Visitor or admirer stopped to contemplate, and you will feel the yearning for a prayer, because iron here speaks of self-transcendence.
by Mina Marano e Mario Pascale
Roberto Cosimi, the son of art, was born in the Trastevere district of Rome on 16 July 1948. Here, also the paternal grandfather Mastro Fortunato, was born on 22 November 1881. Ever since he was a child, Master Fortunato was distinguished by his passion for shaping according to traditionhas iron. He was a "blacksmith", for living he made wrought iron beds, but he possessed the ability of an artist at 360 °: he forged, molded, painted, wrote in Gothic characters. It was from his grandfather first and from his father Secondiano born in Civitavecchia on September 13th 1914 that Roberto Cosimi learned the technique of fake wood and the art of forging.
At the age of 12, Roberto fell in love with nails. The nail is an element of suffering and conjunction, essential, naked, simple material and a sign of continuity because as a craftsman he had always used it together with his ancestors, but at the same time represented a novelty and a challenge. He had never heard anyone make sculptures with nails and decided to become unique and choose them for his art. It does this by engaging in a melee fight with metal. The construction of the work of art is above all a problem of choice and positioning of the material, therefore of the construction of the whole. More than once the artist chooses the welding method and sparks come out of the metal. The analogy between sparks and the gushing of blood from the human body is powerful and evident. The metal behaves, under the stress of the oxyhydrogen flame, just like a living organism and the empathic human being, reacts to suffering.
Entering the workshop of the master Roberto Cosimi, means entering the realm of noise. Each instrument speaks its own language.
To handle the metal without gloves and to weld it without a protective shield, despite its sight has been put to the test during the years of creation, it means for the master to feel and see without intermediation and to have a contact that is pure melody with his creatures, that is his works.
The artistic history of Roberto Cosimi begins with the SACRED ART that tells the life of the Nazarene, the first true socialist of history who, going among barefoot people and with simple words preached peace and brotherhood, continues with the ART OF COMPLAINT of social inequalities and the injustices of all kinds and culminates with the CELEBRATIVE ART through which he pays tribute through nails to great works made by geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci, to the beauty of nature and to the noblest feelings that the human being is able to express even in situations of suffering and discomfort. National and international exhibitions in Rome, Zagreb, Czestochowa have hosted some of these bewitching and prestigious works.
Master Cosimi is an impressionist artist, as he likes to define himself, but he is first and foremost a man, who has always sided with the weakest, aspiring to improve himself.
Graduated from the Ipsia Calamatta vocational school in Civitavecchia, he continued to read and study by himself over the course of his life. He studied and worked: initially in the forge of his grandfather and father, then in carpentry and finally as a maintenance technician for the Enel plants. A well-rounded man Roberto Cosimi: retired a few years ago, he currently holds the position of president of ASD Pallavolo Civitavecchia and in the past he boasts a tangible commitment in the union and in politics, in fact Law 257 (paragraph 8 and 7) more commonly known as the Salvi sull'asianto law to protect
workers exposed to killer fiber, it was also written thanks to its contribution.
"To those who ask me what I want to communicate with my art, I reply that I would like those who approach my works to understand that we are all part of a large family, the human family.
That love is a gift. But that if love is not supported by justice, it is very little. "