Agostino Bonalumi – Bonalumi Sculptures
Mostra personale di Agostino Bonalumi.
Comunicato stampa
Mazzoleni London is pleased to present Bonalumi Sculptures from 6 February – 4 April 2015 in collaboration with Archivio Bonalumi, curated by Francesca Pola. The exhibition features a selection of significant sculptural works exemplifying the scope of the artist’s influential career that spanned six decades.
Agostino Bonalumi (1935 – 2013) was a pivotal figure of Post-War Italian Art and his bold sculptures and inventive canvases helped to shape the course of Abstract Art. Alongside his friends the artists Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani, Bonalumi re-invented painting by blurring the boundaries between the two and three dimensional, to investigate form and shadow. The artist is recognised for his Picture-Objects, created through a process of ‘extroflection’ that used structures and frames placed at the backs of canvases to stretch and deform them. At various points in his career, he brought his work fully into three dimensions, creating sculptures as well as immersive environments.
The works on view range in date from the 1960s to the 2010s and examine the broad range of materials the artist experimented with. Among the works in the exhibition is Nero (1969) - large-scale forms in fibreglass that outline Bonalumi’s use of creative curves. Further sculptures created in fibreglass including Rapporti (1978) as well as work created in plastic and coloured ceramic including Blu and Rosso (2010) are presented. Highlights include Bronzo (1967-2006 and 1969-2007) created in bronze to reflect light in a different manner and wall based works created from metal sheets structured to give movement such as Bianco (1989) and Blu (1990).
Top Left: Agostino Bonalumi, Bronzo, 1969-2007, cast bronze, 18 x 38 x 42cm, Courtesy Archivio Bonalumi and Mazzoleni London
Top Right: Agostino Bonalumi, Blu, 1993, vinyl tempera on shaped canvas, 114 x 146 cm, Courtesy Archivio Bonalumi and Mazzoleni London
Bottom Left: Agostino Bonalumi, Rosso, 1967 - 2005, fibreglass, 140 x 180 x 120cm, Courtesy private collection and Mazzoleni London
Bottom Right: Agostino Bonalumi, Nero, 1970, fiberglass and paint on shaped canvas, 80 x 130 cm, Courtesy Archivio Bonalumi and Mazzoleni London
The exhibition coincides with the international presentation of a large-scale monograph Bonalumi Sculptures, published by Numerozeroeditore, in collaboration with the gallery and the artist’s estate.
‘I am honoured to have represented Agostino Bonalumi for the last 10 years of his life and I am delighted to be working with the Bonalumi family to present this unique show in London. Bonalumi was a true pioneer of his time who made a monumental contribution to art history. He managed to create work that even today still looks incredibly contemporary and will influence generations to come.’ says Luigi Mazzoleni.
Agostino Bonalumi was born in Vimercate, Milan and was a self-taught painter who took up art after abandoning his mechanical design studies. His work has been exhibited internationally since the late 1950s including at the Venice Biennale in 1966, 1970 and 1986. Bonalumi was also involved in set and costume design, and in 1970 he collaborated with Susanna Egri’s ballet Partita, staged at the Teatro Romano in Verona, and in 1972 with the ballet Rot, held at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. In 2001 he was awarded the Presidente della Repubblica Prize by the National Academy of San Luca and had a retrospective of his work at the Palazzo Carpegna, Rome. His work is held in several museum collections including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.