“…BUT AN EXTENSION”
Gastini, Icaro, Mattiacci, Spagnulo

from September 26, 2015 to February 28, 2016
Venice, Ca’ Pesaro – Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna

Extended until April 17th, 2016

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In line with the traditional attention shown by Ca’ Pesaro to the crossroads between sculpture and painting, this exhibition – included into the proposal of the second edition of the Muve Contemporary, the packed exhibitions programme organised by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, in conjunction with the Venice Art Biennale – offers the opportunity for a fascinating dialectic comparison between the works of four great exponents of Italian contemporary art: Marco Gastini, Paolo Icaro, Eliseo Mattiacci e Giuseppe Spagnulo.

Despite working in very different styles and means of expression, the artists, bound by long-standing friendships and by profound affinities, create a fresh, intense dialogue at Ca’ Pesaro that involves art and life.

Marco Gastini (1938), with his continuous dialectic between painting, matter and virtual and real space; Paolo Icaro (1936), who in his work provokes a crisis for any form of rejection and heaviness; Eliseo Mattiacci (1940), who has abandoned the monumentality of sculpture by undercutting it at its base, and Giuseppe Spagnulo (1936), who boldly defies gravity in matter and confers lightness to the most powerful of sculptures.

As Bruno Corà, the exhibition curator with the scientific coordination of Gabriella Belli, writes: “Despite the evident differences distinguishing each of their work, in their sculpture and painting they share and implement the principles prophesied by Medardo Rosso and, later, by Umberto Boccioni (‘we shall put the observer at the centre of the picture’) and Arturo Martini, who had wished sculpture to have a different vocation: ‘I wish it to be not an object but an extension’.

In this way, and despite following in the wake of an Italian tradition that has never died out, the four artists independently renew and amplify these linguistic aspirations, affirming their work in a context that is European and international”.

The catalogue is edited by Marsilio Editore, Venezia, 2015

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Curator: Bruno Corà
Academic director: Gabriella Belli