The "cuts" of the Sixties are exemplified on this occasion in unusual and brilliant colours: fuchsia, intense green and orange.
From the famous Pierre Gallery in Stockholm comes the example with a single central cut (fig. 1, p. 1) – in a lively fuchsia – with the inscription “Pour Pierre … che bel colorino/mi piace”, the date is 1964 and its estimate ranges from €500.000 to €700.000.
Of the three, the Concetto Spaziale, Attese, bright green (fig. 2, p. 1) – with 5 denominations – has the oldest date and dates back to 1961 and comes from a private collection in Varese (val. € 600.000-800.000 ) while the three-denomination orange one is dated 1963 and has a valuation in the catalog that fluctuates between €500.000-700.000.
In Manifesto Blanco Fontana wrote: "Matter, Color, are the phenomena whose simultaneous development constitutes the new art". And in this Spatial Concept, Attese, from 1963, a warm and engaging color such as orange, it is as if it led us more into the spatiality of the canvas.
The Blue Concept of Space anticipates the Venice series: graffiti and oil on canvas from 1961, estimated at €450.000-650.000.
This is followed by the black Concetto Spaziale (1960) – with holes inflicted to draw a floral shape – which precedes the invention of the Teatrini and the signed scenography for the Portrait of Don Quixote by Petrassi, created at the Scala in Milan (1967): the work is estimated between €450.000 and €650.000.
Fontana had affectionately nicknamed it “Panettone”: it is a plaster cast from 1956, black-green in shape on a light green background, made with pastels and holes (val. € 230.00-280.000).
The two white blotting papers of this selection are magnificently preserved and of great quality, published in the recent monograph by Luca Massimo Barbero which collects Fontana's works on paper (val. €40.000-60.000, each).
Lucio Fontana: born a sculptor and the group of important ceramics dating from the XNUMXs to the XNUMXs testify to his extraordinary mastery.
Dating from 1940 is Combate Indio (fig. 3, p. 2), black and white terracotta (val. € 250.000-350.000), about which Crispolti writes in the catalog raisonné: it is a magnificent example of how much the extent of Fontana's originality in context of Argentine figurative sculpture was perceptible and precisely through its “Baroque” gap.
Like the previous one, also Fondo Marino of 1947 (fig. 4, p. 2), glazed and colored ceramic (val. € 50.000-70.000) comes from a private Italian collection and the light produces magnificent reflections on both ceramic sculptures .
The abstract terracottas, with an opaque color, represent a sculptural version of Spatialism, whose paradigms, as is known, date back to 1946, the date of the Manifesto Blanco. An example of great quality is the black and white terracotta from 1951 Concetto Spaziale, estimated at €120.000-180.000.
Alberto Burri: all his research has had the relationship with matter at its center and among the tops of his investigation is the experience of the Cretti, here declined in three small-sized specimens, which come from a private collection.
The Cretti are creations in which Burri pours a dense mixture obtained with a mixture of zinc white and kaolin, then subjected to drying covered with vinyl glues. In the drying process the Cretto is created. As can be seen in these three examples from the Milan auction, Burri, who in the XNUMXs already had the material research of the Sacchi and Combustioni to his credit, with the Cretti moves towards a more "equal" path, so to speak , between the artist and the material itself.
Given their intimate dimension, these three works attest to Burri's desire to create a personal relationship – almost similar to ancient portable devotional altarpieces (Bianco Cretto, fig. 5, p. 3). The date of the Cretti, two white and one black, is 1972 and the estimate is €150.000-200.000 (each).
Di Burri, in the catalogue, five other works for an excursus up to the Cellotex of the 80s, with Nero Mi (estimate € 150.000-200.000) and – with the same estimate – Cellotex P4 of 1984 (fig. 6, p. 3) , already exhibited in Paris in 1985.
SPAZIALIST MOVEMENT – IMPORTANT CORPUS OF WORKS OF THE 60s
The third main theme of this Milanese auction is the – highly selected – corpus of works by the Spazialists of the 60s and 70s, led by a work of absolute coherence by Enrico Castellani, dated 1960, which anticipates the artist's subsequent production: Surface White , estimate €250.000-350.000. It is one of the seventeen everted canvases executed by Castellani with the support of polyester resin, between 1972 and 1976, Surface dated 1973 and estimated at € 550.000-700.000.
Already in the well-known Milanese collection of Gianni and Mina Malabarba, the large Scheggi Intersuperficie curva bianca was the protagonist of the important exhibition in Rome in 1970, Vitality of the Negative in Italian art 1960-1970, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, and in 1976 of the monographic curated by Franca Scheggi at the Gallery of Modern Art in Bologna.
The work, executed in 1969, is among the top of Paolo Scheggi's short and intense production and has an estimate of €400.000-600.000 (fig. 7, p. 4). This is followed in the catalog by Zone Riflesse from 1963 (val. € 200.000-250.000) and Intersuperficie Curva Bianca from 1967, another pinnacle of the artistic creation of space by Scheggi (val. € 250.000-350.000).
In 1964 Agostino Bonalumi created Blu, a large extroversion of 140×100 cm, from the rich exhibition history that began in 1965 in Milan by Arturo Schwarz (val. € 200.000-300.000), followed by Rosso (fig. 8, p. 4), a magnificent example of the 1966 Quadri-Oggetto: Rosso emerges among the three-dimensional sculptures created by the artist and conceived as an extension of painting. The work, three of the most beautiful pieces in the exhibition that the Galleria del Naviglio dedicated to Agostino Bonalumi in 1967, is estimated at €180.000-250.000.
POOR ART
Selected presences here too.
Two papers by Alighiero Boetti from the late 50.000s come from an important Italian collection and are part of the series of collages that tell episodes from his life (val. €70.0000-XNUMX, each).
Airplanes (val. € 180.000-250.000) by Alighiero, is a work made up of three panels of great beauty, made with a very uniform pen stroke, in a turquoise-blue for an infinite sky full of planes. As is known, Boetti was fascinated by airplanes and continually drew them: already in 1977 the Il Collezionista gallery in Rome presented an exhibition on Boetti's airplanes designed by Guido Fuga, Italian architect and cartoonist.
Man nailing barbed wire by Michelangelo Pistoletto (fig. 9, p. 5) is a crucial work of the 70s in Italy and in Turin in particular, because there are many themes that intertwine with it. Indeed, in the work Paolo Mussat Sartor photographs a Tucci Russo seen from the back (who had collaborated with the forerunner Galleria Sperone in Turin until 1974) in the act of creating a sort of barbed wire curtain to mark the beginning of a independent life as a gallery owner (gallery that will open in 1975 in a garage in Turin). Man nailing barbed wire (val. € 200.000-300.000) is a work bearing witness to the Turin two-year period of 1974-75, years of strong opposition and social protest.
THE CONCEPTUALS – THREE WORKS FROM THE 70'S FROM A MILAN PRIVATE COLLECTION: AGNETTI, ALVIANI and COLOMBO
It is by Vincenzo Agnetti – very rare at auction – Culture erased by form and betrayed by content, 70×70 cm bakelite from 1970, estimated €25.000-35.000, followed by Surface with vibrating texture from 1971, square aluminum on wood by Getullio Alviani , (val.€ 40.000-50.000) and Elastic space cube, enamelled iron and electromechanical animation by Gianni Colombo (val. € 40.000-50.000), a work from 1968 with a rich international exhibition itinerary.
From the Monument Man Salvatore Scarpitta (during the Second World War the artist worked on the recovery and cataloging of works of art stolen by the Nazis), a red square and powerful Red Ladder n. 2, (fig. 10, p. 6) val. € 250.000-350.000) dated 1960 and formerly from Leo Castelli's New York gallery.
In the 1960s, Mario Masenza succeeded his father in the family jewelery shop on Via del Corso in Rome and conceived the idea of bringing together the world of jewelery and that of art with the enlightened support of Palma Bucarelli, the then legendary director of Gnam in Rome and collector of artist jewels. A good example of this all-round creative atmosphere is the parure composed of a bracelet and necklace by Afro, 30.000, estimated at €50.000-XNUMX.
We cannot fail to mention two masterpieces from the same year, 1962: Piero Dorazio, Bande (val.€ 50.000-70.000) and Surface 448 by Giuseppe Capogrossi (fig. 11, p. 6), iconic oil on canvas, formerly in the Modugno collection of Rome, exhibited in Turin in 1962 at the Civic Gallery of Modern Art in Structure and Style; the valuation for this painting, measuring 210×180 cm, is €200.000-300.000.
Last, in the brief excursus of the session of 20 May, but among the first in the history of 900th century art, Giorgio Morandi with a pivotal work: Natura Morta of 1953, created specifically for the artist from Constantinople, but Venetian from adoption, Leone Minassian, accompanied by correspondence between the two artists, a sort of didactic and at the same time affectionate legacy between the Bolognese master – fifteen years his senior – and the young Turkish-Venetian. The canvas has an estimate of €450.000-600.000.
Among the more recent works to be auctioned on 21 May, there are two works by Nicola de Maria dated 1987 and estimated at €25.000-35.000 each.
Untitled by Lawrence Carroll follows, to whom the Mambo of Bologna recently dedicated an important retrospective: the work, a large canvas on wood created between 1996 and 1997, is estimated at € 30.000-40.000 (fig. 12, p .7).
The cibacrome print entitled Errotin – Le vrail lapin by Maurizio Cattelan (val. € 1995 and € 40.000) dates back to 60.000, while the digital print Performance detail by Vanessa Beecroft dates back to 2000 (val. € 6.000 – 7.000). Finally, we mention, among others, Eden Blu by Marcello Lo Giudice from 2013 (val. €5.000-7.000) and Giardini Pubblici by Giovanni Frangi, a large canvas from 2012, estimated at €10.000-15.000.
