Titular Director of Art
Gianluigi Colin's focus has been on the dialogue between images and words, art and work. At the core of his work is the media system, history in real time, and the power of memory. Bruno Corà has said of Colin, “Gianluigi Colin’s work is one of the most linguistically original visual propositions on the contemporary art scene today, as it formally manifests itself and confronts a reality of the everyday, of the transitory, of the unstable, that is to say, with what of life and the facts that occur in it, translated into media communication, is overshadowed by disappearing from memory with an unprecedented speed, never before perceived."
Of his art, "I have always thought about the responsibility of the artist in relation to history,” stated Colin, “as a symbol of a looming, disturbing, and threatening oblivion. A sense of constant indifference and forgetfulness that unfortunately belongs to the historical moment we live in. My works address an inner space, but they speak about a collective dimension.” Colin spent over four decades at publisher Corriere della Sera, where he worked as the art director, and he played a key role in founding the cultural supplement "La Lettura," for which he worked as cover editor.
"No News Good News" is the ironically-titled monograph of his work published in 2017 by Rizzoli, which unpacks and deconstructs his many years of professional involvement in news media. Beginning with a stitched, multi-photo photograph of what appears to be his office - his working environment - Colin labors as an image worker concerned not so much with artistic sensation, as with communication and with meaning. The title of the first chapter "Manufacturing the Present" is a sign of his political and economic sympathies.
Colin's contribution to art is in taking the aesthetic of graphic design to the next level. It is Western propaganda -that which corresponds in the Communist East to Social Realist propaganda. The virtues of success and the capitalist system are reinforced at every turn of the page. This is history as work-in-progress. Nothing is final. All is in flux. There is to be no end of the world. Everything is a news update. It is the pneumatic inflation of reality that keeps it afloat, keeps it going, keeps the ball rolling.
When the logo of a corporation is its identity, selecting exactly the right colors for publication is critical to successful page design. It differs from the way painters select colors in the nomenclature of color identification. In design, a specific red doesn't have a name - like apple-red or fire engine red - but a number - a code - as specific as a telephone number or street address. In this creative environment getting the color just right is as critical as reporting a verbal quote correctly. In the same vein, lettering typeface styles, "fonts," are as distinct - and identifiable - as the faces of well-known public figures. It is all part of the trade in iconicity.
Have you ever wished for a strictly text-only transcript of the news? The panoply of images are, at best distracting, and often irrelevant - window dressing - on the typical media page -but that's because the news is intended to be entertainment. Look, here is a hand-drawn cartoon of what appears to be a labor confrontation with authorities. Soldiers are shooting at what appear to be striking workers -as the reader searches in vain for an amusing caption. A tragic encounter is rendered comical. The artwork, however is very professional editorial illustration. Bravo.
And the photographs. There is seen an endless stream of Pulitzer Prize-winning images, each culled from thousands rejected, with each vying with the rest to be the one. Photo of the year. As art director, Gianluigi Colin has personally authorized and signed-off on many, many such iconic images for publication. He deserves credit for their effectiveness. Another image in the style of Andy Warhol -this time, of a rose; yet another reprinting of the child laying face down (probably dead), watch-out, there's an assault rifle, and a photograph of a man's face, the top part of the photograph's head and face ripped-away, and another (again!) of a woman crying for grief, and yet another re-printing of the iconic face of John F Kennedy, and (of course), one of Marilyn Monroe, and on another, a page from a novel in Arabic; here's the CEO of a major American corporation ... Obama ... Texas ... $$$ ... the roll of cliches is never-ending.
In the section of No News Good News, captioned "Mythographies," Colin's methods are compared to Roland Barths's studies on modern myths. Not mythology, as such, but dealing with myths as memes. Recall during the Second Gulf War counter-insurgent military forces were issued decks of cards with enemy images, and on the reverse side were printed their names -for positive identification - if captured (or killed). It was a technique adapted from mass media, the celebrity-ization of targeted "bad guys." The irony was not lost on anyone concerned, least of all combatants, while at the same time reported paradoxically by news media. The publishing powerhouse art director now feels the pangs of conscience for perceived complicity.
It is a litany of what one may call Colin's “cross to bear.” One cannot but ask, is it worth it, the being in the midst of things - the involvement - for the feeling of engagement? The section named "The Wall" says it thus: "The artist continues to dip into the infinite arsenal of small or grand events that comprise everyday life. He follows the news and represents it through continuous re-inventions. He tears, recomposes, and renders illegible the sources he uses...writing traces of communications, the cry of time..." Media is as if a bas relief in motion, like marble fragments broken from the Roman forum, timeless, unchangeable, while only the observers, the readers, come-and-go and, moving on, turn the page.