Page 56 - Studio International - October 1966

Commentary from Milan by Gillo Dorfles

The present situation in Italian

painting

In recent years Italian painting and sculpture have not the phenomenon of Pop art, which in the United States
developed very differently from painting and sculpture in represents something deeply felt, whereas in Europe it
other European countries. Cultural exchanges are so represents only a fashionable reaction.
rapid, information so widely disseminated, that no art not However, it is worth recalling how, in the immediate
entirely provincial can hope to retain those national post-war period, Italy was for some time in the fore-
characteristics which even fifty years ago would have ground of the international art scene by virtue of her
constituted its essential flavour. Nonetheless some regional major achievements in architecture and industrial design.
traits do still make themselves felt—one need only instance In industrial design in particular her achievements had a
marked influence on other European countries, especially
Grazia Varisco
Luminous and variable theme England. The Italians themselves are not fully aware of
1962-64 the national prestige earned by—to mention only two
names —Nizzoli, creator of the Olivetti typewriter, and
Pininfarina, designer of automobile coachwork.
Unfortunately the gulf between private activities (even
those of great industrial combines) and public ones (those
of central and local government) seems unbridgeable. In
private circles (among artists, collectors, art-dealers,
avant-garde reviews and cultural groups), cultural in-
terests are infinitely more advanced than in any public
sphere. And it is particularly unfortunate that central and
local government bodies and the national Press are almost
wholly uninterested in artistic matters. This is one reason
why there are practically no museums of modern art in
Italy and, with very few exceptions, no chairs of modern
art in our universities.
While our architecture and industrial design, at least for
a period, have had both national and European influence,
Paolo Scheggi this is not true of painting and sculpture. Apart from
Red curve and reflected area certain isolated figures like Fontana, Burri, Capogrossi
set between two surfaces 1963
and Pomodoro, who have had some réclame abroad, no
great movement of the past twenty years (`l' informel' , Pop
art, action-painting, Op art, etc.) originated in Italy; all
have had to be imported from abroad—tachisme from
France, action-painting and Pop art from America.
Only three Italian artists can be considered precursors
of movements later developed elsewhere—Munari, Fon-
tana and Baj. The first, creator of 'useless machines',
mobiles, and kinetic art-forms, was represented at the
Venice Biennale; the second, founder of the `spatialist
group, and creator of monochromes and 'object-paint-
ings' long before other European and American artists,
won the premier Italian award at the Biennale; the third,
Baj, pioneered that branch of grotesque art which makes
use of rubbish and waste-materials and later triumphed
in Pop art.
The influence of these three on the younger generation
is obvious to anyone looking back on the recent artistic
scene: much of the work of our film-makers—`Group T',
and 'Group .N', Mari and Alviani—derives from Munari;
the 'objectivist' school, including Castellani, Bonalumi