10 - Filiberto Bartoli (1943)

Filiberto Bartoli (1943) Watch out, kids—Cabo the Crazy from the Strafanici family is here Pencil and acrylic paints on plywood 80 x 100 cm Signature: “Bartolo Filiberto” in paint on the front and in marker on the back Date: “72” in paint on the front and in marker on the back Distinctive features: circular stamp and label from the Arona National Impromptu Painting Competition, 1972; two stamps by the artist with details of the work; on one side of the frame, two labels with inventory references, one of which is anonymous and the other from the Banca Popolare di Intra; on the front of the frame, a label with the title Provenance: Veneto Banca SpA in LCA Exhibitions: Arona National Impromptu Painting Competition, May 1972 Condition. Support: 95% Condition. Surface: 95% For direct WhatsApp assistance before and during the live auction: +39 346 12 999 80 // Direct assistance via WhatsApp before and during the auction: +39 346 12 999 80 In the Venetian-Julian dialects, “cabibo” or “cabibbo” (with a colloquial doubling of the labial plosive) meant “a shrewd and untrustworthy man” and, later, “fool,” and was also used as an insult toward immigrants from the South. The word derives from the Arabic “habíb” (friend), a term used—particularly in Islamic armies—to address an unknown but nearby person, and later adopted into Italic dialects. The word “strafanici,” on the other hand, is used in Trieste and means things of little value, knickknacks, or trinkets. It may derive from the Latin “extra faniculum,” referring to the votive offerings that were hung outside small temples and which time and the elements inexorably ruined. Alternatively, it can describe a good-for-nothing, a frivolous person lacking character… in short: a “strafanìc.” The meaning of the painting is therefore—“Watch out, guys, the trinket lover has arrived.” The artist recalls, in a phone conversation regarding the cataloging process (December 15, 2020), having irreverently used, to compose the image, several works of art presented at the recent Venice Biennale.