Ivan Cattaneo - Bare-hearted

A long conversation with the artist who anticipated trends, provocations, styles and dreams of the Italian pop scene between the '70s and '80s. The author of "Polisex", "Maria-Batman", "Pupa" and trailblazing albums like "SuperIvan" and "Primo, Secondo e Frutta (Ivan Compreso)" talks about himself, starting from his origins, moving through his years in London and up to his latest releases.

Let's start from the origins. From "Maria-Batman", where the Madonna gets mixed up with Batman: "Your cloak wraps around us, Lord… and so does Batman's!".

It was an obsession of mine as a kid. I kept seeing these images of the Madonna with her cloak. But if you flipped them upside down, they turned into a bat. Holy water and the devil together, which is pretty destabilizing. From a simple bat, everything then shifted to Batman, who by then was already very present in pop culture. Battiato drew on it too. It was all mixed-up nonsense. There was a powerful sleeping pill in there, Orietta Berti singing at the village festival, Pio Bove, Carducci, Pascoli, Leopardi. A real eggnog, basically.

“Primo, Secondo e Frutta (Ivan Compreso)” was theoretically meant to be a multimedia work (also paired with a book) centred on the five senses: touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste. A record to savour with your whole body.

It was a way of exalting the senses. Each song was paired with an object to touch, hear, or see, like the painting, for instance. It was a provocation about art. About what back then wasn't yet called multimedia.

You spent many years in London. Do you go back often? Is it still magical?

No, absolutely not. It lost its magic centuries ago. Sure, I still go to London often. Up until '77 and the very early '80s it was still a magical city. The first time I went, in 1971, there was incredible ferment. Six years later, when I went back, I found punk, which I then brought to Italy through Anna Oxa. By 1982 it was already a different London. It had already become globalised. It wasn't so distinctive anymore. Whatever was happening in London you could already find in Milan too, or anywhere else. Everything had burned out.

In the ballad “L’altra faccia della luna” you sing “l’amore della panchina, ma l’altra faccia della Luna è anche l’altra faccia dell’amore, oppure la stessa cosa… e va bene”.

It was a song somewhat against stereotypical, milk-and-honey, rather heterosexual, rather textbook couples, the kind you find in the collective imagination of the sweetest, most diabetic romanticism. I was against that kind of approach. Against the representation and the clichés of love. But it's a love song.

“SuperIvan” was the last album for Ultima Spiaggia, before the label went bankrupt. Pfm in their entirety play here as session musicians in the studio. Colombo, always at the mixing desk, gives his arrangements a distinctly new wave flavour typical of that period.

The trait d’union was Roberto Colombo. He was the one who brought in Pfm. Then Fabrizio De André came to the studio, and he took all of them, but not me, since I was the artist. He took them along with him on tour.

Watching the video for “Paradiso Noia” brings back the controversy after Achille Lauro's first performance, dressed by Gucci, at Sanremo. Decades earlier you were already beyond Alessandro Michele, Gucci's creative director who chose Lauro's outfits at Sanremo. Were your outfits also designer clothes?

I did everything myself. They were my own clothes, my own ideas, it all came from my own mind.

In 1992 you returned to the scene with “Il cuore è nudo e i pesci cantano”. The painting exhibition “Le cento gioconde haiku” accompanied the record. Are you still fascinated by that world? Do you still paint?

Eastern philosophy is always within me. But I no longer preach it. If you preach it you can always come across as a fanatic, a cult member. I prefer to avoid that and "practise it" privately. I still paint, almost every day.

In 2003, on the occasion of the relaunch of your friend Giuni Russo via the Sanremo Festival, you made the videos for the two singles taken from the album: “Morirò d'amore” and “Una rosa è una rosa”. What memories do you have of Giuni Russo?

Giuni was a dear friend. I remember the first time she played me “Un'estate al mare”. We were at the Monumentale cemetery in Milan, which is actually the most beautiful thing Milan has to offer. We lived twenty metres apart from each other, right near the cemetery. She called me over to listen to two songs, and to choose the right one for the summer record. They were “Un'estate al mare” and “Good Good-Bye”. I immediately went for the second one, which is more refined, beautiful, elegant. The other is more crowd-pleasing. I didn't know yet that Battiato had written it. In the end she chose the first one. And that's fine.

“Polisex” anticipates everything, starting with polyamory. How does that make you feel?

"Polisex" is a naive take on what today gets described with countless acronyms. It was a way of understanding sexuality in a more naif form. I wanted to represent its more multifaceted nature. Simply that.

The 2005 album "Luna Presente" is dedicated to the twelve metaphysical seas of the Moon. What exactly are they?

They're the most emblematic seas of the Moon. It's a tribute to the Moon in twelve songs. The Moon had been somewhat forgotten at that time. I went into a bookshop and asked for books about the Moon. The shop assistant told me the Moon was no longer in stock, so I decided to call the record "Luna presente" ["Moon Present"]. That's how it all began. The Moon as a moment of escape. The Earth seen from afar. The way astronauts saw it. Deep down, the Earth is a living organism, the famous Gaia. In its own way it was still a spiritual record, just as "Il cuore è nudo e i pesci cantano" had been.

In 2015 the double tribute album conceived and released by Soter honored you as a songwriter with interpretations by Garbo, Montefiori Cocktail, Banda Osiris, Dardust, Giovanni Block, H.E.R, Susanna Parigi, Pennelli di Vermeer and many others. But what does a cover mean to you?

A cover makes sense when it manages to be completely different from the original while still fully respecting it, without turning it upside down. That's the true alchemy of an authentic cover. Making a song different without losing its original essence. Far from the original yet still recalling it. That's the great secret of a good cover. In "Un tipo atipico" there are many artists who pulled that off. A year ago Soter also paid tribute to me with a second project, both on collector's vinyl and CD: "Polisex 40th Anniversary", dedicated to the fortieth anniversary of 'Polisex', where various artists, alongside me, tried their hand at reinterpreting the same song. It's an exercise in style built around a single track. Almost nobody in the world has done that, except Grace Jones.

Mino Di Martino sang "Basta con la musica giovane". Do you like what's on the radio today, or rather on Spotify, at Sanremo? Do you follow young artists? Is there anyone who strikes you?

Nobody strikes me. There's globalization in music too by now. I don't see much difference between one singer and another. They're all standardized. Every now and then a good song comes along, but it's rare. Everything is too perfect, too prepackaged, anything but spontaneous.

When's the new record coming?

I'm working on a new theatrical show tied to a book, it's called "Titanic Orchestra". And it will also be an album. There will be surprises soon.

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