L’Anguilla di Marte (The Mars Eel) is a Salvatore Garau’s work of art, 1953 contingent, artist, painter of visible and invisible, sculptor, regist and writer native to Santa Giusta. A man whom has dedicated his life to the art in many ways: as musical artist, arising as drummer in 1977 with the rock political band Stormy Six until 1982, the breaking up year of the band, afterwards reapproached in some reunions which occurred in 1993, 1997, 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2018; as painter, making his debut in 1984, after ten years from graduation atAccademia di Belle Arti di Firenze..
Painter of the visible and invisible, words which can resume with the same words of the author further to the article Pittore del visibile e dell’invisibile, L’assenza delle mie sculture è una presenza che turbahere translated):
Who has decided that a shape imagined just in the mind can’t be physically imagined in a space? The boundary between philosophy and work of art can be valicated?
«Of course! Maths, for example, can spills over into painting, architecture, physics, poetry, philosophy, sculpture and dance. Anyway, they are processes started in the art since the early Twentieth century, not to mention the 60’s. Enclosing every creative words means confining stupidly the inherent strength which, in contact with different experiences, can generate the unplanned wonder that we were looking for! I decided to make of a title (a micro poem, in a way) a sculpture, but not only one, thousand sculptures which everyone can impress in one’s own mind, striving to reconquer the power of imagination. It requires exertion, of course, but I prefer remember to the people that it can be done, at the cost of going into a crisis, which then, in this case, wouldn’t be other that stepping out in front of some choices and private decisions. People can become owner of a their own idea, in this case of a their own sculpture! It seems to me wonderful! A people which has not more fantasy is a people which is slowly dying.»
Some articles and videos about and of Salvatore Garau:
Salvatore Garau YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@salvatoregarau8949
L’artista delle sculture invisibili (The invisible sculpture artist) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj7BFPEgvMo
Scultura nel cielo (Sculpture in the Sky) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqZ8gWIh5EA
“Sacro” Caraffa Museum, Cordoba, Argentina Salvatore Garau, Istituto Italiano Di Cultura https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWJtvFkQFos
L’anguilla di Marte (coda) (Mars Eel tail) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yen2YVkjtk
L’anguilla di Marte (testa pt. II) (Mars Eel head pt. II) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cTLMbYiM4U
Let’s go back to the Anguilla di Marte (Mars Eel). This is the third installation of Garau, preceded from two site-specific installationsthe first one of 2006, made in Sardinia, entitled Ichthys Sacro Stagnowhich planned the flooding of three consecrated church with the insertion of lagoonal fishes, and put them again in their own habitat; the second one, Scultura nel Cielo (Sculpture in the sky) an enormous canvas of 200 square meters painted and installed in Milan in Corso Magenta 22, to winds a whole palace of Milan as a sign of provocation and protest to environmental protection. One arrives then to the Anguilla di Marte (Mars Eel), or in Sardinian S’Anguidda, a site-specific installation, material and visible – well visible – high 12m, large 1,10m and heavy 5.000kg, all in wrought iron – first galvanized and then enamelled. Installed in 2010 to the left of Santa Giusta Municipality entrance with the project of making to emerge the fish head directly in the Pond of the country town or – according to someone – probably in another lagoonal country town on the North side of the Gulf of Oristano: Cabras. The work of art represents an alien eel entered into the earth’s atmosphere and casted down remaining wedged to the ground, and so in evidence only its gigantic tail. As for the head, still today nothing is yet known, only that it has been soldered in two different parts by the same blacksmith whom made the eel tail, and that it will be high 7m for a total weight of about 3.000kg. «The eel’s head,» says Garau
«has roamed underground for 11 years in a soil rich of history and civilization. Now It comes out nervous, keeping among the teeth traces of our past, almost putting us in face who we have been and remembering us where we come from. Our territory has been a country town of richness and meeting of many people whom followed one another in the Mediterranean Sea. The Mars Eel is a work of art which has the task to remember us that forgetting our origins it’s an offense to our own present which is already becoming future.»
Instead, talking about of immaterial works of art, Garau has a plan of 7 works of art to “exhibit” – as points up an article of Stanze Italiane, virtual museum of Istituto Italiano di Cultura di New York – around the world, some of which have already been exhibited. The philosophy upon the invisible concept of the artist, already presenting in his black paintings since the first appearance in 80’s, has emerged more than ever in this period of his life to send a clear message:
«When I decide to “exhibit” in a precise space an immaterial sculpture, that place will concentrate a certain amount of thoughts in a precise point, making a sculpture that only by my title will take the most different shapes. My scultures concept totally diverges from Marcel Duchamp’s provocations in the early Twentieth century or afterwards from the 60’s conceptual art. The absence of material for me it’s an action of love towards the unknown and the mistery to which almost the whole humanity relies on.. We are living a moment in which our physicality, our being is replaced by our virtual images and voice (impalpable this one too). This our being flesh and bones, in this time, has to reckon with the real presence.»
On 5th of February 2021 Garau has installed in Milan, in Piazza della Scala few feet away from the Leonardo da Vinci’s monument and from the Gallerie d’Italia, Budda in contemplazione (Contemplating Budda). A rectangular space delimited by a white band, zero impact on the environment, a work of art made by only air, that’s a manifest call to stopping to think. The all days frenzy and the endless running that the society which we have created, and that now it requires us, it’s always letting us forget very often who we are and what we really want. Is it really this one the life we want to live?
On the same year, 29th of May, in New York, exactly in front of the Stock Exchange seat entrance He has installed Afrodite piange (Crying Aphrodite). In the same way as the previous one, but of circular shape, it’s a manifest expression of protest and environmental protection. A work of art which takes shape by the imagination of those whom observe it, and above all else: a work of art reproduceable in the Net. A clear sample of the artist grudge for the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) technologies, in my opinion, reading the following article https://tinyurl.com/Cosa-sono-gli-NFT He’s not wrong at all.
As writer He begin in 2012 with the e-book Crudele amore mio (My cruel love), published with Newton&Compton. While, as regist, in 2017 has written and directed La Tela (The Canvas), a docu-film with photography by Fabio Olmi shot in a high security prison. Whilst in 2019 He has shot a docu-thriller called Futuri affreschi italiani (Italian Future Frescoes), taking cue from his latest works of art Pala d’altare per questo e altri pianeti e Volto di Dio from 2023 to 2028 exhibited to the Basilica of Santa Giusta. First Contemporary Art reapproaching to exhibition in place of worship, for long time separated, and now thanks to artists as Salvatore Garau, in course of rejoining. The last work said, Volto di Dio is for the artist the epitome of his philosophy upon the invisible, for which He says:
«The empty, just apparent, actually it’s imbued with life and sacred mistery. Divine energy has made the empty a manifest work of art, and by the empty the whole has come. Only the title, a slender light and the total absence upon the wall of every physical intervention They already are an immense presence.»
