A painter without paintings

Rinaldo Rasa,
Diptych for incoming autumn, 2016
Meaning of the diptych and acknowledgments.
This work is composed with two sides. The right one is the original painting (incidentally is an autumnal or springtime figure) in acrylic on paper surrounded by charcoal. The left one is the same but it is a printing product of the previous. Some lines are lost, of course, never mind I think it is a stand-alone. Some kind suggested by Raushenberg’s Erased De Kooning done without the eraser.
If you need title to a painting it’s not worth doing it.
My tribute to ”Rauschenberg’s erased De Kooning”.

Rinaldo Rasa
Walkin a venetian calle (calle de le burchiele)
digitalImage of acrylic on paper
Commentary to the painting :
Not many factories in Venice, one was in Rio de le Burchiele. This gofferie is a remembrance of past time. When the world was more and more young (but not happier).
Rinaldo Rasa,
Scratchin’ the impossible
digital Image, acrylic on paper
Commentary :
These geometric lines are the essence of rationalism, the esprit of thinking. Anyway they show the three steps into stupidity, first red (the error), second blue (the illusion) and third yellow (the foolishness). Of course without reason no freedom although the thinking in itself is beyond the real world. The lines printed on the impossible figure, almost in casual way, are symbolic.
Rinaldo Rasa,
Grapevine leaf ( a song for autumn )
misto watercolor
Commentary to the painting
In these days of early autumn. The air smells of burned leaves and faintly cool weather. The remembrance of the time when I was a young schoolboy just back from the summer holidays. A leaf of grapevine picked up from the sunny garden, maybe the last sunny afternoon, who knows?
Painting the autumn is in some way a really mood of our soul, perhaps the true image of our soul. Where have gone the warmth and the daylight? Great respect to Robert Crumb, a cartoonist but first of all a great artist and also a poet.
Dear aficionados, I am glad to refresh the remembrance of him with one of his best drawings “Sheer art!!”.

Rinaldo Rasa,
Victory Over The Chaos
pencil, acrylic on paper
Commentary
One of my fav painters is Giorgio De Chirico. It was almost forty years ago I see de visu some his paintings in an exhibit in Venice. I was impressed by his melange of classicism and avant-garde, the statue of ancient greek which wears black sunglasses. But my heart was for his a bunch of paintings in black and white dated 1968 made by a shaking lines. From these uncertain way a figure appears thru the unknown.
Another suggestion for this drawing called “victory over the chaos” is a masterpiece exposed in Guggenheim collection. It is called “La torre rossa” (The red tower). Simply fascinated!
Rinaldo Rasa
Untitled ideograms
felt-tip, pencil, red ink on paper
Commentary
It’s a strange world. From the forest toward plains. Ideograms from a distant place, a locus where the language is in fieri. The border between the order and chaos, the border where there are the trills of unknown beings. Those faint sparrows, those chickens waiting for a shelter from the coming winter. Cheep enclosed in frames.
Rinaldo Rasa
Green on grey
leaf, acrylic on paper laced with chlorophyll water
Commentary
The photography had had a meaning in the history of painting. Its tecnique reveals the surface of the materials; it reveals the springtime of the images. Those instances are the ultimate end of the image. The signature of known carried to the sublime, the selfie of the Nature.
The “green on grey” talks about of a different side of Art: the phénomène. It’s a natural ready made (not a Marcel Duchamp’s wheel of bycicle gathered by the pavement but a leaf). The painting shows the ribs of a hand, ‘I wish walking with you’.

Rinaldo Rasa
Stump

acrylic on paper
Commentary
An empty chair. Where is the touch of somebody? The seat-back murmurs alone in the room. The light of afternoon in October.
As Jack Kerouac said, ‘I want to be consider a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday’.
Rinaldo Rasa
Somebody is on the paper
( document of artist been taped )
blue and black ink, ball point, felt pen
Commentary
Reading ‘Those barren leaves’ gave me a chance for opening the door of perception on the vanity of passed centuries.
The past of the Humanities in the European countries seems to be the Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, an heavy luggage but too much ridiculous. Aldous Huxley in some lines I quote by memory, ‘Why acclaiming the Ancient Arts? Those statues, those mosaics depicting divers in pool or athlets. Why? I reckon today the same artist paints a sporting champion or a baseball player, isn’t it? I think that decadence of the Western Culture is there and here.’
Monday October 3, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
Sketch (After Hirosighe)

watercolor on paper
Commentary
Hirosighe was a painter printing artist. Walking thru the Japan he collected many sketches, he subsequently printed some of these. The printing was made by woodblocks , a lot of woodblocks once for a color once for the other and so on.
I think the sketches are wonderful they suggested me a watercolor. The original one is below and it was title ‘The Lady with small bird’.
Tuesday October 4, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
behind the four square

printed acrylic painting, tape, pencil on paper
Commentary
Polygons with four sides was a great work by Kazimir Malevich, my beloved suprematist painter of Revolutionary Russian Soviet (1917-1991). Neither saints nor madonnas only simple geometric models. The vision of a world without the weight of the gravity. Communist spaces in the infinite. Space crafts. Behind the geometric figure there it’s a peasant, a caveat.
Wednesday October 5, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
Ottobrata (an italian indian summer in october )
acrylic on paper, digital image
Commentary
The light, the sun in those days of early October shines thru the city, thru the houses, thru the crowd. The light of this month is superb as in early March, the same light that promises springtime now promises autumn. The firsts cold days are a warning but people still dancing in the light time.
Thursday 6 October, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
Paper and Stick
watercolor on paper, digital image
Commentary
Alas the street art is now something of commercial (except, maybe, Banksy until he’s an unknown artist). What happened? This a tribute to street art. The palette is a wall and a small stick is the paintbrush which performing the traits on the watercolor layed on the paper. (Art brut à la Jean Dubuffet, yes of course). For the title : it’s a remembrance of Dylan Thomas “Paper & Sticks” poem.
Friday October 7, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
U frammentato autunno 1969
(fragmented U)
digital photo from my private collection
oil on canvas
Commentary
It was the autumn of 1969. I was to chose my future between my two big passions: arts and politics. One was for the Accademia of Beaux Arts or Sociology. I thought that my myopia does not match a good artist career (of course this was a wrong thought seen with the eyes of past). During following years no other work of painting. The “fragmented” was put in the garage with another artistic effort. What I need to explain about this painting? It was painting in two weeks between october and november 1969. And it saved itself for almost 50 years from the dumpster garbage. A painting so long-lived must have a meaning or a story. Not a short story.
Saturday October 8, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
nuvole
(painting three dreamed clouds on late summer at the end of my adolescence)
oil on canvas, summer 1969
document of artist digital photographed
Commentary
It is the “another”, the second painting of the autumnal 1969 diptych. It is the second artistic effort. I do not like very much colors. My paintings despite their colors are thoughts in a monochrome feeling. Why monochrome? It is an unione between opposite in one. maybe the best monochrome is black or if you like white. Anyway monochrome doesn’t mean black and white. I think you see a painting it is always in a given color hence changing color from a painting to another etc. Of course it is not a weird meaning at least for the painter himself.
Back to “nuvole” (clouds). Yoy know at that time I was really a bit worried for choosing my future. Ok, once during nite I dreamed about colored clouds in the same way they are on the right up of the painting. Clouds in ancient european history of are symbols for birds. And by the birds are given forecast for future.
The figure in the middle is (of course) a remark to my beloved Giorgio De Chirico. One of the De Chirico painting I like very much is the “Guillaume Apollinaire” wearing black sunglass. This means that art is a bit disturbing as black sunglass is a bit scary. In my painting the figure is fragmented and without visage, an empty face white color is the same meaning of the symbol of the black glass.
Sunday October 9, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
Untitled Outlandish
acrylic on paper
Commentary
A body without organs, an angel, born in the Land of the Painting.
Monday October 10, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
postcard
acrylic + ink on paper ( digitisation )
Commentary
Those old postcard, written in a sketchy handwriting with some drawing made with a pen or pencil figuring of a sun shining expressing the season, or the clouds.
Beautiful works of art naive. Nowadays none draw a sun or the feeling about the going of seasons, or the feeling od your own day passing. People bent on smart phones clicking and send electronic emoticons as they were in a supermarket of the mind.
Tuesday October 11, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
Hades
black ink shed on photographic paper
Commentary
Across the past century images of the souls. It is launching the shadows on the paper. Segments, curved segments are coming as the birth of the souls of past. It is difficult to recognize …. maybe Hades is the world of the shadows because the Paradise is just here …. vainly I seek the loved faces …. my dear Father, my dear Mother, my dear Brother …. and all the angels advise me to be as happy as possible in this World because no other world is possible.
Spots on the paper …. they become Art.
Wednesday October 12, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
the arlésienne
acrylic, pencil on small cardboard
Commentary
How telling about the paintings? From the background tangled lines many times a figure asks to be represented….I know that all what we can do it was already done (and maybe better) by the past painters. I think about the Raushenberg’s “erasing De Kooning”, why a great artist (of course I like very much Raushenberg) wishes to erase a work of art of his friend? Why not erase Van Gogh?
From the grey lines is out the arlésienne asking us “please, do not erase me”….yes the ancient paintings thru a peculiar way tell us “do not erase me”. Perhaps this the meaning of the paintings. None of them is alone. When you have a pencil the drawing in itself talks you about to the meaning of your working.
Friday October 14, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
the sketches
doubled-sided ink on paper
Commentary
How the ideas got me? It is a mixture of logics, poetry and…. certainly painting. Some figures of the thought.
Saturday October 15,2016
Rinaldo Rasa
the meaning of art
digitalised pictures cut from newspaper august 1999
Commentary
Always fascinated by the “wanted”.
These pictures on the newspaper rather than on a wall or on a tree in the Wild west mithology. As said the philosopher (Hegel) the reading the newspaper (or a digital paper) is the secular prayer of the modern man.
O, société du spectacle!
Sunday October 16, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
self-portrait
acrylic and ink on white cardboard
Commentary
A white surface sees me. A trying to art phenomene (or art brut).
Monday October 17, 2016
for the
Harbour front
by
Rinaldo Rasa
the flying fish
acrylic on paper
Commentary
It is generally agreed that our genesis was from the sea to the earth. And the evolution is done. But the flying fish says that it always a chance to become a sky inhabitant…the monochrome of the sea and the sky is such a promise.
This painting is suggested by Melanie at and dedicated to.
Tuesday October 18, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
tree in autumn
acrylic on paper, digitalised image by the author
Commentary
These are the days when leaves are becoming yellow. A tree of pomegranate in a sunny day hosts the chirping migrant birds. This vision surprises the painter. The weather is like an april day.
Wednesday Ocotber 19, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
the colors of my revês on tuesday april 21, 2015
acrylic on paper, digitalised image by the author
Commentary
All of us as dreamers we are building a world…. and we wake up again another world…. both world are shining the light of a sun…. in the real world it is the light of the sun… afterward also the land of the dreamer glows but whatever I can think : what kind of light is in the dream?
This painting is suggested by a question by Marcel Proust who was thinking about the colors and dreams.
Thursday October 20, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
Composition on October 21 2016
acrylic on paper
Commentary
I am back to my early style of painting. I have the pencil in my hand and he draws almost the same shapes. A refrain drawn in with little differences. I recognize myself again in all my paintings. A sort of ‘hello!’ , back again.
My style is spatialism.
Friday October 21, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
metempsychosis

acrylic on cardboard glued on prepared paper
Commentary
The cockroach had weeping in his room. The door was opened and a hand throw some apples against his body. One of the apples injuring him on his side. He produced a faint groan.
One of the best descriptions of the expressionism.
Saturday October 22, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
suprematist composition as part of a didactics of painting, spring 2014
misto, color fragments cutted and glued on squared grid paper
Commentary
This work was for didactics. I tried to show how to make a suprematist painting. During the Soviet Revolution the great Russian artist Kazimir Malevich was thinking a way to explain to the people the theory of Art. He called this Art as Suprematism.
The experience of suprematism art was almost brief. In 1926 the Soviet of Leningrad (САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУ́Р) shut down the Statal Institute of Fine Arts because it became “an abbey for fools”.
This composition is an homage to Malevich.
Sunday October 23, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
blackbird (the young)
acrylic on paper
Commentary
The black color sometime is associated with unpleasant events, at least in the western culture. I disagree. Color are just color, monochrome color.
Anyway in my memory of childhood black is associated to the crows. On morning the ravens of the mountains are for awaking the village with his voice exactely matching the spirit of mountains. Not chirping but exactely the sounds for mountain people.
Here in the city the blackbird is a similar bird to crow but he is now tamed and instead of crackling he sounds a nice whistle (like a Miles Davis trumpet). I like them. The painter becomes a blackbird.
Monday October 24, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
daily routine (2015)
black ink on grid paper ”gingham”-like /didactic/
Commentary
Out of the window bare trees, the winds of November are thru the branches, the yellow, the color of sun sets down of another day….the refrain, daily. O where is gone the fog of our youth?
A knock on my mind, fog of past times….ideograms instead of words.
Tuesday October 25, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
ie pense,donc ie suis
acrylic on glossy paper digitalised image
Commentary
The weather in those year close to November is just going to bad time. On early morning is so dark, sometime there is sunshine but for instants.
Time and Space and Mind.
Why our body doesn’t made by diamonds? René once said.
Descartes is a gentle man like his thought, ‘I think hence I am’. Immortal. For you a dedication.
Wednesday October 26, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
rebirth
acrylic on paper /digitalised image/
Commentary
I picked a book written by Dylan Thomas during 1970 for two reasons 1) I confused Dylan Thomas thinking he was Bob Dylan, 2) captured by the fantastic cover painted by Jackson Pollock. My book is picture below

it is the Italian translation of ‘quite early one morning’.
I thank Bob Dylan and Jackson Pollock that induced me to reading a great english writer.
But now least but not last the meaning of the painting rebirth. It is a photo for my mind

photograph by John Deakin © Vogue
Thursday October 27, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
incomplete
acrylic on paper /digitalised image/
Commentary
A lot of white among the gaps. Dots scattered.
What do you see? Something meaningless.
Friday October 28, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
the muse
acrylic on paper
Commentary
How some lines become a painting. ‘Le muse inquietanti’ di Giorgio De Chirico. The mind of the handwriting like dreams after the wake up. A disorienting day to you. The muse holds togheter the lines.
Here the draft of ‘the muse’ before it
Saturday October 29, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
selfportrait april 2015
acrylic on paper /document of artist digitalised image by the author/
Commentary
Cherry trees blooming, under the trees a person seat. Sky quite grey, still cold wind. The painter look at this scene like a japanese mask.
Sunday October 30, 2016
for
by
Rinaldo Rasa
diwali in europe
misto / acrylic, watercolor on paper / digitalised image /
Commentary
Sometime celebrating a day is important. I know that diwali means the victory of light over the dark. Here in the European countries the month of November is the beginning of the decrease of light. So I was a bit perplexed.
But today forenoon I heard a chirping of bird. In my garden the first bird with his chirping. He was a Erithacus rubecola ( robin ) maybe from the North Europe to stave off the cold.
Usually I take the digital camera for a photograph. But now, better I make a painting.
It is dedicated to the diwali for a good reason. For the robin here in the South of Europe there’s more light than in North.
I tried to write in hindi the words that I suppose mean “Happy Diwali” copied from
https://rekhasahay.wordpress.com
and dedicated to with thanks.
Tuesday November 1, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
the outlandish
acrylic on paper / digitalised image by the author /
Commentary
This painting is for Gilles Deleuze, the philosopher of the May 1968. Tomorrow will be twenty one years from his passing out of this earth. He analized the body without organs, the outlandish fact of becoming human beings. It is not so self-evident because you have to be in border of the world for being really human. The meaning of philosophy is getting a space at the border of the world in order to maintain the meaning of a good society in opposition to the oppression or repression of the bad society.
What is the meaning of a painting? It is the freedom of images from the underground. The self creation of a painting-morphic image that was at the border, a sort of immigrant that is included in the realization of the work. The nomadic within the thought.
Great respect to Gilles. / 1925-1995 /
Thursday November 3, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa /as photographer/ ,
” the face out of the wall “
photograph taken in Venice, November 1, 2016
Commentary
I have taken this picture in Dorsoduro near the Punta alla Dogana. In this spot there are Peggy Guggenheim and Emilio Vedova both museums of modern art. It is named ” quartier of artists “. But I do not like this name because sounds a bit commercial. (Anyway the Guggenheim museum is great and for this I thanks Peggy.)
Well I met a street artist that was near the entrance of the Guggenheim and he was painting some gaffer’s on cardboard with acrylic colors. In a hurry he painted a small sight of imaginary spot of Venice. In brief he was surrounded by paintings.
I asked him,’ What are these paintings?’
‘ My dentist likes my paintings’, he replies.
‘ Ok.But it is a bit commercial. ‘, I told him.
‘ Twenty euros for a painting.’, he said.
‘ But your paintings are for money.’, I told.
‘ I see. You are kidding but I am working’, he said.
Yes today the last person for speaking about evrything is the professional one in his field. You can not speak of art with a person who calls himself an artist. It is sad but true.
The photograph I took it is showing a face of an ” amoretto ” (a cupid). Some ancient palozzos in Venice have marmoreal faces that are made for scaring the passer-by. This one is not as the others. And I like the color of the wall. This is a red named venetian red.
Friday November 4, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
the breezy

acrylic on paper /digitalised image/
Commentary
Morning on autumn, grey sky, faint wind and rain, a taste of winter. The trees are leafless. At the tramway, it is late.
I look at the tree up myself, the bark with musk, the sun hidden behind the clouds, the appearance of a sentiment.
Saturday November 5, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
early morning fog
acrylic, pencil on paper /digitalised image by the author/
Commentary
A window is like an eye at the world. All around it’s the light of a city submerged. The autumnal fog is thrilling, it’s something like dream. Can’t see the dawn but the sound of the city is talking that a new day.
A rectangle filled with light.
Sunday November 6, 2016
dedicated to
https://mariannailcorsodellecose.wordpress.com/
Rinaldo Rasa
monica vitti (a homage to, for her birthday)
cut-up from newspaper sunday august 30 1992
digitalised by rinaldo rasa
Commenting
Browsing the memories of the past time I captured by this page of my diary of 1992. And , of course, there is not one reason but two.
The first is a homage to the blog site of Marianna (and a great thank)
https://mariannailcorsodellecose.wordpress.com/
that remember me the 85th birthday of Monica Vitti (and this is the second reason).
Monica Vitti associated to Michelangelo Antonioni is the icona of the years between fifties and sixties representing a great season of the italian cinema.
Sunday November 6, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
cyclist
acrylic, charcoal /digitalised by the author/
Commentary
When the working class woke up 5 in the morning, when the planet was populated of human beings, many years ago. Under those light, yellow light of lamp, face of human beings. The machinery was still controlled by humans not yet by robots. At the level crossing a lot of cyclists waiting for the transit of the train. The haze of the new morning.
In memory of the October 99 years ago.
Monday November 7, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
self portrait (phenomena)
acrylic on paper /digitalised by the author/
Commentary
Another myself comes from green, from the ground and under the sky. Looking at the white clouds and the leaves.
Tuesday November 8, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
what’s up ?
acrylic on paper
Commentary
It is a strange world that a robot is surrounded by chickens.

Wednesday November 9, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
yellowish
felt tip pen on acrylic background /digitalisded by the author/
Commentary
Sometime I reckon that images of an object are not conscious that they are not in the space neither in the time. It ensures that anyway you draw a face it becomes quickly a bit sad. I tried to add a yellow background but it does not change the way.
Thursday Novembre 10, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
suprematist composition
black ink on paper /digitalised by the author/
Commentary
Back to the fragmented world of images. Day after day you have to sum a small backyard to another small courtyard. Lines that are tracks for growing small rectangles. Geometric nature of the things. It is civilization, anyway.
Friday November 11, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
who is speaking to whom?
acrylic on paper /digitalised by the author/
Commentary
Language is stubborn, tangled matters but you know, you are out anyway. What made them so smart? You a revolting like a worm in the ground after a rainy day. I am an imbecile, they think I am so. And maybe they are right. You rise a finger to ask a question but none see your finger : everyone look at the moon. It’is a mess.
I have my hands on the table, it is a long story and maybe the light is off into this fucking world. And maybe since today until the next century an another myself think the same thing?
Yes truth is stubborn.
Saturday November 12, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
it is a day when the sun rises
acrylic and charcoal on paper /digitalised by the author/
Commentary
The leaves have left the trees in these last days of Autumn. Things are without covers, the exposed naked on the things, greyish all around the passage. A close sun of winter is rising. Clouds are like leaves that cover the things avoiding the forenoon.
The outlandish being.
Thursday November 17, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
1984=2015
acrylic on paper /digitalised by the author/
Commentary
Surrounded by automats. Our eyes see the reality thru the media. Can somebody paint reality?
Friday November 18, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
portrait of painter
acrylic on newspaper framed by paper jointing tape / digitalised document of artist 2015 /
Commentary
The series of portraits where there isn’t really a head but only eyes and lips. The nose is a line that indicates a here and another here. The essence of a portrait of this kind of expression it is the need of a frame made of a tape of glued paper with on four lines with charcoal traits. Is it me ? Or a portrait of a portrait?
Why a piece of newspaper? This self-portrait was put in an envelope then carried to the light as operations of extraction from the earth. The smell of soil just damp when a nose of childhood detects a presence of an unidentified self.
Saturday November 19, 2016 (toward the end of the day)
Rinaldo Rasa
handless outlandish
acrylic on paper / digitilased by the author / november 25, 2016
Commentary
Body in shape of ideogram. It is both the origin of language and body. The outlandish is a body as image because the language it is in itself image. Always surprised that I deleted the hands and foot of the body, the lost of hands are the background, a lost world. Go wave to a world without hands.
Friday November 25, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
mr tambourine
acrylic on paper / digitalised by the author /
Commentary
What are doing these? Step by step walk the sidewalk shadowed by the sun some mechanized beings are thinking that life is on their hands. Resplendent egotism, tinkling of the voice through metallic incrustations. Everybody seems knowing its identity. Who are me?
Saturday November 26, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
suspense (on sunday afternoon)
acrylic on paper / digitalised by the author /
Commentary
Even a thought , even a creak, even a smooth figure. A black spot surprises the eye. Smile yellow the smiling joins to the better without surprise with eye just dried after the inner wash of my soul.
A bit disturbing. A thought is a drawing. A bit disturbing.
Sunday November 27, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
tangled composition , 2015
acrylic on paper / digitalised by the author /
Commentary
Those views are so jacketed in a frame of expectings amid a symbol. They are tangled like beings from another space. He, man! You are ours companion. Descending the stairs of the life as a Duchamps’ just ringing the bell at your home door. Simple mask of greyish, you got off the presence of colors behind the background.
The gnawing of this tuesday afternoon is a twinkling sunset.
Tuesday November 29, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
do you?
acrylic on paper / digitalised by the author /
Commentary
Apprentice of grass and rust, there are around canned beans and the smell of rubbish. This past time when smoking was grateful to everyone and those alcoholic years, ham sandwiches and beer. The sloppiness in a gone age.
Thursday December 1, 2016
Rinaldo Rasa
bright black tinge
black ink on paper / digitalised by the author /
Commentary
Jumping out from that saturday when a guitar sounds so loud then you as young boy you stop playing ball listen to the sound of a new age.
Saturday December 3, 2016

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Friday (the day before the last day of) December 2016
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