. My conferences, supported by paintings, and thru ART magazine, arrived everywhere with incredible results. China's progress is outstanding and it will certainly affect the art environment.
 


[Del Drago Home] [NeT-ArT Magazine] [NeT-ArT Home]