The Young Age of Angels: the Children of Akira Zakamoto
The world of Akira Zakamoto is born following the disappearance of little Akira, abducted from humanity by alien creatures — hence the child's mission to reveal the truths learned on his long journey. This anecdote, halfway between dreamlike suggestion and the manga genre, is the manifesto of the artistic personality of Zakamoto, alias Luca Motolese. The gnoseological approach to art through the prophetic dimension becomes a creative device to explore worlds, figurative languages and concepts otherwise confined within a conventional and limiting sensibility. This biographical splitting, moreover, allows a merely artistic existence, a passe-partout toward a new dimension revealed by the authentic sensibility of a child. In these terms the theme of the child becomes crucial in the poetics of Zakamoto/Motolese, identifying a kind of pedagogy a l'envers — that is, an education guided by the inexhaustible force of little people. The soul of childhood is revealed through the inquiring gaze of eyes that keep, of innocence, now a penetrating fixity, now a tender and disarming expressiveness. Zakamoto's children convert into communicative power the fragility that commonly envelops them.
The gazes, caught in their simplicity, break the candid, playful atmosphere in which such subjects are conventionally placed. The iconographic independence from traditional schemes places the child at the centre of the figurative context, in which there reigns a total dimensional and perspectival autonomy of the foreground image with respect to the settings that host it. The definition of angels, attributable to celestial creatures, is supported by the etymological meaning of the term, which goes back to the sense of angheloi, that is, messengers. The message deriving from this conceptual world is hidden in the folds of a prophetic tone and is underlined by the cosmic theme present in many of the artist's works. In reality the metaphor of the cosmonaut children — superficially relegated to a purely pop-comic veneer — is nothing but a tool to emphasise the omnipotence of the childhood imagination. The infinite/finite opposition translates into a perspectival reversal through the device of foregrounding spatial infinity, reduced in scale compared to the enlargement of the children's faces. This dematerialisation of the large and the small subverts the usual schemes and identifies the essential nucleus of Zakamoto's art: the child is a cosmo-demiurge, that is, a creator of worlds, able to shape reality through imagination, a divine spark. Every child, who constitutes the most germinal expression of human nature, holds the freedom and the strength to surpass every adult category in the mind of man. Space undergoes a reduction of scale, time does not govern the ages. In this sense one can read the spatial suspension of the figures, while the child becomes a temporal paradigm embodying an eternal present.
In this new iconographic order, even before a thematic one, childlike figures wander suspended in cosmic and sometimes cosmological atmospheres: now explorers of space, now makers of worlds. Entire continents become patches of colour on the faces, almost the outcome of lively playful performances, while the Earth is a ball in the hands of creatures seemingly so fragile yet so eternal. In the series Angels (2009), Zakamoto offers a variation on the theme, revisiting himself through a new figurative language. The deforming hallmark of the conventional proportionality remains, while the angel-children fly over human places. In particular, cities are the settings over which Zakamoto's children float. The personalising treatment of the anthropised environment, traceable to reality, distinguishes this cycle of works from the astronomical-planetary settings of the earlier ones. The human place prevails over the non-place, giving a new aura to the content.
Jerusalem, Tokyo, Beijing, Madrid, Paris, Florence and Turin are some of the cities over which the little angels fly, dominating the large canvases. The revealing force of the children manages to soar over the places of humanity, be they megalopolises of progress, centres of international political tension, or historic cities of the Old Continent. The artist's optic acts on every human dimension, reducing the world's symbol-cities to plastic play-scenes in which the curiously astonished and disarming expressions of the children's faces stand out. This spontaneous response is, without rhetoric, the affirmation of life renewing itself in the many lively gazes — curious but more knowingly disenchanted than our adult conscience, which regrets having grown up, would have us believe.
The gazes, caught in their simplicity, break the candid, playful atmosphere in which such subjects are conventionally placed. The iconographic independence from traditional schemes places the child at the centre of the figurative context, in which there reigns a total dimensional and perspectival autonomy of the foreground image with respect to the settings that host it. The definition of angels, attributable to celestial creatures, is supported by the etymological meaning of the term, which goes back to the sense of angheloi, that is, messengers. The message deriving from this conceptual world is hidden in the folds of a prophetic tone and is underlined by the cosmic theme present in many of the artist's works. In reality the metaphor of the cosmonaut children — superficially relegated to a purely pop-comic veneer — is nothing but a tool to emphasise the omnipotence of the childhood imagination. The infinite/finite opposition translates into a perspectival reversal through the device of foregrounding spatial infinity, reduced in scale compared to the enlargement of the children's faces. This dematerialisation of the large and the small subverts the usual schemes and identifies the essential nucleus of Zakamoto's art: the child is a cosmo-demiurge, that is, a creator of worlds, able to shape reality through imagination, a divine spark. Every child, who constitutes the most germinal expression of human nature, holds the freedom and the strength to surpass every adult category in the mind of man. Space undergoes a reduction of scale, time does not govern the ages. In this sense one can read the spatial suspension of the figures, while the child becomes a temporal paradigm embodying an eternal present.
In this new iconographic order, even before a thematic one, childlike figures wander suspended in cosmic and sometimes cosmological atmospheres: now explorers of space, now makers of worlds. Entire continents become patches of colour on the faces, almost the outcome of lively playful performances, while the Earth is a ball in the hands of creatures seemingly so fragile yet so eternal. In the series Angels (2009), Zakamoto offers a variation on the theme, revisiting himself through a new figurative language. The deforming hallmark of the conventional proportionality remains, while the angel-children fly over human places. In particular, cities are the settings over which Zakamoto's children float. The personalising treatment of the anthropised environment, traceable to reality, distinguishes this cycle of works from the astronomical-planetary settings of the earlier ones. The human place prevails over the non-place, giving a new aura to the content.
Jerusalem, Tokyo, Beijing, Madrid, Paris, Florence and Turin are some of the cities over which the little angels fly, dominating the large canvases. The revealing force of the children manages to soar over the places of humanity, be they megalopolises of progress, centres of international political tension, or historic cities of the Old Continent. The artist's optic acts on every human dimension, reducing the world's symbol-cities to plastic play-scenes in which the curiously astonished and disarming expressions of the children's faces stand out. This spontaneous response is, without rhetoric, the affirmation of life renewing itself in the many lively gazes — curious but more knowingly disenchanted than our adult conscience, which regrets having grown up, would have us believe.
Il mondo di Akira Zakamoto nasce in seguito alla scomparsa del piccolo Akira, rapito da creature aliene dall’umanità , da qui la missione del bambino di svelare le verità conosciute nel suo lungo viaggio. Questo aneddoto, a metà tra suggestione onirica e genere manga, è il manifesto della personalità artistica di Zakamoto alias Luca Motolese. L’approccio gnoseologico all’arte attraverso la dimensione profetica diviene escamotage creativo per esplorare mondi, linguaggi figurativi e concetti, altrimenti confinati in un sentire convenzionale e limitativo. Tale sdoppiamento biografico, inoltre, consente un’esistenza meramente artistica, passe-partout verso una dimensione nuova, rivelata dalla sensibilità autentica di un bambino. In questi termini il tema del bambino diviene cruciale nella poetica di Zakamoto/Motolese, individuando una sorta di pedagogia à l’envers, ovvero un’educazione guidata dalla forza inesauribile di piccoli uomini. L’anima dell’infanzia si svela attraverso lo sguardo indagatore di occhi che dell’innocenza mantengono talora una fissità penetrante, talora un’espressività tenera e disarmante. I bambini di Zakamoto convertono in potenza comunicativa la fragilità che comunemente li avvolge.
Gli sguardi, colti nella loro semplicità , rompono l’atmosfera candida e ludica, in cui tali soggetti vengono convenzionalmente collocati. L’indipendenza iconografica da schemi tradizionali pone il bambino al centro del contesto figurativo, nel quale vige una totale autonomia dimensionale e prospettica dell’immagine in primo piano rispetto alle scenografie che la ospitano. La definizione di angeli attribuibile a creature celesti è sostenuta dal significato etimologico del termine che risale all’accezione di angheloi, cioè di messaggeri. Il messaggio che deriva da questo mondo concettuale è celato nelle pieghe di un tono profetico ed è sottolineato dal tema cosmico presente in molte opere dell’artista. In realtà la metafora dei bambini cosmonauti – superficialmente relegabile ad una patina esclusivamente pop-fumettistica – non è altro che strumento per enfatizzare l’onnipotenza dell’immaginario infantile. La contrapposizione infinito/ finito si traduce in ribaltamento prospettico attraverso la formula d’attenzione dell’infinito spaziale, ridotto rispetto all’ingrandimento dei volti dei bambini. Questa smaterializzazione del grande e del piccolo sovverte gli schemi consueti ed individua il nucleo essenziale dell’arte di Zakamoto: il bambino è cosmodemiurgo, ossia creatore di mondi, in grado di plasmare la realtà attraverso l’immaginazione, scintilla divina. Ogni bambino che costituisce l’espressione più germinale della natura umana detiene la libertà e la forza di superare ogni categoria adulta nella mente dell’uomo. Lo spazio subisce una riduzione di scala, il tempo non governa le età . In questo senso si può leggere la sospensione spaziale delle figure, mentre il bambino diviene paradigma temporale che incarna un eterno presente.
In questo nuovo ordine iconografico, prima ancora che contenutistico, figure infantili vagano sospese in atmosfere cosmiche e talvolta cosmologiche: ora esploratori dello spazio, ora artefici di mondi. Interi continenti divengono macchie di colore sui volti, quasi esiti di vivaci performances ludiche, mentre la Terra è una palla nelle mani di creature in apparenza così fragili, ma così eterne. Nella serie Angeli (2009), Zakamoto propone una variazione sul tema, rivisitando se stesso attraverso un nuovo linguaggio figurativo. Permane la cifra deformante della convenzionale proporzionalità , mentre gli angeli bambini volano su luoghi umani. In particolare le città sono gli scenari su cui i bambini di Zakamoto fluttuano. Il taglio personalizzante dell’ambiente antropizzato, riconducibile alla realtà , differenzia questo ciclo di opere dalle ambientazioni astronomico-planetarie dei lavori precedenti. Il luogo umano ha la meglio sul non luogo, conferendo un’aura nuova ai contenuti.
Gerusalemme, Tokio, Pechino, Madrid, Parigi, Firenze e Torino sono alcune delle città su cui volano i piccoli angeli, che dominano le grandi tele. La forza rivelatrice dei bambini riesce a sorvolare i luoghi dell’umanità , siano essi megalopoli del progresso, centri della tensione politica internazionale, storiche città del Vecchio Continente. L’ottica dell’artista agisce su ogni dimensione umana riducendo le città -simbolo del mondo in plastici scenari di gioco in cui campeggiano le espressioni curiosamente stupite e disarmanti dei volti infantili. Questa risposta spontanea è senza retorica l’affermazione della vita che si rinnova nei tanti sguardi vivaci, curiosi ma più consapevolmente disincantati di quanto voglia farci credere la nostra coscienza adulta, che rimpiange di essere cresciuta.
Gli sguardi, colti nella loro semplicità , rompono l’atmosfera candida e ludica, in cui tali soggetti vengono convenzionalmente collocati. L’indipendenza iconografica da schemi tradizionali pone il bambino al centro del contesto figurativo, nel quale vige una totale autonomia dimensionale e prospettica dell’immagine in primo piano rispetto alle scenografie che la ospitano. La definizione di angeli attribuibile a creature celesti è sostenuta dal significato etimologico del termine che risale all’accezione di angheloi, cioè di messaggeri. Il messaggio che deriva da questo mondo concettuale è celato nelle pieghe di un tono profetico ed è sottolineato dal tema cosmico presente in molte opere dell’artista. In realtà la metafora dei bambini cosmonauti – superficialmente relegabile ad una patina esclusivamente pop-fumettistica – non è altro che strumento per enfatizzare l’onnipotenza dell’immaginario infantile. La contrapposizione infinito/ finito si traduce in ribaltamento prospettico attraverso la formula d’attenzione dell’infinito spaziale, ridotto rispetto all’ingrandimento dei volti dei bambini. Questa smaterializzazione del grande e del piccolo sovverte gli schemi consueti ed individua il nucleo essenziale dell’arte di Zakamoto: il bambino è cosmodemiurgo, ossia creatore di mondi, in grado di plasmare la realtà attraverso l’immaginazione, scintilla divina. Ogni bambino che costituisce l’espressione più germinale della natura umana detiene la libertà e la forza di superare ogni categoria adulta nella mente dell’uomo. Lo spazio subisce una riduzione di scala, il tempo non governa le età . In questo senso si può leggere la sospensione spaziale delle figure, mentre il bambino diviene paradigma temporale che incarna un eterno presente.
In questo nuovo ordine iconografico, prima ancora che contenutistico, figure infantili vagano sospese in atmosfere cosmiche e talvolta cosmologiche: ora esploratori dello spazio, ora artefici di mondi. Interi continenti divengono macchie di colore sui volti, quasi esiti di vivaci performances ludiche, mentre la Terra è una palla nelle mani di creature in apparenza così fragili, ma così eterne. Nella serie Angeli (2009), Zakamoto propone una variazione sul tema, rivisitando se stesso attraverso un nuovo linguaggio figurativo. Permane la cifra deformante della convenzionale proporzionalità , mentre gli angeli bambini volano su luoghi umani. In particolare le città sono gli scenari su cui i bambini di Zakamoto fluttuano. Il taglio personalizzante dell’ambiente antropizzato, riconducibile alla realtà , differenzia questo ciclo di opere dalle ambientazioni astronomico-planetarie dei lavori precedenti. Il luogo umano ha la meglio sul non luogo, conferendo un’aura nuova ai contenuti.
Gerusalemme, Tokio, Pechino, Madrid, Parigi, Firenze e Torino sono alcune delle città su cui volano i piccoli angeli, che dominano le grandi tele. La forza rivelatrice dei bambini riesce a sorvolare i luoghi dell’umanità , siano essi megalopoli del progresso, centri della tensione politica internazionale, storiche città del Vecchio Continente. L’ottica dell’artista agisce su ogni dimensione umana riducendo le città -simbolo del mondo in plastici scenari di gioco in cui campeggiano le espressioni curiosamente stupite e disarmanti dei volti infantili. Questa risposta spontanea è senza retorica l’affermazione della vita che si rinnova nei tanti sguardi vivaci, curiosi ma più consapevolmente disincantati di quanto voglia farci credere la nostra coscienza adulta, che rimpiange di essere cresciuta.
The world of Akira Zakamoto is born following the disappearance of little Akira, abducted from humanity by alien creatures — hence the child's mission to reveal the truths learned on his long journey. This anecdote, halfway between dreamlike suggestion and the manga genre, is the manifesto of the artistic personality of Zakamoto, alias Luca Motolese. The gnoseological approach to art through the prophetic dimension becomes a creative device to explore worlds, figurative languages and concepts otherwise confined within a conventional and limiting sensibility. This biographical splitting, moreover, allows a merely artistic existence, a passe-partout toward a new dimension revealed by the authentic sensibility of a child. In these terms the theme of the child becomes crucial in the poetics of Zakamoto/Motolese, identifying a kind of pedagogy a l'envers — that is, an education guided by the inexhaustible force of little people. The soul of childhood is revealed through the inquiring gaze of eyes that keep, of innocence, now a penetrating fixity, now a tender and disarming expressiveness. Zakamoto's children convert into communicative power the fragility that commonly envelops them.
The gazes, caught in their simplicity, break the candid, playful atmosphere in which such subjects are conventionally placed. The iconographic independence from traditional schemes places the child at the centre of the figurative context, in which there reigns a total dimensional and perspectival autonomy of the foreground image with respect to the settings that host it. The definition of angels, attributable to celestial creatures, is supported by the etymological meaning of the term, which goes back to the sense of angheloi, that is, messengers. The message deriving from this conceptual world is hidden in the folds of a prophetic tone and is underlined by the cosmic theme present in many of the artist's works. In reality the metaphor of the cosmonaut children — superficially relegated to a purely pop-comic veneer — is nothing but a tool to emphasise the omnipotence of the childhood imagination. The infinite/finite opposition translates into a perspectival reversal through the device of foregrounding spatial infinity, reduced in scale compared to the enlargement of the children's faces. This dematerialisation of the large and the small subverts the usual schemes and identifies the essential nucleus of Zakamoto's art: the child is a cosmo-demiurge, that is, a creator of worlds, able to shape reality through imagination, a divine spark. Every child, who constitutes the most germinal expression of human nature, holds the freedom and the strength to surpass every adult category in the mind of man. Space undergoes a reduction of scale, time does not govern the ages. In this sense one can read the spatial suspension of the figures, while the child becomes a temporal paradigm embodying an eternal present.
In this new iconographic order, even before a thematic one, childlike figures wander suspended in cosmic and sometimes cosmological atmospheres: now explorers of space, now makers of worlds. Entire continents become patches of colour on the faces, almost the outcome of lively playful performances, while the Earth is a ball in the hands of creatures seemingly so fragile yet so eternal. In the series Angels (2009), Zakamoto offers a variation on the theme, revisiting himself through a new figurative language. The deforming hallmark of the conventional proportionality remains, while the angel-children fly over human places. In particular, cities are the settings over which Zakamoto's children float. The personalising treatment of the anthropised environment, traceable to reality, distinguishes this cycle of works from the astronomical-planetary settings of the earlier ones. The human place prevails over the non-place, giving a new aura to the content.
Jerusalem, Tokyo, Beijing, Madrid, Paris, Florence and Turin are some of the cities over which the little angels fly, dominating the large canvases. The revealing force of the children manages to soar over the places of humanity, be they megalopolises of progress, centres of international political tension, or historic cities of the Old Continent. The artist's optic acts on every human dimension, reducing the world's symbol-cities to plastic play-scenes in which the curiously astonished and disarming expressions of the children's faces stand out. This spontaneous response is, without rhetoric, the affirmation of life renewing itself in the many lively gazes — curious but more knowingly disenchanted than our adult conscience, which regrets having grown up, would have us believe.
The gazes, caught in their simplicity, break the candid, playful atmosphere in which such subjects are conventionally placed. The iconographic independence from traditional schemes places the child at the centre of the figurative context, in which there reigns a total dimensional and perspectival autonomy of the foreground image with respect to the settings that host it. The definition of angels, attributable to celestial creatures, is supported by the etymological meaning of the term, which goes back to the sense of angheloi, that is, messengers. The message deriving from this conceptual world is hidden in the folds of a prophetic tone and is underlined by the cosmic theme present in many of the artist's works. In reality the metaphor of the cosmonaut children — superficially relegated to a purely pop-comic veneer — is nothing but a tool to emphasise the omnipotence of the childhood imagination. The infinite/finite opposition translates into a perspectival reversal through the device of foregrounding spatial infinity, reduced in scale compared to the enlargement of the children's faces. This dematerialisation of the large and the small subverts the usual schemes and identifies the essential nucleus of Zakamoto's art: the child is a cosmo-demiurge, that is, a creator of worlds, able to shape reality through imagination, a divine spark. Every child, who constitutes the most germinal expression of human nature, holds the freedom and the strength to surpass every adult category in the mind of man. Space undergoes a reduction of scale, time does not govern the ages. In this sense one can read the spatial suspension of the figures, while the child becomes a temporal paradigm embodying an eternal present.
In this new iconographic order, even before a thematic one, childlike figures wander suspended in cosmic and sometimes cosmological atmospheres: now explorers of space, now makers of worlds. Entire continents become patches of colour on the faces, almost the outcome of lively playful performances, while the Earth is a ball in the hands of creatures seemingly so fragile yet so eternal. In the series Angels (2009), Zakamoto offers a variation on the theme, revisiting himself through a new figurative language. The deforming hallmark of the conventional proportionality remains, while the angel-children fly over human places. In particular, cities are the settings over which Zakamoto's children float. The personalising treatment of the anthropised environment, traceable to reality, distinguishes this cycle of works from the astronomical-planetary settings of the earlier ones. The human place prevails over the non-place, giving a new aura to the content.
Jerusalem, Tokyo, Beijing, Madrid, Paris, Florence and Turin are some of the cities over which the little angels fly, dominating the large canvases. The revealing force of the children manages to soar over the places of humanity, be they megalopolises of progress, centres of international political tension, or historic cities of the Old Continent. The artist's optic acts on every human dimension, reducing the world's symbol-cities to plastic play-scenes in which the curiously astonished and disarming expressions of the children's faces stand out. This spontaneous response is, without rhetoric, the affirmation of life renewing itself in the many lively gazes — curious but more knowingly disenchanted than our adult conscience, which regrets having grown up, would have us believe.