Page 48 - Studio International - April 1972

9 Carlo Battaglia metal, the elements often having the air of being
Linx 1971
Oil and tempera on canvas found objects, and given a new significance by
too x 30o cm ironic titles.
Photo : Mario Carrieri, Milan Almost the opposite of these sculptors is
Gianni Colombo. His work with light and
movement is as intangible as one could imagine
but impregnated with a strong character and an
aesthetic aim that is conditioned but not satisfied
by the mere use of technological means. His most
successful works are environments whose space
is delimited by moving illuminated strings,
reproducing effects that are suggested by the best
Op painting.
The stream that flows through the work of
many artists is Dada and Surrealism, and here
the Galleria Schwarz is the epicentre, for one is
dealing more with seismic forces than simple
currents. Enrico Baj and Sergio Dangelo are
names that immediately spring to mind, and it
must not be forgotten that Mesens was a
frequent visitor to Milan and had more than
one show there. Pistoletto in Turin, at first on
the borders of Pop art with his mirrors and now
particular gallery come together partly through example of Gib Pomodoro, who arrives at his on the borders of Conceptual art and of
sympathy for each other's aims and partly sculptural surfaces through the building of a happenings with his more recent activity, is an
because of meeting regularly and exchanging canvas negative from which he obtains a plaster example of where this surrealist influence
views—it is common practice for the artists of a cast. Alviani, who lives in Udine in the reaches. Schwarz himself is active with his
gallery to drop by from time to time, and critics, mountainous north east perched on the extreme writing as well as with the shows of Arakawa,
too. Thus they acquire a common outlook. Many reaches of the industrial Triangle, works with Arman, César, Masson, Man Ray, Picabia and
of the artists of the Salone Annunciata, for brush-polished aluminium sheets, optically Schwitters among the international artists he
example, under the strong influence of Livio modifying the surface so that it seems, according handles, and Baruchello, Alick Cavaliere and
Marzot, followed lines of discovery and to how the light arrives and whence it is Spadari among the local. But the works of
experiment that took them by way of a local observed, to be a hovering complex curved plane, Roberto Crippa, Bergolli, Lucio Del Pezzo,
interpretation of minimalist art into fields of advancing and receding. Bemporad, a much even Tadini and Adami all owe something to
expression that might best be called conceptual; neglected artist with a distinguished achievement surrealist ideas. In addition Maurice Henry lives
while of the artists of the Studio Marconi, Baj behind him, has tended to act on his surface by a part-time in Milan and has shown two or three
and Del Pezzo particularly excepted, between repetition of small painterly motifs, always times at the Galleria Solaria, a few flights
Adami, Pardi, Tadini and even Dias there is a slightly varying in straggling uneven lines, that upstairs from Schwarz.
feeling of kindred aims, though not precisely came out of the all-overness of action painting The Galleria Vismara has been the site of a
defined. It is therefore not at all easy to present and anticipated some of the effects of Op art. series of shows celebrating the Milanese/
the work along stylistic or even ideological The sculpture of both Arnaldo and Giò Comasque abstractionism of the thirties. Manlio
trends. There are, however, some broad currents Pomodoro might be said to form part of this Rho and Fausto Melotti are still active and this
that sweep along, sometimes catching individual stream from Fontana, but other influences trend has also found some continuation in the
artists between two streams in a sort of private commingle in their work, separating them as work of Antonio Calderara. A different kind of
eddy. much from each other as from other artists. abstract structure is at the base of Rodolfo
One of these streams flows from the activity Andrea Cascella is another sculptor resident in Aricò's work, which has now reached massive
as much as from the work of the late Lucio Milan but he stands well outside any local proportions, in the field of the grouped shaped
Fontana, and takes in artists like Enrico trend, basing his work upon interlocking forms canvas exploiting the suggestions of isometric
Castellani, Agostino Bonalumi, Getulio Alviani, and textural contrast. Pietro Consagra, of and axonometric projection. Of other artists
and even Franco Bemporad, in the sense that Sicilian origin, living far from the Triangle, but associated with the Salone Annunciata, Emma
these artists have all been concerned with showing regularly at the Galleria Ariete, has has been closer to Marzot, and Cordioli to
surface modulation and modification that relates moved through a sculptural experience, in some Aricò., though initially even Marzot was
in some way or another to Fontana's slashed and ways akin to that of the Pomodoro brothers working on lines akin to those of Aricò.
pierced canvases. Castellani, latterly less starkly though formally different, from essentially flat A few other artists should be mentioned: the
than some years ago, and moving, too, from the surfaces to more articulated structures. Of this Brazilian Edival Ramosa, for one, with his vivid
simple rectangle to more shaped canvases and generation, too, is Lorenzo Pepe who has slowly plastic structures, moving away from totemic
from a simple to a more complexly generated abandoned the figurative, albeit stylized, for an evocation, without losing a 'presence' that saves
surface, has transformed his surfaces by abstraction that can stand up to the work just his work from an aridity his material might
protrusions and recessions obtained by pieces of cited. Pino Spagnulo is a much younger artist contribute; Cesare Peverelli, now only a visitor
wood behind the canvas and nails from the who has progressed from assemblage of to Milan, Mario Rossello, and Emilio Scanavino,
front, in a regular disposition across the surface. elements, sometimes on a grand scale, to more who all work in an area that each has conquered
They are monochrome, more often white, but formally restrained and geometrically simpler for himself from areas contingent to lyrical
sometimes a strong red or a deep blue. Bonalumi but much more sophisticated structures, split abstraction, Peverelli moving to a kind of
has aimed at a smoother, more sculptural hollow cylinders and incomplete open cubes landscape, Rossello towards a figurative
manipulation of the surface, avoiding the more balanced on one corner. Also from Apulia and stylization, and Scanavino to the representation
regular scatter-patterns of Castellani, and resident in Milan, Antonio Paradiso is a sculptor of a geometrical space marked out by a double
demonstrating more of a dependence on the of great interest, coupling together stone and system of contrasting codes. q
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