Philip and Attilio, the comedy duo that makes people laugh with art history, present their show!

Can you make people laugh with art? According to a young comedy duo, yes, you can! They are Filippo and Attilio, two cabaret performers (full names: Filippo Caccamo and Attilio Nazareno Pane) who have been treading the stages of northern Italy for some time now to make their comedy known. The general public saw them on the well-known TV show Eccezionale veramente on La 7 (they made it to the semifinals, and Massimo Boldi remarked how their comedy is reminiscent of that of Cochi and Renato), but their repertoire is much broader than what has been seen on TV, and we tried to find out more about these two guys (they are both students!) who will be coming to the theater this winter with their show Messi da parte: everything, but really everything, dedicated to the great history of art. A new, fresh, original idea, and we assure you it is worth seeing! Of course, we interviewed Filippo and Attilio, and since they are a comedy duo, it is an interview... witty! But at the same time very interesting! Read what they told us ;-)

A clip from “Set Apart”


Filippo and Attilio on “Exceptional Really”

Filippo and Attilio: two young comedians who decided to do comedy with art. The question is trite and obvious and you will have been asked eight hundred and fifty times already, but since you have done thirty you can do thirty-one... well let’s stop number crunching: where did the idea of making great art history a subject to laugh about come from?
Hello everyone! The idea came from some jokes between us about Leonardo’s Last Supper. We imagined two apostles who instead of going to theUltima Cena stop at the next place, theUltimo Apericena (this story would later be the first sketch of the show) and from there we realized that larte is something about people, about everyday stories. It is actually very easy to do comedy about art because it gives you a thousand cues.

Even “a thousand cues”-why don’t you give us some of them?
Because you will find them all in the show! Seeing is believing!

By the way (an expression with which we often introduce topics that have nothing to do with what was said before): what studies did you do and what is your background?
We both attended the same high school, Liceo Maffeo Vegio in Lodi, Human Sciences major. Now we attend the faculties of Psychology (Attilio) in Pavia, and Cultural Heritage (Filippo) in Milan.From the theatrical point of view, Attilio started moving on stage with the show before Messi da Parte, Filippo had another comedy trio before and attended a theater academy in Lodi.We would like to say that our first experience together was in radio, we had a program on a web radio now turned into Fm. For us it was to date one of the best experiences ever!

Let’s pick up the thread again... whenever you try to make people laugh with art someone always pops up saying things like “art is too serious to make fun of it,” and so on... have you ever had such criticism?
We’ve had more skepticism than criticism. Our first show was a big show with dancers, guests and disguises. This time we went back to the audience and said we wanted to talk about the unheard characters of art. It was hard to convince them that it would be very fascinating.

Moving from the hypothetical reaction of “insiders” to that of the audience...how did the audience respond to “comedy about art”?
Really well! We heard many people say the typical phrase but come on, I didn’t know that painting.... That means a lot to us. Bringing larte to the theater means bringing content, and that may be far from belly laughs for their own sake, but it is definitely closer to a certain kind of audience.

Your show Pushed aside begins with a crossing of a Lucio Fontana cut...so: let’s preface this by saying that we at Finestre Sull’Arte are big admirers of Spatialism and Lucio Fontana (so watch your mouth!)...if you found yourself in a museum together with someone or someone who is left with a quizzical look in front of Fontana and you would like to explain the “cut” in your own way...what would you say to impress?
We are big fans of Fontana, too! We would say that spatialism in general, and cuts in particular, are perhaps the most intimate form of relationship between the artist and the viewer. A Caravaggio is to be studied, to be followed inch by inch, to be discovered, a Botticelli is to be admired, a De Chirico to be left there. Spatialism is not. Spatialism has gone beyond that. Fontana literally rips into your canvas in such a rough way, so direct, so decisive that it is like an invitation to enter it never to leave. Spatialism is the art that calls the viewer not with colors, not with drawing, but with its intimate, direct, sometimes exaggerated three-dimensionality. For insiders, Picasso’s collage is also three-dimensionality. But not so direct.

The show then goes on to range from Egyptian art to contemporary art via the Renaissance...by the way, Botticelli is said to have cast the main characters for his Primavera...how did things work out? Because we have studied Botticelli’s art for a long time but this backstory escaped us....
We came into possession thanks to a very curious custodian of very secret papers, which have already disappeared! Yet we can say with historical certainty that two candidates for the Graces named Grazia and Graziella gave an account of that casting day in detail. Botticelli was very careful and punctilious about the choice of the girls, and they used somewhat...peculiar ways to try to get through the audition. All true, believe us!

The topics of your show sound interesting: how would you like to convince someone to come and see you? And when can we see you live soon...? ?
This show is worth seeing because it is a beautiful journey. It is the world’s most famous paintings seen through the eyes of someone who never appeared but lived through the birth and development of the work. It’s must-see because you get a lot of laughs, because it’s peppered with current events, what’s going on every day applied to the Fourth Estate or Merda dArtista. Dates scheduled? They are coming up. We will soon post on our page Filippo and Attilio the winter dates of all our shows.

Let’s ask a question of the serious kind: do you think it is possible to raise awareness of art by making people laugh?
Absolutely. Larte is always seen as something too old and distant but in reality it is spectacular gossip. Paintings are not made by Martians but by people, Caravaggio at our age for example painted extraordinary masterpieces in a very ordinary room. Here, our goal is to tell this, the lives of artists, the ideas ever realized about a painting, why a work was done one way rather than another. We are not interested in the bare explanation, we are interested in the lifeblood that makes a painting live after hundreds of years.

Last question...imagine being with a friend who is totally unfamiliar with art and disinclined to set foot inside a museum, gallery, church, historic building...what would you say to him to change his mind and take him with you on a magical day of art?
That’s the question that fits the bill! Some time ago a friend of ours confessed to us that he was going out to dinner with an art lover and wanted to impress her. Philip, who studies Cultural Heritage, pointed out to him two or three peculiarities about Carpaccio, who to most people is a meat dish but was actually also an extraordinary painter. The appointment went so well that this friend of ours the next week bought books and books about Carpaccio and all the art related to him. In short, larte works in love too, a more valid motivation than that doesn’t exist!

On this you are right! Well, thanks to Filippo and Attilio for their helpfulness and kindness: connect to their Facebook page to follow their activity and find out if their show Messi da parte will also come to your city!

Philip and Attilio

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