Page 54 - Studio International - January 1968

ITALY new figuration followed a course similar to that in propos1t10n in terms of signs and signals (Baru­
Immediately after the war, the development of
chel lo, d' Angelo, Simonetti, Cavaliere).
commentary by France. The progressive impoverishment of the The autobiographies all resemble one another,
Daniela Palazzoli vocabulary of abstraction went hand in hand with but the ways of relating them, as well as the things
an intense interest in the contingent and immedi­
they would like to demonstrate, are all different.
ate. These were the years of Sartre and Existential­ Autobiography is always a question of presenting
ism, Fautrier and Dubuffet-and, in Italy, of oneself as an example; Adami presents his private
Burri and Fontana. The return to form and its life as seen through a certain kind of linguistics.
content was either a matter of accumulation The figures, constricted into a three-dimensional
(Pierre Restany and his New Realism), or of narra­ space, are projected towards the interior and de­
tive (Gassiot Talabot's Dail), Mythologies). The formed, not in terms of a chiaroscuro, as with the
themes were those of daily life- common objects, Cubists, but in terms of clotted lines that mark the
junk, the urban landscape-Rotella's paste-up limit of real space and allude to a perception of
advertisements, the billboards and trademarks of time. The need to deal with sensation accounts for
the 'School of Rome' and, finally, the comic strips. the need to find new paths, to diverge fom lin­
r
The literal development of the .image came to be guistic conventions-even the Cubists' advanced
accompanied by its use as literature-the succession conventions.
What goes on in the visual arts in Italy today of events in time, their allusive existence in space­ The first solution is material. The images always
stems from a situation dating back to about 1960, with the image not so much a representation in remain themselves. They play the parts of peace
when Italian artists first found themselves faced terms of an iconography as a presentation and and war, history and fantasy. These are the
with the choice of lining up with pop art, primary organization of itself in terms of a particular kind characters of Tadinji's Illuminism, or Volpini's
structures, and the other things Americans like to of reading. This can be a re-reading either of one's big-hearted, slightly art nouveau monsters. There
do, or recreating a European alternative based on own biography (Adami, Tadini, Pasotti, Volpini), is a renunciation of character in favour of fittings,
different social and political-as well as cultural­ of the social context (Baj, Persico), or of personal furnishings, dress. From generals, Baj passed to
contexts. Roughly speaking, it's possible to say environment (Pardi, Arico, Marzot). Then again, medals, and fom the 'beautiful people' to details
r
that Rome-because of a certain predisposition for it can entirely lose the aspect of reference and be­ of their dress. With Cavaliere, Baruchello, and
immediate experience-opted for the first, Milan come a model of action. In this case there is no Simonetti, narrative ceases to be theatre and
and Turin for the second. longer a narrative in terms of images; rather, a becomes process and finally structure. If the first

Above Cetulio Alviani Environment 1967
Aluminium
Galleria Naviglio, Milan

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