Lambda

Marco Silombria (Savona 1936 – Albisola 2014) was a graphic designer and a polyhedric Italian artist, who contributed with his work to the upcoming visual communication of the economic boom, as well as shaping the LGBTQIA+ civil rights visual protests which marked Italy between the ‘70s and ‘80s.

At a young age Silombria engages in figurative art as student of the painter Emilio Scanavino in Genova. Once he moved to Turin, in 1968 he established the associated studio CGSS with Silvio Saffirio, Pietro Gagliardi and Giorgio Caponetti. As art director, Silombria works for FIAT, Superga, Defonseca, Dixan, Riso Gallo, Zegna etc. In 1985 Silombria eventually leaves the graphic design world, in favour of painting and ceramic arts, withdrawing to Albisola (SV).

As a fil rouge that goes through his practice, the body theme can be identified within his professional, engaged and private works. Wherever its signatures appears is recognizable a reference, literal or metaphoric, to physicality, in any case a strong one. Its own is a fluid graphic experimentation on the body, that goes necessary through illustration, and then settles within graphic design, till it reaches the anthropomorphic typographical sign. The body becomes symbol, icon, graphic sign, an element as any other from which and on which to play on. Often the illustration gets to comes to transfigure the body into silhouettes, sometimes filled with patterns. As for the political militancy posters created for F.U.O.R.I. and Radio Radicale.

Silombria advocates for civil rights with a constant commitment: he was one of the founders of the homosexual liberation movement F.U.O.R.I. – Fronte Unitario Omosessuale Rivoluzionario Italiano. As art director, graphic designer and illustrator for the newspaper “Fuori!”, Silombria defines a personal style, sarcastic, pop e recognizable. He is the main interpreter of the symbolic and artistic-communicative revolution of the movement: he takes part in the creation of posters, flyers and all the print collaterals of the front mobilization. After five years, Fuori! editorial board splits: that’s how the magazine “Lambda” was born in 1976, in a period when F.U.O.R.I. groups were finding new balances between them. Silombria is the author of Lambda logo starting from the phonetic sign λ. The Greek character, as the initial of the verb Lùein (to loosen, to free), is adopted to all intents and purposes as a sign, symbol and gesture by F.U.O.R.I.: it runs through, unchanged in form, the entire commitment of Silombria production, as well as reproduced in parades, manifestos of other groups formed following the example of the first one in Turin, in congresses and wherever the movement of the sexual revolution front had taken root. It appears as an icon – inscribed in a hollow circular shape, surrounded by a strong stroke, surrounded by a strong stroke, integrated into the Fuori! publication logo. It is often used in a negative way, when superimposed on one of the other fundamental symbols of these years of mobilization, the pink triangle.

The sign λ becomes an identity on its own right with the formation of the homonymous magazine new editorial team, and the distancing from the original collective. Lambda, presents on issue one (November 1976) a clean typographical logo, the final vowel is extended, with a monolinear and rounded stroke lettering. Silombria resumes the phonetic sign unchanged in form, in negative, always inscribing it inside a circle, but full, defined by a horizontal linear geometric pattern this time. The icon is more complex, deeper and appears as predominant, standing out as a second level in the composition, and underlining the first "A" of "Lambda" almost like a shadow. The newspaper logo evolves into a game of anthropomorphic silhouettes that intertwine and typographical characters: from the 2nd number, released the following year (1977), human figures inhabit the characters, almost ornamental in the weightless capital letters, delimited only by the outline. After a few issues - from the 5th of the same year, the figures assume defined poses – different characters and different pairs of characters can be distinguished, which reconstruct the typographical characters restored "intact" by the shadow below. The figures are a solid spot of colour, standing out against the background. The reflected typography, an all caps without serifs or contrast and in perspective, presents the same geometric pattern of the circle - this time with vertical lines - in which the symbol λ had previously been inserted.

Almost a Chinese shadow game. A real anthropomorphic alphabet that remains in Silombria's repertoire as a resource to be exploited in the advertising materials created for the Marc Thilby brand in 1987. Here the fashion illustration, the dressed and accessorized body – unlike the sculptural and naked one used for Lambda , detailed and colored, reshapes the name of the signature. The same trick resolved in a parallel way, the body as a typographical sign that conveys different messages: on one hand the bursting forms and the hymn to the free bodies revolution; on the other, the dynamism of the fabrics and models, the slender and caricatural figures typical of the fashion illustration. Here too Silombria does not give up a reference, albeit fleeting, to the free body: if you look carefully it appears on the final grapheme of the last letter of the brand name, an "undressed" grapheme even if in a plastic and unnatural pose, like the rest of the figures.

Within the Lambda magazine context, the anthropomorphic alphabet remained in use until 1979, the year in which the original Lambda logo returned, which would remain unchanged in the issues of the New Series, until the publication closed in 1982.

Notes

1. Lambda (Λ, λ) or labda, according to its ancient Greek name, is the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, and is transliterated with the Italian letter L (elle). It is, with rho, a liquid consonant. Lambda magazine born, after the crisis of FUORI!, continues more autonomously on its own path, to be, as one of the many subtitles of the periodical says, "counterculture newspaper of the Gay Movement”.
2. The Greek symbol Lambda λ was originally chosen by the Gay Activists Alliance of New York in 1970. The GAA was a group that broke away from the larger Gay Liberation Front (the equivalent of our Gay Liberation Movement) in late 1969, six months after was founded, in response to the Stonewall uprising. Lambda soon became a quick way for members of the gay community to identify each other. When the GAA headquarters was set on fire, not only the building was lost, but also all the organisation's relationships and the movement itself; however, the symbol lived on. As early as December 1974, the lambda was officially declared the international symbol for gay and lesbian rights at the Gay Rights International Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Archives

• Archivi Fondazione Sandro Penna - FUORI! Via Santa Chiara, 1, 10122 Torino
• Il Centro di Documentazione Cassero Via Don Minzoni 18, 40121 Bologna
• Archivio Teatro Stabile Via Gioachino Rossini 12, 10124 Torino
• Centro Storico Fiat Via Gabriele Chiabrera 20, 10126 Torino
• Centro Studi Gruppo Abele Corso Trapani 91 b/95, 10141 Torino

Bibliography

• FUORI! 1971 – 2021. 50 anni dalla fondazione del primo movimento omosessuale in Italia curated by Roberto Mastroianni e Chiara Miranda, hopefulmonster editore, Torino October 2021
• Linea Grafica n.2 March-April 1976 curated by Grazia Schenone Garavoglia
• Idea Magazine: Special Issue – Designers in Italy, 1980, pp. 96-101
• Silombria curated by Paolo Levi, Giulio Bolaffi Editore, 2003 Exposition catalogue at Sala Bolaffi, Via Cavour 17, Torino, 26 September – 9 November 2003
• Marco Silombria, Dionysus in Love curated by Peter Weiermair, Tutti i santi edizioni, Innsbruck 2005
• Quaderni di Critica Omosessuale n.1 Catalogo dei periodici omosessuali italiani curated by Stefano Casi, Edizione Circolo Culturale XXVIII Giugno & Arci Gay, Bologna, June 1986

Thanks to hopefulmonster publisher, Maurizio Cagliuso archive manager at Fondazione Sandro Penna - FUORI!, Marco Cicolini owner of Libreria Antiquaria Piemontese, Pierangela Piazza from Centro Storico FIAT, and Anna Peyron from the Study Centre - library and archives of Fondazione Teatro Stabile di Torino.