Contemporary Artwork Cioni Carpi 1963/74 Conceptual Art Mixed Techniqu - We created Atypical Systems 1963/74

Sestante 14 1989

Color screenprint on paper. Signed in pencil lower right, numbered n. IV/XV bottom left. It is accompanied by photo authentication from the "Il borghetto" art house in Milan. The work was part of the "Sestante" series, consisting of 16 different serigraphs. In 1982 Alberto Burri created Sestante, a large cycle of seventeen cellotexes and an iron sculpture, which was exhibited from May to September of the following year in the space of the former Giudecca shipyards in Venice. The evocation of the old nautical instrument, which was used by travelers to establish the position of a given point with respect to the horizon, is a tribute to the maritime destiny of Venice. The paintings are Burri's umpteenth challenge: in their combinations the shapes and colors of the "sextant" create an inexhaustible cycle where there is not the slightest repetition. Within the same painting, or in the juxtaposition of one to the other, the kaleidoscope of shapes allows square and curvilinear structures to coexist, together with large chromatic backgrounds and dense visual patterns. In 1989 the artist proposed the cycle again as a graphic work, creating the "Sestante" series. The art historian Bruno Corà said that "in Burri's case, speaking of graphics does not mean speaking of a lesser production compared to paintings, but only of a different and parallel artistic modality, in conception and execution, in short such as to be able to be included with absolute importance in the production of the great painter, alongside all his other revolutionary innovative pronouncements". The work is presented in a frame.

Pencil on paper. Signed on the back. The drawing is registered in the Fausto Melotti Archive, with code DIS 72006. Fausto Melotti was a multifaceted and very prolific artist and it is almost impossible to link his production to a particular technique or theme, without providing only a partial view of his vision artistic. The salient features that are constant in Melotti are geometry, the study of abstraction, which leads him to use realistic but not scientifically accurate elements, and arranging the elements so that they recall a musical rhythm, a detail that refers to his training as a musician Sculptor, painter, musician, poet, he made numerous design drawings for his works. Drawing represented for him a fundamental exercise, to transfuse the original graphic trait from sheets of paper into sculptures and ceramics. The sculptures for which he is best known are made up of geometric elements made with metals (brass, iron and gold) worked into thin filaments, giving life to ethereal, weightless and almost fragile compositions. The work is presented in a frame.

Interior scene

Oil painting on canvas. Not signed, but on the back there is a dedication "Alla signora Clelia Mazzioli, con stima Gaetano Bellei 23 gennaio 1909". The big scene, set in a popular kitchen, sees a woman reading cards to two girls, who ask for explanations by pointing to the figures that appear and seem to compare them with a text leaning on the chair. The work recalls the painting of Gaetano Bellei, due to the strong realism with which the painter painted above all scenes of daily peasant life; he is considered a master of the depiction of human affections and of human reactions and sensations. The painting has slight drops of color. It is proposed in a stylish frame.

Duck Flight

Bronze sculpture. Signature engraved on the base. Gino Masciarelli, a sculptor originally from Abruzzo but who lived in the Milan area, after having also worked at the Experimental Center for Scientific Research “F. Marinotti” in Lombardy, dealing with high-frequency cinematographic shooting, learned to capture the instability of bodies in movement and the dissolution of matter in space in many of his works. In the sculptures "Human groups" and "Flight" - to which the work presented here belongs -, the dynamism of flight can be observed almost as if it were a photographic sequence. The artist himself said: "Only 8 seconds made an impression on 300 meters of film, the aim was to slow down what the human eye cannot see, I wanted to capture the movement and the projection of these seconds lasted a couple of hours".

Sunny Landscape

Fresco on canvas. Signed lower right. Further signature and technique on the back. Placed in the informal Emilian naturalism, Bruno Saetti's painting is distinguished by a significant love for the pictorial material, rich and consistent, pasty and fermenting, but also open to the modulations of luminous vibration. His series of "frescoes" with the Sun as the dominant subject is rich, as in this work, which presents a large bright sun shining on a brick red background, above an indefinite landscape, where only a basilica can be recognized at the top right. If Saetti's Emilian origin is evident in the warm tones of the red bricks and in the very peculiar taste of the material (the favorite fresco), on the other hand the Venetian contamination is recognizable (Saetti lived for a long time in Venice) in his lingering on the color, on its luminous vibrations, on the feeling of astonished amazement of space. The work is presented in a frame.

The Woodcutter 1980

Oil on glass. On the lower left are the signature and date, accompanied by the artist's symbol, the stylised figurine of a man in a wheelchair. This is a work on glass by the painter Mario Previ, who has lived and painted in a wheelchair since the age of eighteen, due to quadriplegia following a plunge into his Taro river. He said of himself: ‘The world, the passage of time, from this point of view (the wheelchair) teaches you many things. You learn to wake up every morning with a purpose, even if your body is in pain, if every gesture generates suffering and you depend on others, and giving up could be an easy solution. And instead, art, painting, together with the serenity of my world, of friends, give me incredible energy. They have saved me, giving me the strength to live'. In 1974, three years after the accident, inspired by a television programme on Yugoslavian naïve painters, in particular by the works on glass by Mijo Kovacic, Previ began painting and learning the art of glass painting as a self-taught artist, until he became known and appreciated for his paintings. In his naifs, Mario Previ recounts a reality that has almost disappeared, real stories albeit in a fairy-tale tone, revives lost traditions, glimpses of life that belonged to other generations, those of the peasant civilisation (from which he comes), but what emerges most from his visions are the ‘forë’, those that could once be heard in the ‘firossi’, the traditional evenings in the hamlets of Parma dedicated to getting together to tell anecdotes, stories and historical curiosities, often in front of the fireplace, when it was cold and snowing outside. The work is presented in the frame.

The Bonfire under the Snow, 1979

Oil on glass. At the bottom right are the signature and date, accompanied by the artist's symbol, the stylized figurine of a man in a wheelchair. It is a work on glass by the painter Mario Previ, who has lived and painted in a wheelchair since the age of eighteen, due to quadriplegia resulting from a dive into his Taro. He said of himself: "The world, the passage of time, from this point of view (the wheelchair) teach many things. You learn to wake up every morning with a purpose, even if your body is in pain, if every gesture generates suffering and depending on others and giving up could be an easy solution. And instead, art, painting, together with the serenity of my world, of friends, give me incredible energy. They saved me, giving me the strength to live". In 1974, three years after the accident, inspired by a television program on Yugoslavian naïve painters, in particular by the works on glass of Mijo Kovacic, Previ began to paint and learn the art of painting on glass as a self-taught, until he to make himself known and appreciated for his paintings. In his naifs Mario Previ tells a reality that has almost disappeared, real stories albeit in a fairy-tale tone, he revives lost traditions, slices of life that belonged to other generations, those of peasant civilization (from which he also comes), but what emerges most from his visions are the "forë", those that could once be heard in the "firossi", the traditional evenings of the hamlets of Parma dedicated to meeting to tell anecdotes, stories and historical curiosities, often in front of the fireplace fire, when outside it was cold and snowing. The work is presented in a frame.

Female Figure, 1977

Mixed technique on paper. Signed lower right. On the back, the artist's autograph dedication, with the date. Liberatore uses different pictorial techniques, favoring human figures, in particular female figures or smoking trains departing in mysterious stations. His images of women are depicted with sensual faces and attitudes and often framed by particular hats. Critics have defined Fausto Maria Liberatore's painting as art made of realism and mystery. The work is presented in a frame.

Oil on plywood

Charles Moody (1979), oil on plywood. Signed on the back. The work was exhibited at the solo exhibition "Borderland" at the Gallery 8 in Milan Corso Venezia, as evidenced by the paper to the back lable. Charles Moody graduated in 2003 at the Art Institute of Boston and, after three years in Milan, chooses to live in New York. In his art the focus at trial (conceptual art, process art) rather than to the image content and it is in this scrap that painting is at its best. An art that was created by the approval of television images (almost never films) and in particular from popular soap operas. Moody's work goes beyond the mass media image by customizing the selection for special images that, in his view, offer a potential narrative; are images of transition, moments of transition from one scene to the next. The artist uses a manual oil painting to reproduce the low quality of the tv picture extolling the "blurring" of blur. We are facing a loss of spatial dimension, in a temporality confused-diffuse-intangible which is difficult to recognize the boundaries ("Borderland"). In these perceptual distortions, in which time dilates expands, each painting represents a "indiscernibilità" in which the recognition of the object that takes second place. The time of Moody is neither Chronicle nor history but suspension. (From "Charles Moody, Borderland", curated by Gianni Romano, exhibition catalogue, CorsoVeneziaOtto, November-December 2009)

Female Figures

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. Mino Maccari's artistic production is mainly aimed at social and political satire, expressed above all through drawing; moreover, he never positioned himself as a judge of Italian customs, but rather as an amusing and amused chronicler of the vices and weaknesses of society. In his pictorial production, although he does not deviate excessively from the themes of his drawings, he accentuates the fantastic aspect more: with rapid and decisive brushstrokes and bright, often violent colours, he characterizes almost unreal or rather caricatural figures. The work is presented in a frame.