Hang muse - Another Possible Life of Mario Schifano #938108

We are in the 1960s. American culture is establishing itself on a global scale. A young Italian artist, Mario Schifano, decides to take the leap because it feels like the right thing to do. After just five solo exhibitions, at twenty-eight years old, he quits his job as a clerk at the Etruscan Museum and moves to New York. Yet, he fails to form meaningful connections with his American counterpart. He is more drawn to the American lifestyle, the mood of the parties and cultural gatherings, the music and the live clubs. And, as in Italy, his closest bonds are with writers and intellectuals, despite him not even having an elementary school diploma.
Mario fails to sell a single painting. He decides to travel across America by bus. In Mexico City, he meets Camilla Lopez, a beggar who crossed the Sonoran Desert on foot to escape her love for a man who despised her for being Mexican. A journey that left her without an arm. And with boundless faith. Camilla is proud, but worn down. She has a conspicuous growth of dark hair on her face and white streaks among her black hair. She is, nonetheless, a woman capable of stirring passion. She is beautiful, aware of it, but those she attaches herself to always end up making her suffer and driving her away.In Mario, Camilla sees again the young writer who loved her, who tried to help her, who perhaps, despite everything, managed to redeem her. Mario, in her, sees a Mayan goddess, a kind of deity to whom to offer sacrifices to gain a universal recognition.
This work does not intend to be a biography. It does not aim to recount accurate historical facts or absolute truths. It's fiction. It includes real characters who are not chronologically pertinent to the era (Davide Toffolo, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, Ethan Hawke, Jean-Pierre de Caussade). For others, such as the journalist Oriana Fallaci and the philosopher Osho, there is no record of a direct acquaintance with the artist. The work also stages fictional dialogues with Pasolini, Goffredo Parise, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Anita Pallenberg, as well as with the Florentine writer and the Indian religious figure.
The female protagonist is Camilla Lopez, the character from the novel ‘Ask the Dust’, by John Fante.
The story concludes during the massacre in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City in 1968.