Pino Pascali
dal 2/3/2011 al 30/4/2011
Segnalato da
2/3/2011
Pino Pascali
Camden Arts Centre, London
Camden Arts Centre presents the first solo exhibition in a British gallery by Italian artist Pino Pascali. The exhibition focuses on his work in 1967 and 1968, the years in which the artist became associated with the phenomenon of Arte Povera, the radical trend in Italian art towards using everyday materials in resonant and seemingly unambiguous combinations.
Camden Arts Centre is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in a British
gallery by Italian artist Pino Pascali. The exhibition focuses on his work in 1967
and 1968, the years in which the artist became associated with the phenomenon of
Arte Povera, the radical trend in Italian art towards using everyday materials in
resonant and seemingly unambiguous combinations.
While Arte Povera has retained its importance for audiences and artists, there
has never been a show in Britain devoted solely to Pino Pascali’s work. With loans
from public and private collections in Austria, Britain, France and Italy, this
show will introduce a wider British audience to an artist who remains surprisingly
little known. Yet his place in art history is undisputed alongside Giovanni
Anselmo, Jannis Kounellis, Giuseppe Penone, Michaelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto
Zorio and others synonymous with Arte Povera.
At the core of this exhibition will be the work Pascali made for his one-person
presentation at the XXXIV Venice Biennale in 1968. Using steel wool, coloured fun
fur, feathers and straw, Pascali created a visually exciting and texturally
appealing installation. Among the forms on view were a possible drawbridge, two
giant hairy mushrooms, a massive house of cards and a shield pierced by eagles’
quills. The show closed after two days when the artist withdrew his work because
of student unrest in the city and the police response. Early in September 1968
Pascali died, aged 32, following a road accident.
Augmenting works first seen at Venice that year will be sculptures that show
Pascali’s interest in natural themes connected with sea and the land. From 1967
he used overtly man-made materials to make fake silk worms in brightly-coloured
acrylic; an oversized blue spider in fun-fur (Vedova Blu, as illustrated above); a
nest of raffia and synthetic fur; and tools reminiscent of agriculture. Trained as
a set designer, Pascali worked in television and film, a career he could only
afford to abandon in 1967 to concentrate full-time on art.
The selection of this exhibition highlights this artist’s complexity as a maker. His
career has considerable relevance for generations of artists today as his work
ran contradictory notions of reality and artificiality in parallel, and contrasted
conventions of fixed form with an aesthetic infused with playfulness and a
preference for shapes that could be manipulated on the spot.
Like his mentor Michelangelo Pistoletto, whose solo exhibition Oggetti in meno
(Minus Objects) 1965-1966 was held at Camden Arts Centre in 1991 (the first by
this major figure in a British public gallery), Pascali refused to be identified
with a particular style or technique. He believed in tapping fact and imagination
simultaneously and in never repeating the same work. “I am like a serpent,” he
once wrote, “each year I change my skin.”
‘...a multitude of soap bubbles which explode from time to time...’ Pino Pascali’s
final works, 1967 – 1968 has been initiated and selected by writer Martin Holman.
Organised by Camden Arts Centre, with support from The Henry Moore Foundation.
The exhibition title is a quote from Pascali in an interview about his work with
Carla Lonzi in 1967.
For images and further information please contact Elisa Ruff: elisa.ruff@camdenartscentre.org
Press View Thursday 3 March 2011 from 4.00-6.30pm. Exhibition tour at 5.45pm.
Camden Ar Centre
Arkwright Road, London
Opening time: Tuesday - Sunday: 10am-6pm
Wednesday late 10am–9pm
Closed Mondays