Pino Pinelli

Matter. Fragment. Shadow

The Matter. Fragment. Shadow. show prepared by the curators Olga Sviblova, the МАММ Director, and Francesca Pini, is conducted with the support of the Italian Culture Institute in Moscow in cooperation with the Pino Pinelli archive, Claudio Poleschi Arte, Lucca, and Dep Art, Milan, galleries. The show presents nine of the most significant artworks by the Sicilian artist, from the 1970s-1990s mainly, which offer a complete picture of his style.

«It is the first in the series of art shows planned by the Italian Culture Institute in Moscow aiming to expose the Moscow public to the brave artistic experiments in post-WWII Italy,» says Olga Strada, the Director of the Italian Culture Institute in Moscow. Piero Mascitti is the art director of this ambitious project.

A true stylistic revolution starts in Italy during the 1970s. Artists encounter the challenge of the painting interpreted as the combination of the canvas and the of frame: some of them, like Bonalumi and Castellani, reach beyond the painted plain, while others, like Lucio Fontana, break the integrity of its surface.

Pino Pinelli (b. 1938) started his career as an artist relying on the classical set of media. In 1963 he moves to Milan (and has been based there since then): he is drawn into lively discussions involving such masters as Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani. In the early 1970s he creates the Monochromes and Topologies series, and leads the movement called Analytical Painting (the term was coined Filiberto Menna). In 1976, having sensed the spirit of the time, he arrives at the «dispersion» of the painted artwork — this is the traditional interpretation of Pinellini’s method. He takes up painting in small forms, placing canvases very close to each other, as if it were a larger painting dispersed in space. The wall loses is neutral status in this process being transformed into one of the main characters which can carry the elements of pure tones, now in the form of wrinkles and creases, and then of clots, or strict linear shapes, or fractals, independent, yet gathered along a slightly curving trajectory which seems to imitate the gesture of the sower.

The fragmentation of the painting is a symptom of despair experienced by the European artist when he faces history and is aware of how much has been done before: the only way out of this situation for him is not so much painting as a process, as the contemplation of it. The Italian artist cannot follow the same path as the American one who is painting his own history day after day. The artist based in the country of Piero della Francesca and Masaccio who feels the burden of the history of art on his shoulders is left with one choice, he could only imitate painting filling it with new meanings.

Pinellini’s works are restless painted bodies which, oscillating, move thorough space in large and small groups. An alarming incompleteness and viscosity is felt in them. They are tactile, they physically emanate the vibration of light and broadcast emotions through open bright colors.

The show is timed to coincide with the issue of the catalog in three languages (Italian, English, Russian) prepared by the Silvana editoriale publishers. It features texts by the curators of the exhibition, an article by the art critic Marco Meneguzzo, and a collection of reviews covering the oeuvre of the artist from 1970s to our days.