Conversation on the future of abstract painting with Grimaldi, Rizzo, Madesani

A conversation among Marco Grimaldi, Roberto Rizzo, and Angela Madesani, held on the occasion of the exhibition "La reinvenzione del quadro" at 56 di Figino Serenza (Como), explores the enduring relevance of Caravaggio's distinction between good and bad painting. Madesani cites Vincenzo Giustiniani's 1620 letter, where Caravaggio claimed equal effort for a flower painting as for a figure painting, arguing that quality, not subject, defines painting. Grimaldi observes that contemporary painting has shed ideological divisions, focusing on quality and subtle shifts. Rizzo notes that "quality" has become taboo in art, often ceded to market arbitrariness, and proposes reconsidering "maniera" as the ability to "reinvent the medium" (Rosalind Krauss). Rizzo describes his work as starting from the painting as a threshold to cross and return, citing Lucio Fontana's cuts as both traversal and pictorial sign. He insists painting must start from zero each time, now using cartacemento (a handmade stone-like material) to reconstruct space. Grimaldi seeks to transform painting into an original language by engaging with history, not postmodernist revival, but finding a "place" from which to rebuild after deconstruction. Both artists emphasize memory and reconstruction: Grimaldi starts from memory to shift his work's direction; Rizzo aims to reconstruct decostructed forms, incorporating 20th-century art's decostructive experience without removing it.