Page 59 - Studio International - June 1968

Below, Lucio Fontana Concetto spaziale, Below, Gianni Colombo Bottom, Getulio Alviani
painted copper, edition of 36 Acentric structuralization, Negative + positive 1966,
Publisher: Sergio Tosi white plexiglass with aluminium base, 8 x 4 in plastic on specular steel sheet, 13 x
edition of 100, Publisher: Deposito edition of 100, Publisher: Deposito

physical phenomena. In the former, as the
cylinders spin faster, their divided surfaces enforce
constant changes in our visual reading; the latter
is a hemisphere completed by its reflection in a
metal surface. These works deny not only the
validity of their structure, but also the validity of
our visual habits, proposing instead optical models
for a reading that is dependent on movement, and
providing, by their very existence, a critical re-
assessment of the relationship between two and
three dimensional vision, compromised vision, and
perceptive vision. Operations like these tend not so
much to organize or to create models for percep-
tion as to offer objective standards by which to
mark out the ground we have gained in the range
of our optical perception. There is now a company
producing mass-produced art objects for common
use, which work along these lines. So far they have
issued Doors made in plastic by Castellani,
Fontana and Marotta, which, instead of being
merely decorative, become elements in the spatial
structure of the room. They have also issued a
Ceiling by Paolo Scheggi and a Table by Franco
Angeli, the surface of which is transformed into a
reinvented half-dollar. Of the two means of diffus-
ing reproduced or multiplied works of art, through
the print which is to be perceived and through the
multiple which is designed for use, the latter,
which is more tactile and less optical, acts upon us
at the level of habit. The work of art, already
removed from the world of contemplation by
contemporary developments like the Environment
and the Happening, maintains its character as a
critical proposition. This critical proposition can
now be extended to reach a wide audience.
Daniela Palazzoli