Armando Marrocco. Writing as a Process and Anthropological Research

Abstract

In his long creative path Armando Marrocco (Galatina, Lecce 1939) investigated with singular methodicalness also the verbovisual field, declining it in mainly procedural and relational terms and returning it back to an anthropological perspective congenial to him, both in performative practice and in the pictorial and installation dimension. The contribution focuses on this neglected aspect of his activity, analyzing in particular those actions of the Seventies in which Marrocco stages the writing as a reactivation of a primordial ritual process, steeped in memories and poetry (the two series Paleo-grafia and Rivelazione) or derived from the involvement of his body (the stampa bocca o scrittura bocca sequence). Actions that, among other things, justify the participation of the artist for about a decade, starting from 1976, in the activities promoted by Ugo Carrega's Mercato del Sale. In addition, it will be seen how this research has its roots in the experimentation undertaken by Marrocco in the Sixties when, even with the support of the Apollinaire Gallery in Milan, the reflection on identity, ecological and social issues often translates into verbovisual expression. Finally, the presence of the word will become a constant in the site-specific installations of the Eighties, accompanied by wall texts personally transcribed by the artist.