Description: 'A leading figure of Italian post-war abstract art, as shy and taciturn as he was coherent and determined' is how Giuliano Pavan describes Carlo Ciussi. The Friulian artist lends himself to the camera to tell his story. With gentleness and charm, he retraces his artistic journey and the important encounters of a life shaped and forged by painting. His early years in Udine, studying at Pittino's studio in the spare time from school, followed by his youth in Venice, his training at the Art High School, and the '48 Biennale, which marked his meeting with Picasso and Gino Rossi. The Fifties were the years of returning to his father's typography shop, a difficult decade, and then the artistic turning point: the Stendhal gallery in Milan with Italo Furlan. He meets Marchiori, Santomaso. Afro invites him to exhibit at the '64 Venice Biennale among the works of Dino Basaldella, Tancredi. Something of his father returns, the work in typography: he uses stencils, 'the layout of the painting must always have a little structure.' And then the encounter with Fabio De Luigi, Lucio Fontana. His pictorial foray into sculpture, an experience 'made to complete and not to destroy' during his mature years, becomes a stimulus and creative opportunity for his friend Gino Valle. Certainly, it is the heartfelt account of an artistic experience lived fully and in continuous search: 'you only live once, it is better to follow your own instinct.' This is the last documentary commemorating the figure of the Master before his passing. A privileged and emotional encounter, a dialogue between friends, a story seasoned with gentleness and charm in which Carlo Ciussi retraces his personal and artistic journey and the important encounters of a life determined and forged by Art.
