La speranza è l’ultima a.. fiorire

Within «15 Portrait 15 Poets», Marco Palladini is placed between the persistence of personal identity and a collective language that promises hope only to revoke it. Zampogna does not use the proverb to comment on the poet, but subjects both to scrutiny: on one side is the recognisable physiognomy of his friend, tied to a specific relationship and memory; on the other, a common phrase worn down by repetition and now as available as any media formula. Replacing «morire» with «fiorire» appears to open onto a vital outcome, yet the work prevents this variation from becoming a simple optimistic statement.

The graphic stumble before «fiorire» disrupts the maxim’s continuity and exposes the constructed nature of its wisdom. The sentence crosses the screen printed portrait without erasing its recognisability, but divides its presence between individual and linguistic surface. The verdict «Non hai vinto», pushed below the image’s lower edge and partly absorbed by the orange field, introduces the impersonal code of the prize game: what seemed like hope in bloom is returned to the binary logic of winning and losing. The orange marks cutting through face and ground also prevent the figure from settling into an intact representation, making colour an interference rather than an atmosphere.

The work thus connects the poets’ portraits to Zampogna’s earlier reflection on the mythologies of «Scratch & Win», while relocating its conflict within language and personal relationship. The promise no longer surrounds anonymous characters: it reaches a named face, that of Marco Palladini, and measures how deeply collective codes can enter the construction of identity without exhausting it. The poet remains recognisable, while proverb and verdict lose authority precisely because they contradict each other. The work leaves this asymmetry unresolved: the person persists as singular memory, whereas common language emerges as a fragile device, capable of converting even hope into expectation of a denied prize.