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Gilberto Zorio (1944)

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It was in the mid eighties that i first heard of Gilberto Zorio. An Italian artist rooted in the Arte Povera mouvement. At that time we had a book distributor at the Gemeentemuseum who had this impressive catalogue on Zorio. I bought it for the bookshop, but i must have been the only one who admired it, because years later we still had the book andeventually it was sold with  a huge discount. Times have changed, Zorio has now become one of the great names in the Arte Povera and his works fetch high prices at auction. It is not the easiest from of art Zorio makes, but his often huge installations always fascinate me.

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Zorio’s artwork shows his fascination with natural processes, alchemical transformation, and the release of energy. His sculptures, paintings, and performances are often read as metaphors for revolutionary human action, transformation, and creativity. He is known for his use of materials including: incandescent electric light tubes, steel, pitch, motifs, and processes through the use of evaporation and oxidation.

btw. It was the silver one with the red lettering we were stuck with, but i have it now once again available at www.ft-books.com

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Angelo Savelli (1911-1995)

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Savelli is the Italian master of “WHITE”. Practically all works by Savelli from 1959 on are executed in White. The difference is their shape and the materials used. This makes this Italian artist almost on par with the dutch Jan Schoonhoven , who used “WHITE” too. The difference… Schoonhoven is rooted in the Zero mouvement whereas Savelli is more an abstract constructivist who uses different kind of materials and execute them in WHITE.

Savelli is not very known outside Italy, but in prepaartion of this blog i found that some of his paintings are in famous museum collections. Moma and White Chapel gallery have work in their collections and when you look into his oeuvre you notice that his art must be now in fashion. it tends to Zero and has some qualities of the arte Povera. Both mouvements in art that now are in “Fashion” and are collected worldwide.

Perhaps the next 2 decades Savelli will be discovered by many and become a household name like Jan Schoonhoven’s name has become nowadays. www.ftn-books.com has Savelli publications available.

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Luciano Fabro (1936-2007)

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Luciano Fabro…an italian artist rooted in the ARTE POVERA and perhaps a little bit forgotten nowadays.

But Fabro stays very imortant for Modern Art, since his works are very much in line with other great artist from that era. Castellani and Manzoni were of great influence to him and in 1958, after he saw Lucio Fontana’s work at Venice Biennale, Fabro moved to Milan where he spent the rest of his life pursuing his artistic career.

Fabro was involved in the Arte Povera group, which was interested in experimenting with industrial and natural materials, focusing on process, language and the body. Fabro’s best known works were sculptural reliefs of Italy made out of glass, steel, bronze, gold and even soft leather. The signature unorthodox, ‘poor’ materials in his works include steel tubes, cloth, newspapers, and wax; the artist, however, often used also traditional and expensive art materials such as gold, marble, and bronze. At the height of the ARTE POVERA group, the Boymans van Beuningen Museum organized and exhibition with the works by Luciano Fabro and after this exhibition other exhibitions followed in the Netherlands. The catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com