Luigi Tola Biography
Luigi Tola (1930 – 2004) was a writer and visual poet who founded the cultural club Il Portico in Genoa in the early 1950s, within which he carried out the first experiments of "Mural Poems", i.e. visual poems posted in public places , such as schools, universities, recreational clubs and workers. The mimeographed bulletin «Debates» is also linked to the Portico. In the 1960s he was part of the Studio Group of Genoa, and between 1964 and 1965 he was among the main animators of the art gallery-club La Carabaga, as well as of the magazine «Trerosso». He collaborates, as head of the central editorial team, at the magazine «Marcatrè», founded in 1963 by Rodolfo Vitone and directed by Eugenio Battisti. In the meantime he worked as a proofreader at Unità and in an advertising agency together with Guido Ziveri, creating some slogans used in important national advertising campaigns. In 1966 he published the poem E l'ombra che conchiglia, created on a linoleum by Daniela Zampini, printed on a large sheet folded in several parts, in the «Fogli di poetica» series (n. 7) by the publisher Guanda; in the same year he collaborated with a one-act play in the Italian Theater anthology, edited by Massimo Dursi for Sampietro. In 1967 he created the artist's book Logotomy (Micrograph) with Rodolfo Vitone, and the following year he published a book on the Beat generation, Corrupted Angels: the days of the hydra, with illustrations by Eurialo Predonzani (Immordino). In the 1980s he became involved with the artist Claudio Costa, with whom he organized workshops at the psychiatric hospital of Quarto dei Mille, in collaboration with the psychiatrist Slavich, a former collaborator of Franco Basaglia for the application of art to psychic therapy. After a brief period in Germany, in Cologne, Tola returned to Italy and published two collections of linear poetry: From here along words I am. Poems 1989-1990 (Morra 1994) and The seven forms of the serpent (Campanotto 1997). He took part in the exhibition Le Stanze d'Agorà (Micrograph 1991) held in Genoa from 2-20 May 1991 in the premises of the Teatro della Tosse, with works by Ugo Carrega, Rolando Mignani, Miles Mussi, Rodolfo Vitone, as well as Tola himself. Together with Rodolfo Vitone he edited the volume A season dissipated. Visual poetry in Genoa between the sixties and seventies.
