Tribute to Traditions

by Fabrizio Ruggiero

In visual art, the word “polyptych” describes a painting composed of multiple panels forming a unified whole. In Tribute to Traditions: Unity in Cultural Diversity, twelve elements converge into a single conceptual and symbolic structure.

First exhibited in Rome as an eighteen-meter continuous work, and later reconfigured across multiple walls in New York and Cameroon, the polyptych reveals its flexible nature: a work that adapts to space while preserving its unity.

The question of what defines “contemporary art” remains open. Some argue that institutional validation determines artistic status; others emphasize the experiential dimension — the capacity of a work to generate perception, sensation, and meaning.

As Marcel Duchamp wrote, “the observer makes the painting.” Art emerges not only from the object itself, but from the relationship it establishes with the viewer.

In this sense, the polyptych operates as a symbolic field — a system of signs that mediates between everyday perception and deeper layers of human experience.

The work has been exhibited in major institutional contexts — from the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome to the National Arts Club in New York — before finding its permanent location at the National Museum of Cameroon.

These contexts confirm its status as both an artistic and social object: a work situated within history, yet open to interpretation.

The concept of “tradition” is central. Traditionally understood as transmission across generations, it is often challenged by modernity, which privileges rupture, innovation, and the pursuit of the new.

Yet, as Baudelaire observed, art is composed of two dimensions: the transient and the eternal. True artworks exist beyond fashion, retaining a timeless quality.

Tribute to Traditions embodies this duality — at once contemporary and timeless.

From a classical perspective, the work reflects Aristotle’s “Four Causes”: the originating vision, the formal conception, the material realization, and the final purpose.

The project began with Idanna Pucci’s vision — an act of cultural mediation inspired by the historical encounter between Makoko Iloo and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza.

A dream transformed this vision into a clear formal image, activating the creative process of the artists of the Poto-Poto School in Brazzaville.

In a contemporary context dominated by individualism, the collective authorship of the polyptych is remarkable. The artists developed a shared visual language, subordinating individual style to a unified narrative.

The composition is structured through networks of lines, figures, and symbols that dissolve conventional hierarchies, allowing all elements to coexist within the same visual field.

History and myth intertwine, generating a space where representation becomes symbolic cosmology.

Modernity and tradition coexist within the work, reflecting the dual condition of contemporary life — continuity and rupture, memory and transformation.

In this context, “unity in cultural diversity” emerges not as an abstract ideal, but as a concrete visual and symbolic proposition.

The polyptych suggests that coexistence is not achieved through uniformity, but through the recognition of difference as part of a shared whole.