SALVO
MEHDI CHOUAKRI
B
orn Salvatore Mangione in 1947, he moved as a child with his parents from Leonforte, Sicily, to Turin in Italy’s North, an industrial city being marked by political unrest at the time. For a while the young artist developed an engagement with anarchistic-subversive elements of artistic activism, which in 1967 led him to become acquainted with the politically conscious circle of the Turin-based Arte Povera artists. Abandoning his given name of Salvatore, he chose Salvo (saved, unscathed, holy) as his future artistic name, standing at the same time as synonym for the artist at large. His contribution to documenta 5 in 1972–there was no work of his physically installed at the exhibition– consisted of his name only, but written out in capital letters in the catalogue: SALVO. Soon after his attempts to separate himself from the dogma of the “last avant-gardes” (J.-Chr.Ammann)–for which in 1970 above all stood the dominating Conceptual Art movement–brought him to painting. Albeit essentially still “conceptual”, more than purely pictorial, Salvo’s engagement with this previously dismissed medium was seen as scandalous and set him as an outsider against the artistic tendencies of his generation. By the end of the 1970s however, his position was modified as a new generation of artists (first in Italy with the Arte Cifra / Transavanguardia movement) established painting as a medium in its own right, able to stand alongside other forms of respected artistic expression–hence also demonstrating the importance of Salvo’s early painterly work within the art-historical context. In his earlier paintings Salvo formulates relationships of art historical references, paraphrasing important (often Renaissance) paintings, sometimes replacing the faces of the main figures with his own image. In other works he takes the names of famous Italian or Sicilian poets, philosophers and painters to inscribe the outline of the geographical form of Italy, ending always in his own name, Salvo: the living artist as the last link in a long back-reaching chain. (H. Dickel) By the mid-1970s Salvo increasingly abandoned this conceptual construct in his work, making space for a development into a broader spectrum of themes.The blending of realistic and freely imaginative motives result in strongly coloured, almost metaphysical “dream pictures” (mostly city- and landscapes): images of an almost not existent world.The magical tension in his work draws on a conflict between radically reductive abstraction and visually exuberant excess, “too good to be true–the artwork as a transformation of reality into appearance.” (U. Zeller)
Title page: Tricolore (Tricolour), 1973 The name of the artist in the Italian national colours: Italy as the cultural spring of his own identity, or also an artistic claim to national belonging.
Mediterraneo (Mediterranean), 2013 Mediterraneo represents a group of works depicting largely fictional arcadian landscapes, which take as their dominant theme the form of mediterranean nature and its radiant light.
I tre regni (The Three Empires), 1970-72 The three panels of the triptych stand together for the three “high-points” of creation: the harmonious beauty of nature; the faultless perfection of the mineral world, the diamond; and man, the crowning–yet ready to attack–glory of creation, here depicted by the artist himself.
La valle (The Valley), 2014 This light-filled mountain valley–one of Salvo’s fictional arcadian landscapes–operates almost like a still-life, with its artificially placed trees and geometric buildings.
Salve è vivo / Salvo è morto (Salvo Lives / Salvo is Dead), 1977 The graphic print–originally conceived as a gold engraved black marble tablet–shows on the front side Salvo è vivo throughout the artist’s lifetime, and on the reverse, only to be shown after the artist‘s death, Salvo è morto.
Next double page: Il matrimonio tra pieno e vuoto, tra astratto e figurativo e tra arte moderna e arte antica (The Marriage of Empty and Full, of the Abstract and the Figurative, of Modern and Classical Art), 2014 Reducing Ottoman and modern architecture to geometric form, Salvo confronts two stylistically and chronologically diverse architectural types, split over two separate canvasses, and joined through a painterly style underscored by the bold use of expressive colour.
Previous double page: 12 Autoritratti (12 Self-portraits), 1969 In this work Salvo takes existing photographs, replacing the faces in the original image with his own. “Through montage, the artist, in the plane of the medium, becomes a fictitious testimonial, as perpetrator, or victim.� (U. Zeller)
San Giorgio e il drago (Saint George and the Dragon), 1974 This casting template for a bronze belongs to a series of paraphrases and synonyms which Salvo uses to handle the genres and painterly constructions of the Renaissance.
Saliscendendo, 1972 Combining the Italian words salire (to ascend) and scendere (to descend), Saliscendendo plays on the impossibility of knowing, from a still image, whether one is going up or down the ladder; into the light, or into darkness.
A
ls Salvatore Mangione 1947 im sizilianischen Leonforte geboren, kam er als Kind mit seinen Eltern aus dem armen Süden Italiens ins nördliche Turin. In der von politischen Unruhen gekennzeichneten Industriestadt entwickelte er als Jugendlicher anfangs ein anarchistisch-subversives Engagement, das um 1967 in künstlerische Aktivitäten mündete, die der politisch bewussten Arte Povera-Bewegung nahestanden. Abgeleitet von seinem Vornamen Salvatore wählte er SALVO („gerettet, unversehrt, heil“) als seinen Künstlernamen, den er als eine Art Synonym für den Künstler versteht. Sein Beitrag zur documenta 5, 1972, bestand z.B. darin, dass sein Name – obwohl keine Arbeit von ihm ausgestellt war – im Katalogregister als einziger in Versalien erschien: SALVO. Seine Bemühungen, den Dogmen der „letzten Avantgarden“ (J.-Chr. Ammann) – die um 1970 vor allem als Conceptual Art die westliche Gegenwartskunst bestimmten – zu entgehen, brachten ihn Anfang der 1970er Jahre zur Malerei:Wenngleich im Ansatz durchaus „konzeptuell“ und über das Bild hinausweisend, wurde Salvos Beschäftigung mit diesem überwunden geglaubten Medium als Skandal empfunden und versetzte ihn in eine Außenseiterrolle gegenüber den künstlerischen Tendenzen seiner Generation. Erst Ende der 1970er Jahre relativierte sich seine Position als eine neue Künstlergeneration (zuerst in Italien mit der Arte Cifra bzw.Transavanguardia) die Malerei als selbstverständliches Medium neben andere künstlerische Ausdrucksformen stellte. Insofern bezeichnet Salvos malerisches Frühwerk eine kunstgeschichtliche Schnittstelle. Anfangs formuliert Salvo mit seinen Gemälden ein Beziehungsnetz kunsthistorischer Verweise, indem er Bilder (vor allem der Renaissance) paraphrasiert und der Hauptfigur sein eigenes Gesicht verleiht. Auch die Arbeiten, in denen er der geographischen Form Italiens Namen berühmter italienischer oder sizilianischer Dichter, Philosophen und Maler einschreibt, führen zum Zeichen der eigenen Anverwandlung als jeweils letzten Namen „Salvo“ an: der lebende Künstler als letztes Glied einer weit zurückreichenden Kette. (H. Dickel) Mitte der 1970er Jahre löst sich die Bindung an das konzeptuelle Konstrukt und weicht einem Hineinwachsen in die Malerei mit einem breiten Spektrum wechselnder Bildthemen. In Form bildnerischer Überblendung realistischer und frei imaginierter Motive entstehen starkfarbige, nicht selten metaphysisch anmutende „Traumbilder“ (vor allem Stadtund Landschaftsdarstellungen): Bilder einer so nicht existierenden Welt. Ihre magische Spannung verdankt sich der Gleichzeitigkeit von radikal vereinfachender Abstraktion und optisch überbordendem Zuviel: Bilder, „zu schön, um wahr zu sein – das Kunstwerk als Verwandlung von Wirklichkeit in Schein“. (U. Zeller)
Front cover: 12 Autoritratti (12 Self-Portraits), 1969 Benedizione di Lucerna (Benediction of Lucerne), 1970-75 13 slides Photograph und tempera on aluminum Edition of 3 110 x 88 cm San Giorgio e il drago (Saint George and the Dragon), 1974 Salvo’s (immaterial) contribution to the 1970 Plasticine on wood exhibition Visualisierte Denkprozesse (Visualised 77 x 77 x 8 cm Thinking Processes) at the Kunstmuseum Luzern consisted in his coming to Lucerne, giving his blessing. Saliscendendo, 1972 In 1975 the photograph was edited to include a halo. Photograph on board 98 x 72 cm Back cover: 77 pittori italiani (77 Italian Painters), 1975 Oil and chalk on hardboard If not otherwise mentioned all works are unique 106 x 88 cm The list of Italian painters operates as a kind of ancestry: in the final place is the name SALVO, connecting to a far back-reaching chain of artistic genealogy. Tricolore (Tricolour), 1973 Flag fabric between glass 79 x 79 cm Mediterraneo (Mediterranean), 2013 Oil on burlap 40 x 30 cm I tre regni (The Three Empires), 1970-72 Photograph and offset printing on wood 3 pieces, each 79 x 69 cm La Valle (The Valley), 2014 Oil on burlap 50 x 40 cm Salve è vivo / Salvo è morto (Salvo Lives / Salvo is Dead), 1977 Silkscreen on board 65 x 50 cm Edition of 100 Il matrimonio tra pieno e vuoto, tra astratto e figurativo e tra arte moderna e arte antica (The Marriage of Empty and Full, of the Abstract and the Figurative, of Modern and Classical Art), 2014 Dyptich, oil on burlap each 40 x 30 cm
This catalogue was published on the occasion of Salvo’s exhibition Salvo è Vivo at Mehdi Chouakri Berlin, January 23 – March 8, 2014 Photographs by Jan Windszus, Berlin All works © Salvo and courtesy Mehdi Chouakri Gallery 1000 copies Printed by Spree Druck, Berlin This catalogue is also available on www.mehdi-chouakri.com Very special thanks to Norma Mangione, Gerd de Vries and Paul Maenz.
Galerie Mehdi Chouakri Invalidenstrasse 117 10115 Berlin T + 49 30 28 39 11 53 F + 49 30 28 39 11 54 galerie@mehdi-chouakri.com www.mehdi-chouakri.com
SALVO
MEHDI CHOUAKRI