Milan pays homage to the genius of Gianni Sassi with a “walk” in Citylife

What was the counterculture? It was an explosion of artistic stimuli, an alternative way of life, the propellant of a generation of young people who questioned the so-called “system” convinced that they could change the world. And if after half a century the city of Milan dedicates a street to one of the greatest countercultural agitators in its history, it means that those young people have managed to change the world a bit. This morning, Milan’s Councilor for Culture, Tommaso Sacchi, unveiled the plaque that names a “walk” in the City Life park after Gianni Sassi, with the tricolor band for institutional occasions. To applaud the naming ceremony there were musicians (from Patrizio Fariselli of the Area to Alberto Fortis, from Ricky Gianco to Omar Pedrini), journalists and cultural operators who in their lives have somehow had to deal with the imposing figure of this “uncomfortable” intellectual, innovator, forerunner, man of communication, who in a Milan full of turmoil and tension invented initiatives, designed revolutionary advertising campaigns, founded magazines such as Alfa Beta, in which Umberto Eco and Nanni Balestrini wrote, and La Gola, which first gave food an artistic image. Sassi had also founded the alternative record label par excellence of those years, Cramps Records, with which he would launch totally anti-commercial artists who would leave an indelible mark on the history of Italian music: Franco Battiato, Area, Eugenio Finardi and many others. Cramps’ fiftieth anniversary will be celebrated on April 6 with a concert-tribute at the Teatro Lirico Giorgio Gaber, “Cramps Records 1972-2022”, which will see on stage the different souls of the label, which also released pure avant-garde records (ci it will in fact be a tribute to John Cage), and punk (here represented by Skiantos and by the presenter of the evening, Jo Squillo, at the time lead singer of the female band Kandeggina Gang). There will be Patrizio Fariselli who will entirely reproduce the first legendary Area album, Arbeit Macht Frei, there will be Eugenio Finardi, Lucio Fabbri, Carlo Boccadoro, Andrea Tich, in short, it will be a celebration in grand style of an artistic epic that had the city in Milan of reference, cradle of cultural events of international importance. Here Gianni Sassi founded Milano Suono and Milano Poesia, in which personalities such as Yoko Ono and Lawrence Ferlinghetti participated for ten editions, here, at the Arena, the great concert dedicated to the memory of Demetrio Stratos, singer of Area who had just passed away, was held in 1979 , which was attended by all the major artists of the time. Here, at Parco Lambro, the various editions of the legendary Festival Del Proletariato Giovanile were held, organized by the magazine Re Nudo, which, surprisingly, is back today in bookshops (not on newsstands) where it is already present with the first issue, in a new edition, and will be released quarterly. To celebrate the multifaceted figure of Gianni Sassi, a documentary is also being produced: “Gianni Sassi, the eye, the ear, the throat”, directed by Roberto Manfredi. The Gianni Sassi Walk, officially named this morning, crosses, not by chance, the street dedicated to Demetrio Stratos, particularly linked to him by all the affinities and differences that we can imagine there were, fifty years ago, between two brilliant and innovative minds like them two, in that Milan, the cradle of the counterculture, which today is finally recognized as a culture in all respects.