Spatial Explorations
Spatial Explorations edited by / a cura di Francesco Tedeschi
Highlights from Intesa Sanpaolo Collection
Chairman Emeritus Giovanni Bazoli
Director Giorgio van Straten
Chairman Gian Maria Gros-Pietro
Cultural AttachĂŠ Paolo Barlera
Managing Director and CEO Carlo Messina Chief Governance Officer Paolo M. Grandi Chief Institutional Affairs and External Communication Officer Stefano Lucchini Head Officer Art, Culture and Historical Heritage Department Michele Coppola This exhibition is part of Progetto Cultura
We would like to thank Armando Varricchio Ambassador of Italy to the United States of America; Francesco Genuardi Consul General of Italy in New York; Fondazione Lucio Fontana
Spatial Explorations Istituto Italiano di Cultura 686 Park Avenue New York 23 January - 6 March 2019
Michele Coppola Head Officer Art, Culture and Historical Heritage Department Intesa Sanpaolo
The history, culture and artistic achievements that abound in Italy make ours a unique and extraordinary country. The artistic heritage of Intesa Sanpaolo represents so much beauty, retracing the most important moments in Italian art history, from the Attic vases to the last Caravaggio, to the great masters of the twentieth century like Boccioni, Fontana and Burri. Italy is home to many masterpieces; due to their universal value, they do not belong only to whomever possesses them, but they are for everyone, and whoever has them has the duty to share them, spread the word about them and give them new life. And it is with this belief, and renewing an Italian banking tradition with its roots in the Renaissance, that our Group has always been responsibly committed to art and culture and to enhancing the works it owns. In the heart of three cities, we opened the Gallerie d’Italia, Intesa Sanpaolo’s museums in Milan, Naples and Vicenza, and, as an international expression of our commitment, we have forged strong relationships with cultural institutions all over the world, with which we work to share ideas, initiatives and objectives in a profound way. An integral part of this vision is the friendship and collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, which is now housing a group of 23 works selected from the more than three thousand that make up the Bank’s collections of twentieth-century art. The exhibit, Spatial Explorations, presents to an international public four masterpieces by Lucio Fontana and the works of important artists 10 / 11
of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Manzoni and Castellani, exploring the theme of the relationship between space and painting. The works are part of the Cantiere del ’900 housed at the Gallerie di Piazza Scala, creating, through the relationship between our institutions, a synergy between Milan and New York and, in a broader horizon, between Italy and the United States. During this same period, two other works by Fontana from the Bank’s collection are on exhibit at the show that the Met Breuer is dedicating to the great artist, Lucio Fontana. On the Threshold. This link is further demonstrated by the recent exchange of two extraordinary paintings by Caravaggio between the Metropolitan Museum and our Gallerie d’Italia in Naples. This initiative offers a new, valuable occasion to convey, at home and abroad, the Bank’s dedication to their collections and the care in spreading the meaning and beauty of Italy’s cultural heritage, in tune with the aims of the Italian Cultural Institute. Intesa Sanpaolo, the largest Italian bank and one of the most important in Europe, grasps the weight of its role also in protecting and promoting the values that are at the basis of Italy’s national history and identity.
the young artists with whom he is then connecting, in the tireless research that describes him and defines that historical moment. His relationship with them extends from participating in their activities to encouragement by acquiring their works, to writing short speeches or testimonials that are published for certain exhibitions. Above of all, because of his vision aimed at overriding artwork as an object and an aspiration to overcome the confines of any rigid definition, he does not limit his action to the sphere of Spatialism. Within a rapidly evolving situation, Spatialism and the Nuclear Movement define the avant-garde in Milan in the 1950s. The meeting points between them are as much about the fact that many of the works produced in the name of one and the other are defined in informal terms, as they are about how they correspond to an atmosphere steeped in the hopes and fears of a time like the Cold War. In the same terms that they choose as group names and in the references that support them theoretically, as well as in their works, they seem to agree with the traits of an era looking towards interpreting the possibilities of an interpretation of the creative act as a search for the latest reasons for the transformations of material into a dimension of active space. Of the works that best represent the tensions and ideas of an art aimed at conquering the space as a metaphorical fact, yet closely tied to the images into which it is translated, a painting such as Spirali [Spirals] by Roberto Crippa effectively demonstrates the relationship between the process out of which the work is created – a continuous line drawn in the space of the canvas records a series of elliptical movements that get thicker in the center of the composition, creating virtual movement, where few “solid” elements, small circles created in primary colors, mark the space – and its belonging to a kind of movement like aerobatics, to which the artist, who had a pilot’s license, immediately refers. Where the lines of the Crippa’s “spirals” seem to concretely convey a direct exploration of the space as an act of phenomenological knowledge, through the “informal” practice of “grattage,” done with the back of the brush or other tool, Mario Deluigi, a Venetian Spatialist, works on surfaces that tend to be monochromatic or depict24 / 25
Enrico Baj Nuclear Landscape (detail) (dettaglio) 1951
Essays / Saggi
Emilio Scanavino Life in Space (detail) Vita nello spazio (dettaglio) 1960
26 / 27
ing a state of “emptiness,” in order to achieve the effect of an inner light, generating and fractionated, according to a perception of its role as a constructive form, of volume and space. Tancredi, working in the same Venetian environment, where along with Carlo Cardazzo’s support he was significantly encouraged also by Peggy Guggenheim, also starts by reflecting on the relationship between color and space, in conceiving his paintings through aggregating and arranging dots of color. These elaborate weaves, in a certain sense, recall the techniques of Divisionism, but in a connotation of open, continuous space, according to a qualification that approaches the attempts of contemporary American artists. The marks are arranged closely on the surface, producing an impalpable vision, of light and movement. On the side of visions that are more specifically “nuclear” in nature, the works by Baj and Dangelo, included in this show, both take shape as almost spontaneous representations within a space without dimensions, like the space of cosmic, night visions where the spots and the formal aggregations are defined through the relationship between action and invention, with some assonance with places and ideas of surrealist origin. Completing the first group of works is Emilio Scanavino’s canvas explicitly entitled Vita nello spazio [Life in Space]. The Ligurian artist, drawn into the orbit of Spatialism and into the Cardazzo brothers’ team, is also affected by the need to give a spatial connotation to the marks he draws on gray, almost monochrome, canvases, which define his painting in the late 1950s. The work contains traces of a piece written in ancestral characters, as if to be able to record the incunabola of a language intended to surpass the limits of time. In a different climate, in the 1960s, where the aspirations confusedly put forward at the beginning of the previous decade find themselves contending with the technological and material developments of a design culture, the reflection on space and its increasingly direct knowledge, in scientific terms as well, leads to new, previously unthinkable results. Fontana’s role continues, as an inventor and a trailblazer. After developing many other solutions, starting from Essays / Saggi
Works / Opere
44 / 45
Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) Spatial Concept, 1951
Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) Concetto spaziale, 1951
acrylic on paper glued on canvas 68 x 70 cm
acrilico su carta incollata su tela 68 x 70 cm
46 / 47
Works / Opere
Mario Deluigi (1901-1978) Untitled, 1953-1954
Mario Deluigi (1901-1978) Senza titolo, 1953-1954
mixed media on canvas 70 x 65.5 cm
tecnica mista su tela 70 x 65,5 cm
60 / 61
Works / Opere
Mario Deluigi (1901-1978) Untitled, 1953-1954
Mario Deluigi (1901-1978) Senza titolo, 1953-1954
mixed media on plastered panel 66.5 x 68.5 cm
tecnica mista su tavola, con preparazione a gesso 66,5 x 68,5 cm
62 / 63
Works / Opere
Enrico Castellani (1930-2017) White Surface, before 1968
Enrico Castellani (1930-2017) Superficie bianca, ante 1968
acrylic on introflexed and extroflexed canvas 120 x 120 cm
acrilico su tela introflessa ed estroflessa 120 x 120 cm
74 / 75
Works / Opere
Arturo Vermi (1928-1988) Anthology of the Sabine Wizard, 1964
Arturo Vermi (1928-1988) Antologia del Mago Sabino, 1964
felt-tip on paper 145 x 113 cm
pennarello su tela 145 x 113 cm
90 / 91
Works / Opere
Editorial Project / Progetto editoriale Forma Edizioni srl Florence, Italy Editorial Director / Direzione editoriale Laura Andreini Editorial Staff / Redazione Maria Giulia Caliri Livia D’Aliasi Graphic Design / Progetto grafico e impaginazione Augustina Cocco Canuda
© 2019 Forma Edizioni srl, Florence, Italy © 2019 Intesa Sanpaolo © Agostino Bonalumi by SIAE 2019 © Enrico Castellani by SIAE 2019 © Roberto Crippa by SIAE 2019 © Fondazione Lucio Fontana by SIAE 2019 © Fondazione Piero Manzoni by SIAE 2019
First edition January 2019 Prima edizione Gennaio 2019
Photo credits / Crediti fotografici for the artworks of Intesa Sanpaolo / per le opere di Intesa Sanpaolo Intesa Sanpaolo, Archive of Artistic Heritage / Archivio Patrimonio Artistico Photo Valter Maino, Paolo Vandrasch Cover image / Immagine di copertina Lucio Fontana Concetto spaziale [Spatial Concept], 1951 detail / dettaglio pp. 4-5 Sergio Dangelo La pluie, le beau temps, 1953 detail / dettaglio pp. 8-9 Tancredi (Tancredi Parmeggiani) Senza titolo [Untitled], 1953 detail / dettaglio pp. 92-93 Gianni Dova Senza titolo [Untitled], 1952 detail / dettaglio
The editor is available to copyright holders for any questions about unidentified iconographic sources. All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, without prejudice to the legal requirements provided for in Art. 68, sub-sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Law No. 633 of 22 April 1941.
L’editore è a disposizione degli aventi diritto per eventuali fonti iconografiche non individuate. Nessuna parte di questo libro può essere riprodotta o trasmessa in qualsiasi forma o con qualsiasi mezzo elettronico, meccanico o altro senza l’autorizzazione scritta dei proprietari dei diritti e dell’editore, fatti salvi gli obblighi di legge previsti dall’art.68, commi 3, 4, 5 e 6 della legge 22 aprile 1941 n. 633.
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ISBN 978-88-99534-93-6 978-88-99534-88-2
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