Giuseppe Spagnulo: And if there were a gust o wind?
Works on paper and three sculptures, in a perfect encounter of artistic gesture and material energy, are the basis for the exhibition Giuseppe Spagnulo: And if there were a gust of wind? at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection from March 19 - May 22. Luca Massimo Barbero, Associate Curator of the Collection, has organized an homage to this great master of Italian sculpture, presenting an important nucleus of works on paper; a cycle that will present to the international public a highly poetic aspect less frequently noted in the work of Giuseppe Spagnulo.
In July of 2004, the Nasher Sculpture Garden at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection was enriched by the installation of Giuseppe Spagnulo’s Columns. Now, the museum further strengthens its ties to the artist by offering both its public and international review the opportunity to rediscover his art and most recent works on paper. The Venice presentation is the first in a program of exhibitions that in the upcoming months will unravel between Basel and Rome, where important events dedicated to the artist are already in progress. At Art Basel, in fact, Spagnulo was invited to exhibit one of his majestic sculptures in a space dedicated to the grand masters of contemporary sculpture, including Richard Serra. In the spring of 2006, the prestigious MACRO (Museo d’arte contemporanea di Roma) will host a large retrospective that will allow the public to follow Spagnulo’s career through his masterpieces.
Following a red thread that binds the works on paper and the sculptures of Spagnulo, the exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection creates a continuous echo between the museum’s rooms and the garden, and brings to light that which connects the two different mediums used by the artist. This interpretation arises from the presupposition that the works on paper enjoy full autonomy and are in themselves complete. They are not “studies”, but rather an alternative means to express material energy, whether in iron, clay, or volcanic dust. The gesture, the movement, the physicality of the artist are the common denominators of his diverse expressions. Spagnulo uses not the paintbrush, but his hands, and impresses on the paper strong and sensual signs of his materials. In the sculpture it is the energy that gives form, occupying and deepening the sense of space. The concreteness of the works on paper and the sculptures expresses the respect and passion that he nurtures in the material.
In the first of the exhibition’s two rooms, the visitor’s eye is drawn to Cross (2002), a work on paper of large dimensions in which charcoal, iron oxide and volcanic sand testify to Spagnulo’s need to express strong visual sensations in addition to those tactile. In the second room, the artist introduces a virtual dialogue with the visitor: seven large works on paper are accompanied by some of his own thoughts and reflections.
My Roses and You Roses, Infinity is my Desolaion, Skeletal Panoama o the Wold, Wings of Fire, and Escaping Coils are the titles of works on paper inspired by the poetry of Dino Campana, for whom Spagnulo holds an intense elective affinity. Dealing with counterpoints to this kind of poetic verse are the two sculptures, Book in iron, and the terracotta Untitled. 19 small drawings, never before exhibited, complete the exhibition.
In the work of Spagnulo, painting and sculpture share the physicality of the materials’ powerful nature: volcanic sand is fire, lava, and energy, just as iron and earth are the result of a continuous transformation in which the sculptor intervenes, negating the structure, the tectonic integrity, until fire itself is used as a medium. Observe how the hand returns to the paper, spreading layers of iron oxide, carbon, cadmium, volcanic sand and its crystals, amounting to the “removal of substance” in order to discover their latent forces. The works on paper, explains Luca Massimo Barbero, “are layers, overlapping leaves that soffocate the sign, they immerse it, they cover it and ask to be turned like giant pages of a manuscript. The writing of Spagnulo on and in the pages becomes a metaphor for the restless power of Campana’s poetry.” In Spagnulo there exists the desire to take hold of his materials’ nature in order to achieve his own demasking. The concept of weight vanishes, the rules of gravity no longer exist. The cyclical monumentality of his sculpture contains therefore an original lightness, for which one is truly called to ask “And if there were a gust of wind?"
For this occasion, Grossetti Arte Contemporanea, which has collaborated in the realization of the exhibition, publishes a bilingual monograph, in Italian and English, in which Giuseppe Spagnulo’s historic and artistic path is presented, from his terra cotta sculptures of the 1960s to his most recent works on paper. The final section of the catalogue is dedicated to the exhibited works, some of which were created specifically for the Venice exhibition.