AGOSTINO BONALUMI: All the Shapes of Space / 1959 - 1976
4 October – 15 November 2013
• Agostino Bonalumi’s first solo exhibition in the UK in over 50 years.
• Exhibition curated and monograph edited by Francesca Pola, under the supervision of the artist and in cooperation with the Archivio Bonalumi.
• Featuring over 30 works by the artist, including Bianco (1964) from the Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, alongside pieces by Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Dadamaino, and Paolo Scheggi.
• The first international showing of his environment, Blu abitabile (1967) to be displayed in its original configuration.
Reception for the Artist: Monday, October 14th 6 - 9 pm
Bonalumi: All the Shapes of Space 1958-1976 will showcase a selection of work from a vital period of nearly twenty years from the career of AGOSTINO BONALUMI (Born 1935), reaffirming his key role in the context of Italian art of the 1960s and international contemporary movements such as Zero and Nul groups in Germany and Holland.
The exhibition starts from 1958, with the exceptional rediscovery of Senza Titolo, published in September 1959 in the first issue of the seminal Milanese art journal, Azimuth. The painting is emblematic of the relationship with artists such as Castellani and Manzoni who, like Bonalumi, worked in the wake of Lucio Fontana’s creative legacy. The exhibition reveals the complexity and wealth of Bonalumi’s research on form and material in the transition between the 1960s and 70s, through the development of his experimentation with shaped canvases, which from the early plastic versions evolve towards large, rhythmic and luminous progressions. The exhibition includes never before exhibited canvases from Italian private collections and an important loan from the Museo Berardo of Lisbon: Bianco from 1964. For the first time ever, Blu abitabile will be shown outside Italy. This environment was created for the historic exhibition “Lo spazio dell’immagine” held in Palazzo Trinci, Foligno in 1967, and was shown again in 1970 at the exhibition “Vitalità del negativo” in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome. The piece will be presented in its original configuration.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a book of over 200 pages, in English, edited by Francesca Pola and published by Skira-Rizzoli. This is the first monograph to be devoted to this crucial period of the artist’s career. Based on extensive studies of his work during these decades, with about 180 images of paintings and documents, it will also include a selection of his writings from the period, an interview with the artist for the occasion and an iconographic mapping of approximately thirty of Bonalumi’s works in museums around the world, from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
