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NIVOLA NIVOLA

Copertina Nivola Cagliari:Copertina Nivola Cagliari stesa

ISBN 978-88-6202-021-3

9 788862 020213

In copertina: Figura maschile con campanacci (1982-85) (particolare)

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PROVINCIA DI CAGLIARI

FONDAZIONE NIVOLA

Fondazione Banco di Sardegna

Il presente catalogo è stato realizzato in occasione della mostra

NIVOLA Cagliari, Palazzo Regio 25 giugno-31 agosto 2008

Grafica e impaginazione Ilisso Fotografia Archivio Ilisso (foto P.P. Pinna) Traduzioni dall’italiano Susan Scott (testi C. Pirovano, F. Licht) Tiziana Serra (Nota biografica) Stampa Longo Spa

©

2008 ILISSO EDIZIONI www.ilisso.it ISBN 978-88-6202-021-3

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INDICE

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Nivola o il paradosso dell’utopia Carlo Pirovano

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Il mondo e la “parrocchia” Fred Licht

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Nivola or the paradox of utopia Carlo Pirovano

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The World and the “Parish” Fred Licht

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Opere in mostra / Works exhibited

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Nota biografica

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Biographical Notes

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NIVOLA O IL PARADOSSO DELL’UTOPIA Carlo Pirovano

Nelle ricorrenze celebrative imposte dallo scorrere inesorabile del tempo che favorisce la riflessione storica è possibile riscattare la ritualità meccanica della memoria e perfino le convenzionalità obbligate della comunicazione di massa (con le inevitabili semplificazioni degli slogan e la fossilizzazione dei miti) solo che si sappia sottrarre la lettura articolata di un’opera complessa e faticata dai luoghi comuni dell’effimero e dalle formule di un consumismo che tutto appiattisce e banalizza; perché proprio la consapevolezza critica di una elaborazione creativa continuamente riverificata e compromessa è il risultato esegetico più significativo che è emerso dall’opera di studio e conoscenza della personalità e dell’opera di Nivola nei due decenni che ci separano dalla scomparsa del protagonista; come anche questa mostra cagliaritana – la prima di portata complessiva che si organizzi nella sua isola – finisce per evidenziare con tutta naturalezza, affidandosi prioritariamente alle suggestioni semplici ed inequivocabili delle opere. Le sculture e i dipinti sono selezionati e presentati secondo una traccia che per grandi linee tiene presente la scansione cronologica ma, dopo una sintesi quasi emblematica d’avvio, evidenzia anche i nuclei inventivi e l’evoluzione delle soluzioni formali lungo i decenni dell’attività nivoliana: all’interno della quale, pur con significative costanti e riprese molteplici proprie di un temperamento libero, curioso e scanzonato, non mancano discontinuità e rivisitazioni radicali; ma l’elaborazione di temi e motivi (veicolati da precise soluzioni tecniche e formali come anche da opzioni di materiali assolutamente funzionali fino alla necessità più stringente) scandisce nel corpo dell’opera, nel suo complesso dinamico, capitoli elaborati con studiata concatenata sistematicità, tutt’altro che scontati e ripetitivi.

In concreto bisogna prendere atto che la “fortuna” critica relativa all’artista sardoamericano ha potuto avvantaggiarsi, nei lustri che ci separano dalla sua scomparsa, di contributi di studio notevoli, con apporti in vario modo complementari e stimolanti, sviluppandosi nel solco duplice della ricerca documentaria e interpretativa (con “voci” bibliografiche di non usuale pondus editoriale: monografie dedicate rispettivamente alla pittura, alla scultura, alla terracotta) e in parallelo con esposizioni riassuntive di diverso taglio e destinazione (Roma, Pietrasanta, Milano, Firenze, Southampton); studi e mostre hanno stimolato il dibattito favorendo anzitutto la conoscenza diretta dell’opera che, vivo l’artista, di fatto aveva seguito circuiti di presentazione abbastanza marginali, per l’impostazione stessa e l’organizzazione pratica del suo lavoro, per molto tempo favorito più da commesse pubbliche monumentali, non facilmente accessibili per tutti, e meno affiancato al mercato corrente.

La rassegna, anche solo approssimativa, dell’articolazione concettuale e pratica di questo servizio di sistemazione critica, di vera e propria esegesi sull’opera multiforme di Nivola, non può mancare di sottolineare la spinta fattiva, riservata e accorta (ma altrettanto caparbia) di chi ha intrecciato trama ed ordito di un progetto di conoscenza e valorizzazione di lucida consapevolezza storica: mi riferisco ovviamente a Ruth, vera e propria personificazione della fortuna di Costantino Nivola.

La massa significativa di apporti critici permette oggi di delineare un quadro motivato delle componenti complesse dell’opera di Nivola; eppure per paradosso (destino per vero abbastanza ricorrente nell’avventura umana di questo protagonista delle moderne vicende dell’arte fra le due sponde dell’Atlantico) la notevole abbondanza informativa, come non esclude margini di ulteriori riscoperte e 11

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and hypostatically structured, but also and above all to the complex of cultural and anthropological components that on various levels may have stimulated along the way his responses to an imaginary universe solidly grafted onto a collective, communal experience: in undying remote echoes evoked with an inexhaustible capacity for dialogue with a patrimony of iconic archetypes and, more broadly, primary conceptual manifestations in essential imaginative forms – in reinvention, now panic now subtly oneiric and rarefied when not modulated by instinctive grace, above all, a material expression laden with meaning.

The systematic mapping of Nivola’s multiform experimentation has helped prepare an ideal atlas of his extensive oeuvre which now needs to be put in order and evaluated using non-conventional criteria, as opposed to the current critical practice which follows preset, conventional parameters, especially of schools or –isms.

Probably, the passage of time and emotional distance can by now foster a reconstruction of the complex triangulation that dynamically orchestrated the opposing poles of Nivola’s talent and life (F. Licht) so as to shed light on that sort of conceptual and methodological, more than practical and operational, disjunction which at recurrent intervals seems to subvert the consolidated poetics of the artist, with a disarming disdain for acquired certainties.

Or perhaps, using an even more radical key to interpretation, which by now our detached perspective on the individual personality of the artist and even more of the context in which he worked may allow and even justify, we can identify for Nivola, as a connatural and vital, dynamically germinal and psychologically propulsive status, precisely this condition of being out of place and out of time which emerges from an analysis both of the external circumstances of his life, marked by continual, repeated uprooting, and from a reading in its context of his artistic creation, in the relentless interweave of graphics, painting, sculpture, as well as from the traces, not plentiful, to be sure, but highly meaningful, of the autograph testimony of his writings (letters and miscellaneous notes, displaying a disarming communicative effectiveness).

As I hinted earlier, the thorniest problem critics have had to face – as is the case for every creative personality, to tell the truth – is that of identity, whose profile is often subjected to an incessant, elusive, and even ineffable play of splitting and dissolving outlines and figures that sometimes fit together and other times shift and even seem to shatter in fleeting disassociations.

With Nivola, it does not seem arbitrary to note as determinant in the predisposition of a destiny, of life, above all, and thus of intellectual and emotional make-up, the awareness of an uprooting that is from the beginning substantial and inevitable.

It is not my intention here to re-examine Nivola’s personality – at bottom simple, and I would even like to say primitive – using philosophical notions and sophisticated intellectualistic literary transpositions. But I do not think it is arbitrary to interpret the deepest reasons for his poetic in a key that may have some distant echo of romanticism but is still fully up-to-date. Its dominant motif is the search for an ideal place of origin (specifically his own, one not identifiable in any other way, a longed-for land from which all roots have been ripped up, a map from which, tragically, all the places of childhood have disappeared…). The culture of no-place (Ñu tÒpoj , utopia, in the strict etymological sense of absence of place, disappearance of the homeland) feeds into the modern sensibility in different streams, often with melancholic, if not markedly tragic, overtones; but it sinks its foundational urges, whether emotional or lucidly rational, in seasons that end up encompassing all the history of mankind in a mythic dimension. And it is precisely 24

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along this line, more lyric-elegiac than philosophic, that the ulterior expressive value of the word u-topia is developing towards its connotations of beneficent, optimistic, and universal dream: from non-homeland to positive plan for the future.

Naturally, a knowledge of Nivola’s life history and consequently a reading of his different creative phases rules out nuances of the personal tragic witness in a catastrophic sense which often distinguishes the story of many “rootless” figures who have left their mark on modern poetry and art (Mandelshtam comes to mind, as do Pollock, Celan, Kafka…).

The assignment of Nivola’s personality to the host of the lost of the spirit, of time, and of history, even before that of the political exiles or nomads by necessity, is easily justified by the external circumstances of his life: from having to leave his home town as a young boy to earn his bread as an apprentice to his stonemason father, to the much sharper break with the island of Sardinia for scholastic and professional training on the Italian continent (Monza-Milan in the 1930s), to his definitive flight across the Atlantic, compelled by political (and even more odiously, racial) constraints, followed by the final rupture marked by the war, total separation and then a laborious, radical regeneration, comparable to a veritable metamorphosis, definitively ratified in the early 1950s.

But along this existential outline, this destiny as a nomad predestined by an inexorable fate, is delineated with even greater gravity the recurrent cadence of a psychological, emotional, and in the end conceptual precariousness which from season to season readily redesigns ex novo operative plans and relative professional supports, when necessary, with unconditioned openness and even melodramatic flexibility. The calling cards of Nivola the explorer were always marked by the most stimulating willingness, even bordering on precariousness. In some ways, the system of multiple potentials that characterized the pedagogical philosophy of the Monza School, on which the fecund maieutic of Le Corbusier would be grafted at the end of the 1940s (which occurred in the terrible vacuum of the artist’s insertion into the context of Europe-America), optimally pre-defined the deepest decision-making mechanisms of a personality by nature unattached to the very idea of resting on one’s laurels.

Even a cursory overview of the course of Nivola’s life readily reveals in its successive phases numerous meaningful breaks, to which correspond profound mutations and adaptations in his creative work. At the start of his career, right out of school, he was a brilliant communications operator (we would say today), designing advertising graphics and exhibitions with an attentive eye also to architecture. This would be his lifebuoy during the difficult early years of his time in America, 1939-1945 (working as art director for Interiors), when he also devoted assiduous efforts to painting and (finally!) to sculpture in its function as a decorative component of architectural design. This “specialization” would be the fundamental turning point of his life, in the wake of the unbelievable success of his invention for the Olivetti showroom, which would continue to bring him fame and fortune for at least a decade. His working dialectic unfolded in the midst of calls for inventions coming from architects of the caliber of BBPR, Sert, Saarinen, etc. And yet, a close analysis of this golden period in Nivola’s career, far from delineating a picture of well-defined, fulfilling “certainties,” reveals a strongly risky option, absolutely unconventional and, at bottom, decidedly bucking the trend, precisely because it happened at the moment when the New York School was taking shape, a mythic phenomenon but at the same time one with a shrewd eye on the market. Nivola was a friend of the protagonists of that context of experimentation (beginning with Pollock, who met his death right by Nivola’s doorstep near East Hampton), 25

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1. Bozzetto per la copertina de Il popolo d’Italia illustrato, 1934 tempera all’amido su cartoncino, 31 x 21,5 cm, Monza, Musei Civici.

2. Bozzetto per la rivista L’Isola, 1934 tempera e collage su carta, 17 x 18,5 cm, Monza, Musei Civici.

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3. Roggia nel parco (1934) tempera su tavola, 58 x 74 cm, Monza, Musei Civici.

4. Gruppo di persone in un interno (1934) tempera su supporto parietale intelaiato, 150 x 105 cm, Monza, Musei Civici.

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6. Mia sorella Paola, 1934 olio su tavola, 35,8 x 27,5 cm, Orani (NU), coll. privata.

Sul retro: Studio di testa maschile.

7. Ritratto di Emilio Lussu (1938-39) olio su tela incollata su masonite, 50,2 x 35,8 cm, Orani (NU), coll. privata.

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8. Autoritratto (“Rits�), 1944-45 tempera su carta incollata su cartone, 61,3 x 45,3 cm, Orani (NU), coll. privata.

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9. Flat Iron Building, 1943 tempera su carta, 60 x 46 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

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10. Paesaggio urbano, 1970-86 (da composizione anteriore) olio su tela, 61,2 x 76,5 cm, Nuoro, coll. privata.

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11. Natura morta (anni Settanta, da composizione anteriore) olio su tela, 71 x 91,5 cm, Orani (NU), Fondazione Nivola (deposito).

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13. Studio per lo show-room Olivetti a N.Y. (1953-54) sand-cast, gesso policromo, 74,4 x 70,2 x 6,5 cm, Orani (NU), Fondazione Nivola.

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19. Senza titolo (1961-62) cemento, 45,7 x 61 x 25 cm, Orani (NU), Fondazione Nivola.

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20. Un mio antenato (1950-60) lamiera verniciata, 30,5 x 36,7 x 16 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

21. Senza titolo (1950-60) lamiera in ottone, 21,5 x 25,6 x 8,2 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

22. Senza titolo (1950-60) lamiera in ottone, 20 x 24,8 x 6,3 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

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23. Senza titolo (1950-60) lamiera in ottone, 31 x 18 x 8,2 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

24. Senza titolo (1950-60) lamiera in ottone, 36 x 18,8 x 4,4 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

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81. Figura maschile con campanacci (1982-85) legno, ferro e pelle, 78,4 x 34,7 x 31,3 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

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84. Senza titolo, 1985 collage su carta, 48 x 63,5 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

85. Senza titolo, 1985 collage su carta, 73,6 x 58,8 cm, East Hampton, Long Island, NY, coll. eredi Nivola.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

1911 Born in Orani (Nuoro). Son of a mason, since his youth Costantino learns and follows his father’s trade.

1944 His paintings and sculptures are exhibited, with Steinberg’s, at the Wakefield Gallery in New York.

His son, Pietro, was born.

1957 ca.

Receives the Enrico Fermi Competition Award together with Huson Jackson, Vincent Solomita and Joseph Zalewski.

1926–1931 Is apprenticed to painter Delitala in Sassari and becomes his assistant. He models plaster and works as a stucco decorator.

1945 ca.

José Lluis Sert introduces Nivola to Le Corbusier and they become close friends: they share the same studio for four years.

1931 At the age of 20 the Chamber of Commerce of Nuoro gives him a scholarship to the ISIA (Istituto Superiore d’Arte), in Monza. Among his teachers are Marino Marini, De Grada, Semeghini, architects Pagano and Persico, and designer Nizzoli.

1947 His daughter, Claire, was born.

1958 His works are exhibited at the Architectural League in New York. In Orani, he decorates the façade of the church of Sa Itria and his sculptures are displayed in the streets. Realizes a sandcast bas-relief for the International Legal Studies Building at Harvard. With architect Richard Stein he takes part in the competition for the Bataan–Corregidor Monument, which is never to be realized. Paints a mural for Gagarin House in Litchfield, Connecticut.

1934 ca.

Meets Ruth Guggenheim, a student at ISIA, whom he marries in 1938.

1948 Buys a house in East Hampton, Long Island, strengthening his relationship with the American artists who had already moved to the eastern side of Long Island. Among them Jackson Pollock, Ibram Lassaw, James Brooks, John Little, Hans Namuth.

1935 Attains his diploma as a “Master in Arts”.

1949 Invents the technique of sandcasting.

1936 His murals are displayed at the Triennale of Milan.

1950 First one-man exhibition at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. Exhibits at the Quadriennale of Rome.

1937 At the age of 26 works as an art director for Olivetti in Milan. Collaborates to the urban plan of the Valle d’Aosta. Realizes the murals for the Italian stand at the International Exposition of Paris.

1938–1939 Spends nine months in Paris, where he meets Giorgio de Chirico.

1939 Moves to the United States of America.

1940 Settles at Greenwich Village in New York, where the artistic scene is being changed due to the arrival of many European artists who have taken refuge in America.

1941 Works for six years as an art director for the architectural review Interiors and Industrial Design (later to become Progressive Architecture).

At the same time he is art director for the review You. Working in the world of publishing he has the chance to meet famous photographers and architects with many of whom he will make longlasting friends.

1942–1943 Together with Saul Steinberg, he takes part to a group exhibition at the Betty Parson Gallery in New York.

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1951 Takes part in the 9th Street Show in New York.

1953 Realizes the sandcast bas-relief for the Olivetti Showroom in New York.

1954 Designs the Monument to the Four Chaplains for the War Memorial in Washington. Opens a oneman exhibition at the Peridot Gallery in New York.

Sert calls him to teach and later to direct the Design Workshop in the Architectural School of Design (later to become Carpenter Center) at Harvard University.

1954–1957 Directs the Design Workshop at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard.

1955 Realizes eight panels for the garden of Raymond Loewy House, 1025 Fifth Avenue, New York.

Opens his second one-man exhibition at the Peridot Gallery.

1956 Receives an “Excellence Certificate” from the American Institute of Graphics. The Graduate School of Design of Harvard University mounts a one-man exhibition of his works.

1959 A one-man exhibition is organized at the Galleria del Milione in Milan where Nivola is taking part in the Triennale. One-man exhibitions are organized at the Stable Gallery in New York and the Signa Gallery in East Hampton, NY. He realizes a 3600 square meters bas-relief for the McCormick Plaza Exposition Center in Chicago; murals and sculptures for the Public School 46 in Brooklyn; a bas-relief and a mural graffito for Quincy House at Harvard University. Participates in the VIII Quadriennale Nazionale d’Arte in Rome.

1960 Realizes and places 45 sculptures and a bas-relief at the Morse and Stiles Colleges, designed by Eero Saarinen, at Yale University. Makes a mural for the Motorola Building in Chicago. Opens a oneman exhibition at the Arts Club in Chicago and a travelling one promoted by the American Federation of Arts. Some of his works are displayed in the exhibition “Aspect de la Sculpture Americaine” at the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris.

1960–1961 ca.

Invents the technique of cement-carving. Takes part in the competition for the Sassari Brigade Monument.

1961 Is invited to take part in the international campaign for the safeguard of the Abu Simbel temples.

Becomes visiting professor for Sculpture at Columbia University. Part of his works are displayed in a group exhibition at the New School for Social Research in New York.

1962 Is awarded with the silver medal of merit for sculpture by the Architectural League of New York and with a certificate of merit by the Municipal Art Society of New York. Together with architect Richard Stein, designs and realizes sculptures,

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murals and fountains for the Stephen Wise Recreation Area, a project for the New York City Housing Authority. Makes two murals for Charles Patterson Van Pelt University of Pennsylvania Library.

While working as an associate professor at Columbia University, the school of architecture of that University mounts an exhibition of his works.

A one-man exhibition is opened at the Galleria dell’Ariete in Milan.

commissioned two important projects: a mural relief, a graffito and the playground for the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in the Bronx, and the sculpted façade of the Janesville Gazette in Janesville, Wisconsin. Some of his works are exhibited at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton. One-man exhibitions are mounted at the McCormick Plaza Exposition Center and at the Superior Street Gallery in Chicago.

1963 Realizes a series of sculpted panels for the Federal Office Building in Kansas City. Paints a fresco for the courtyard of Public School 17 in Long Island City. One-man exhibitions are mounted at the Andrew Morris Gallery in New York, and at the Capitello in Cagliari.

1969 He is commissioned two mural graffiti for Hurley House and the State Office Building in Boston.

1964 He is commissioned the design of the courtyard of Public School 55, Staten Island, NY. Becomes guest critic for Painting and Sculpture at Columbia University.

1965 He is awarded the silver medal by the Architectural League of New York and is proposed for a diploma by the Park Association of New York. Exhibits at the Sculptor’s Guild Annual Exhibition and at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York; in the “Mostra del piccolo formato” at the Capitello Gallery in Cagliari; opens a one-man exhibition at the Byron Gallery in New York and participates in the IX Quadriennale Nazionale d’Arte in Rome.

1966 Designs and realizes the monument and square named after poet Sebastiano Satta, in Nuoro. Realizes the bas-relief for the façade of the Bridgeport Post Newspaper Building, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Opens another one-man exhibition at the Byron Gallery in New York. Exhibits at the First Flint International in Flint, Michigan, and at the Sculptor’s Guild Annual Exhibition in New York. Collaborates with architect Percival Goodman making the bas-reliefs for Public School 345 in Brooklyn.

1967 Completes the sculptures for Public High School 320 in Brooklyn. One-man exhibitions are held at the Byron Gallery in New York and at the Galleria L’acquario in Nuoro. Is given the gold medal for fine arts by the American Institute of Architects in New York.

1968 Realizes a huge sculpture to represent Italy at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. Takes part in the competition for the Gramsci monument. He is

1970 Becomes visiting professor at Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University. Realizes a mural relief and a sculpture for the Continental Office Building in Philadelphia.

1972 Becomes a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters of New York. He is resident artist at the American Academy in Rome.

Completes a mural bas-relief for the Legislative Office Building in Albany, New York, and nine big sculptures for Intermediate School 183, Bronx.

1973 His works are exhibited at the Galleria il Segno and the Galleria Marlborough in Rome; at the University of Cagliari; at the Williard Gallery in New York. Realizes a fresco and a mural graffito for the Provident Institution for Savings in Boston.

Harvard University invites him again as a visiting professor at Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.

1974 Completes three big sculptures for Beach High School in Queens, New York. Opens a one-man exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

1975 ca.

Is commissioned two big sculptures for The New Family Criminal Court House in Bronx.

1975 Becomes honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, The Hague. Some of his works are displayed in a group exhibition at the Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton.

1976 One-man exhibitions at the Galleria Arte Duchamp in Cagliari and at the Loretta Yarlow Fine Arts Center in Toronto.

1977 Again resident artist at the American Academy in

Rome, where works of his are displayed in a group exhibition so as in the one at the Stable Gallery in New York.

1978 The Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, invites Nivola as a resident artist and mounts a one-man exhibition of his works. Later, he will accept to be visiting professor of Arts at California University in Berkeley (1978–1979, 1982). More one-man exhibitions at the Paul Anglim and at the Quay Gallery. He is awarded the Eliot Noyes Fellox prize at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado.

1980 The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, NY, and the William Benton Museum of Art in Storrs, Connecticut, exhibit his works.

1981 He is member of the commission that selects participants to the competition for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. Completes the marble sculptures for the Mobil Oil Headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia.

1982 Visiting professor of Arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, The Hague. One-man exhibition at the Galleria d’Arte Duchamp in Cagliari.

1984 He is commissioned the bas-reliefs and bronze sculptures for the 18th District Police and Fire Departments in New York. Becomes honorary member of the Morse and Stiles Colleges at Yale University.

1985 Opens two one-man exhibitions at the Washburn Galleries of Uptown and SoHo in New York. Architect Gyo Obata commissions him three sculptures for the Kellogg Company Corporate Headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan. The Art Commission of New York proposes him for the Award for Excellence in Design.

1986 The Bernice Steinhaum Gallery of New York chooses some of Nivola’s works for “Elders of the Tribe”, exhibition travelling through the USA for two years. He realizes a sculpted column set in 1988 in Campo del Sole, Tuoro, on the Trasimeno.

1987 One-man exhibitions at San Quirico d’Orcia (“Forme nel verde”) and at the Washburn Gallery in New York. Designs and realizes “Progetto per fontana” in the wash-house of Ulassai, Sardinia.

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