Vittorio Osvaldo Tommasini

Work re-performed by Live Art Denmark
2018 “White and Black” at Live Art for Kids 5

White and Black
Tommasini, better known under his artist name “Farfa” (1879-1964), was a futurist poet and painter. He contributed to one of the best known Futurist works, the Futurist Cookbook by master Futurist Filippo Tomaso Marinetti from 1930, that collects a large number of recipes for artistic and performative cooking and eating. Farfa’s recipe for “White and Black” goes like this: “A one-man-show on the internal walls of the stomach consisting of free-form arabesques of whipped cream sprinkled with lime-tree charcoal. Contra the blackest indigestion. Pro the whitest teeth.” We offered plates of organic charcoal and cream to the young festival goers and their adults to paint internal paintings on the walls of their intestines. They all went away with greatly improved digestions and sparkling white teeth.

About the Artist
Vittorio Osvaldo Tommasini or Farfa (1881-1964) was known as painter, ceramist, photographer, poster artist and poet. He was the author of many books of colorful caricature and bizarre subject matter. In his early career he was painting in the impressionistic style typical of other artist in this time period, but always with a tendency to be less academic in composition. His Italian and French Cityscapes would depict the daily life in the city or a walk through a city park with people living life. He usually signed his paintings V. Tommasini.