An exhibition curated in every detail by the artist recently passed away
The Guggenheim dedicates a great retrospective to Giovanni Anselmo, entitled “Beyond the Horizon” (curated by Gloria Moure, until May 19th). The artist - who passed away on December 18th - designed and curated this exhibition in every detail: from the structure of the spaces of the iconic building signed by Frank Gehry to placing his photo on the cover of the catalogue.
ARTWORKS LIKE TORSIONE OF THE '68 AND INVISIBLE OF THE '71 ON VIEW
At the beginning of the exhibition path, there is a portrait taken by a friend in Stromboli in 1965 that has taken an epiphanic value for the artist’s poetry. There are, then, works such as Torsione (1968) and Untitled (The Wet Cotton is Thrown onto the Glass and it Stays There) (1968), passing through those that symbolize the inexhaustible research conducted on the boundary between visible and invisible (Invisible, 1971): pivotal themes such as those related to entropy, reinterpreted in the light of the theories of Georges Bataille, Toward Ultramarine (Verso Oltremare) (1984) and Untitled (1984).
KEY THEMES OF HIS RESEARCH THOSE RELATED TO ENTROPY REREAD IN THE LIGHT OF THE GEORGES BATAILLE THEORIES
The exhibition reflects the vision of Anselmo, who rejected the linear chronological exhibition in favor of a continuous flow dynamic: a circular procedure with which he conceived reality and his work that, applied to the exhibition order, gives life to new bonds and formulas of perception and reflection compared to what has been achieved throughout his career. He started with drawing and painting, that he soon left together with the representation, to arrive at a panic dimension of participation in the existing, which led him to prefer materials assembled in installation form to express himself, working with fundamental physical relationships such as magnetic fields, tensions between the elements, gravity, the precariousness of equilibrium.
IN 1969 HE TOOK PART IN PIVOTAL EVENTS SUCH AS "WHEN ATTITUDES BECOME FORM" CURATED BY HARALD SZEEMAN AND IN 1990 HE WON THE GOLDEN LION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
A path that, despite the affiliation to arte povera, his participation in events such as the one curated by Harald Szeeman in 1969 ("When Attitudes become Form") and prestigious awards such as the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1990, has been conducted under the banner of strict confidentiality and consistency, which have allowed him to combine, in a synergistic way, individual dimension and universal reflection, aesthetics and politics.
