Luca Carboni: “I design my music, but not only that”
On the eve of the opening, the inauguration press conference of Luca Carboni’s exhibition “Rio Ari O. Luca Carboni 40 years between music and art” was held today, with which the artist celebrates his activity as a singer-songwriter, designer and painter . One is well known, the other has remained private all this time. The exhibition will open tomorrow 22 November at the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna and will close on 9 February 2025.
It is a return that opens a new channel of communication with the public, that of Luca Carboni, who recently, in an interview with the “Corriere della Sera”, explained the reason for a two-year long break: diagnosed lung cancer in March 2022. “Now I really want to find myself among people” he added. And this time, instead of starting from an album and a tour, he does it through this exhibition and his paintings, among other things that can be appreciated there.
«There was the idea of this exhibition» – explains Carboni – «born from a meeting with Luca Lazzaris of Elastica, who produced it, after what you know was a somewhat complex vicissitude of mine, of an illness which fortunately was resolved; I had already had the idea in my drawer for some time to begin to reveal more and more this part of painting that has remained a little more hidden, in order to be able to experience it freely without performance anxiety. It was my personal diary, the act of drawing.”
But the initial concept, Carboni continues in his speech, was to tell the most recent experience through the paintings of recent years:
«Because it is what represents you most, what you feel in this moment. Instead then Luca Beatrice, the curator of the exhibition, came up with the idea of celebrating all my forty years of music, of creating a path of everything that was my journey in this parallel art born together with the my first album, because then there was the music video boom which led to attention being paid to the visual story linked to the songs.”
Thanks to this project, Carboni says he has rediscovered his own history, and even in the title he wanted to take a journey into the past:
«What many didn’t understand about this title, “Rio Ari O”, is that simply when we were looking for the title of this exhibition and we were talking about ’84 I thought: what’s the first thing people heard about my voice? Taking the first album, putting the needle on it, “Rio Ari O” starts even before the phrase “We’re wrong, guys”; this game began with Lucio (Dalla) while we were playing in the studio, while this song was born, and I like that it can be a symbol because even visually it has its own harmony, its own impact.”
“…meanwhile Dustin Hoffman doesn’t miss a film” is the title of his debut album, which contains the aforementioned song, “We’re making mistakes”, released precisely forty years ago in 1984, and since then the career of Bolognese artist walked in parallel with the taste for visual art.
«So I instinctively began to draw some tables on the song “We’re making mistakes” to show them to the director. This enlightened me and gave me the desire to delve deeper into it and carry it forward. I started by drawing my music, the lyrics of my songs, and then I discovered, around 2000, a more autonomous painting. There were moments in which I revealed myself, for example using my drawings for some of my album covers, but my entire journey is actually here for the first time in this exhibition and I believe it provides a tool for getting to know a world that however, I think any artist is behind it.”
Luca Carboni thus starts again from his city, Bologna, because he is always a protagonist in his artistic expressions:
«I believe that the place where you are born, where you live, becomes a part of your personality; having the opportunity to do things that communicate, it has always been instinctive for me to be able to tell this essential part of myself, and Bologna is even more in my painting”.
