This volume was published to accompany the exhibition Pietro Consagra. Immagini Vaganti (“Pietro Consgara. Wandering Images”), curated by Paola Nicolin, on view at the Galleria Tommaso Calabro from December 14 to February 26, 2022.
The exhibition and the catalogue foster an unconventional reading of Consagra’s output, partially moving away from the male coding traditionally associated with the imagery of his monumental iron, bronze and marble sculptures. The show stemmed from the research conducted by the curator Paola Nicolin on a specific body of works by Consagra, better known as Lenzuoli (“Bed sheets”): paintings executed with washable colors on cotton fabrics that the artist produced since 1967, the year he arrived in Minneapolis to teach at the School of Fine Arts. As Consagra was developing a practical and theoretical discourse on the thickness of sculpture, new intuitions converged into this lesser-known series, in which the artist exploited painting as a free and liberatory field for experimentation, as a flow of endless “wandering images.”
Such aspects of Consagra’s work are investigated in the essay by Paola Nicolin published in this catalogue. Her discourse on Consagra as a volatile, “aerial” artist extends to other lesser-known series by the artists, including his Inventari (“Inventories”), Giardini (“Gardens”), Ferri (“Irons”) and Piani appesi (“Hanging plans”) – joyful, colored iron sculptures from the 1960s, in which Consagra engages with the new experimentations taking place in the arena of Pop Art – and pieces of furniture he designed for his daily life. The catalogue is rich in archival photographs, such as those by Ugo Mulas of Consagra’s pivotal exhibitions at the Galleria dell’Ariete and of Benedetta Barzini wearing the artist’s unique jewels, as well as of the artist painting the Lenzuoli in his studio. With over one hundred images and the reprint of some of Consagra’s most significant exhibition catalogues, this publication exemplifies how Consagra freed up sculpture in the air, allowing it to take flight, making it possible to pass through it, seeking out – by means of colour, thickness and space – the absence of the material.
INDEX
Introduction
— Tommaso Calabro
Pietro Consagra. Your work is not about welding
— Paola Nicolin
Reprint
Catalogue of works
Biography
