THE LAST EXHIBITION

Tonino, I think I am the least suitable person to write this memory. But fortunately, I am not an art critic nor an artist so I think I can return your frankness with interest. I have tolerated you, supported you but supported you. But I have breathed your energies for too little time. There is no registry, in time, nor place in the world in which to place you. You could have been born in Milan and be 30 years old, but luckily for us, you were born here and stubbornly, in this place, far from the much more important cultural and artistic centers where contemporary art struggles between ideology and mania, you have achieved a miracle. The MAON Museum. But as you well know in this land, great projects have great enemies and great ideas always have someone ready to dismantle them. And not even you, my friend, have come through unscathed. But all this has never affected you! Perhaps, I am led to think that the obstacles were a challenge for you to overcome them? Perhaps, perhaps not! Perhaps it was the only thing to do, the only thing we can now look at with pride, because there is no better method to teach than to demonstrate how things are made.

Your stubbornness was the fuel for all the exhibitions, all the events, all the initiatives. You started to get going at night and the evenings spent around ideas and projects were exhausting with you. There was no area of ​​his sector that I did not know the peculiarities and characteristics. It was not easy to work with you dear Tonino, some arguments have remained historic in the eyes and ears of those who had the pleasure of experiencing them, but we were always there, together, to finish and celebrate each work as the first feat. Because this is the spirit to grow and you knew it well, only from the clash and the comparison can one grow and create, like the works of the artists to which you have dedicated your whole life. This is how you have, since 2004, built, effort after effort, the experiences and the now historic exhibitions of the MAON museum, which have become over time a source of pride for the entire territory.

Dear Tonino, I remember the last exhibition, Marasco Futurista indipendente, I remember your effort, and my fear even if motivated by your physical fragility already tested by the disease. I came to pick you up at 8 pm, it was pouring with rain outside, you left the house and got soaked from head to toe, bent over by the wind and the disease, you no longer felt anything to the point that you remained wet until midnight in the museum, to set up the exhibition, to overcome yet another obstacle that life presented to you. It was a heartbreaking evening, the bright colors of the works, the dynamism of futurism, tamed and dominated by you who with difficulty with a thread of a voice indicated where to place the next work. Because your energy, your will, your tireless strength of mind was stronger than any disease. The project had to be completed, the exhibition had to be inaugurated. Dear Tonino, as a great educator you had the ability to ignite hope to create a better future that the new generations could look at with pride. You were a craftsman of culture, your forge and your ideas have made the MAON a cultural center of excellence. As a page of Repubblica in Milan said ... "from Calabria with Fury" in reference to the exhibition we organized a few years ago. May your hard work, your sacrifices and your spirit continue to be an incentive and example for us so that this institution, recognized throughout Italy as a place of excellence, can continue to grow and still be a reference point for culture.

Have a good trip, my friend.

Roberto Principe