Turi Simeti

PROJET D’ ÉDITION / EDITORIAL PROJECT Forma Edizioni srl, Firenze, Italy redazione@formaedizioni.it www.formaedizioni.it RÉALISATION ÉDITORIALE / EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Archea Associati COORDINATION ÉDITORIALE ET RÉDACTIONNELLE / PUBLISHING AND EDITORIAL COORDINATION Laura Andreini SUPERVISION RÉDACTIONNELLE / TEXTUAL SUPERVISION Riccardo Bruscagli RÉDACTION / EDITORIAL STAFF Valentina Muscedra Maria Giulia Caliri Beatrice Papucci Elena Ronchi CRÉATION GRAPHIQUE / GRAPHIC DESIGN Silvia Agozzino Elisa Balducci Sara Castelluccio Vitoria Muzi Mauro Sampaolesi PHOTOLITHOGRAPHIE ET IMPRIMERIE / PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY AND PRINTING Forma Edizioni srl, Firenze, Italy TRADUCTIONS / TRANSLATIONS Miriam Hurley Lara Tonnicchi

en couverture / on the front cover turi simeti, dittico rosso, 2014

© 2014 Bruno Corà Pour le texte / For the text L’éditeur est à la disposition des ayant-droits pour les éventuelles sources iconographiques non identifiées / The editor is available to copyright holders for any questions about unidentified iconographic sources.

© 2014 Forma Edizioni srl, Firenze, Italy Aucune partie de ce catalogue ne peut être reproduite ou transmise sous aucune forme et avec aucun moyen électronique, mécanique ou autre sans l’authorisation écrite des propriétaires des droits et de l’éditeur / All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Première édition : septembre 2014 First edition: September 2014 ISBN: 978-88-96780-69-5

sommaire contents 8 Turi Simeti: Espaces « ab ovo »

Turi Simeti: Spaces “ab ovo” Bruno Corà

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Œuvres / Works

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Annexes / Appendices

Loft AVENUE Bligny, Milan, 1972. PHoto DE Enrico Cattaneo / Loft on Bligny AVENUE, Milan, 1972. Photo by Enrico Cattaneo

Turi Simeti: Espaces « ab ovo » Turi Simeti: Spaces “ab ovo” Bruno Corà

Turi Simeti, New York, 1968.

PHOTO DE Carolee Campbell / Turi Simeti, New York, 1968.

Photo by Carolee Campbell

La proposition spatiale à partir de laquelle l’œuvre de Turi Simeti trouve son origine et se développe a, en synthèse, des coordonnées esthétiques précises et formelles : d’une part un pattern à caractère archétypal, une forme ovoïde singulière ou répétée et organisée en série ; de l’autre, la sollicitation de la surface de la toile à travers des reliefs de différentes hauteurs.

Ces derniers sont obtenus avec une forme et mis en évidence dans l’absolu traitement monochrome du travail pictural-plastique tout entier. En distribuant la forme ovoïde, singulière ou multiple, sur la surface de la toile ou en-dessous, Simeti accomplit la structuration plastique de la surface picturale sur laquelle aussi bien la lumière que l’ombre exercent une échelle de modulation en vertu des reliefs conçus et mis en place par l’artiste.

De cette façon, Simeti parvient à inscrire sa propre action linguistique dans le répertoire d’expériences artistiques des XXème et XXIème siècles. Celles-ci se sont distinguées par leur contribution à la conception du support de la représentation qui passe de la surface bidimensionnelle au rendu tridimensionnel, en obtenant un résultat pictural-plastique. Plus encore, la valence distinctive au sens esthétique de cette élaboration linguistique est celle d’une œuvre qui contient une composante sémiologique.

Il faut préciser que pour l’aboutissement à ces notions, qui entraînent des conséquences esthétiques et conceptuelles significatives relatives à l’image, à l’espace et au rendu sensible dévoilé par les œuvres, des artistes tels que Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, Heinz Mack, Francesco Lo Savio, Erwin Thorn, Agostino Bonalumi et, plus tard, Pino Pascali, ont apporté différents degrés de prononcé esthétique.

Chaque artiste a travaillé la surface de la toile en faisant avancer la structure picturale depuis le mur vers l’espace devant lui. Ainsi, ont-ils contribué, avec quelques autres exemples influents précédents – Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana ainsi qu’avec, par d’autres moyens, Louise Nevelson, Zoltan Kemeny et, précedémment, Kurt Schwitters et Paul Joosten – à la définition d’un dénominateur spatial significatif abouti dans l’environment et dans la dimension de l’habitat dont on a pu compter de nombreux représentants importants, dans les années soixante et soixante-dix en Europe et aux Etats-Unis1.

L’intérêt accru des critiques pour le travail de Simeti ces dernières années, trouve une justification dans le processus d’historicisation de toutes les expériences menées par sa génération. Du reste, il intervient dans le cadre temporel contemporain marqué par une crise durable, voire même tout à fait prévisible, qui a touché les sociétés capitalistes avancées et celles de l’Occident

Turi Simeti’s work is born and grows out of a spatial proposition that has specific aesthetic and formal points of reference; first, there is a pattern with an archetypical nature, an oval on its own or repeated and organized in series; then, there is the action created on the canvas surface through reliefs of different heights made with the oval, standing out in the absolute monochrome of the overall painted/sculptural work. With the distributional action of placing the oval shape, alone or in multiples, above or below the canvas’ surface, Simeti effects the sculptural saturation of the painted surface on which light, in equal measure to shadow, creates modulations based on the reliefs he conceives and arranges.

Simeti thereby makes his artistic language part of the history of 20th- and 21st-century art, with its defining shift in conceiving the surface, moving from representing two-dimensional surfaces to threedimensional works with a painted/sculptural effect.

The distinctive aesthetic value of this artistic process is based on semiology.

These aspects, supported by significant aesthetic and conceptual consequences tied to image, space and the sensibility contained in the work, were achieved (with varying degrees of aesthetic emphasis) through the important contributions of artists over the years, including Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, Heinz Mack, Francesco Lo Savio, Erwin Thorn, and Agostino Bonalumi and, later, Pino Pascali.

Each of these artists developed the canvas’ painted surface, using the painted structure to escape from the wall into the room in front of it. Along with a small number of previous works (by artists such as Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and, using different means, Louise Nevelson, Zoltan Kemeny and, before them, Kurt Schwitters and Paul Joostens), Simeti helped define an important spatial denominator that led to the environment and the dimension of the habitat, which many important artists pursued in the 1960s and 1970s in Europe and the U.S.1 Recent burgeoning interest in Simeti’s work can be easily explained by the process underway of historicizing the above-mentioned art of his generation. Right now we have the (very predictable) persistent crisis affecting advanced capitalist societies and all of Western civilization, and the online communication explosion; this forces us to face the global structure of production and trade with emerging economies and world regions that want to participate in the distribution of material and cultural resources, having been too long marginalized and excluded. Like in all times of crisis, we are seeing a return of attention and energy to basic needs and established values. The resulting shift was seen

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BUREAU DE TRAVAIL dans l’atelier de Viale Bligny, Milan, 1971. PHOTO DE Enrico Cattaneo / Work table in the studio on Viale Bligny, Milan, 1971.

Photo by Enrico Cattaneo

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Tondo n°5, 1990 ACRYLIQUE SUR TOILE extroflexe/ Acrylic on shaped canvas 120×140 cm / in 47.2×55.1

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ENDNOTES / NOTES

1

En 1967, à Foligno, l’exposition « Lo spazio dell’immagine » à Palazzo Trinci, coïncidait en une exploration de l’art qui en Italie avait fourni des exemples importants et précoces de ‘environnements’ de la part d’artistes comme Fontana, Castellani, Fabro, Pascali, Colombo, Scheggi, Mattiacci, et d’autres, sur laquelle s’était concentrée une réflexion critique de Argan, Dorfles, Kultermann, Celant et d’autres, à travers des essais ponctuels et des commentaires aigus.

2

Turi Simeti, « Elogio dell’ovale », conversation d’Alberto Fiz avec Turi Simeti dans Turi Simeti. Unlimited, catalogue de l’exposition (Milano, Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea, 26 mars-3 mai 2014), SilvanaEditoriale, Milano 2014, p. 4.

7 Turi Simeti dans « Elogio dell’ovale », cit. p. 14.

8

Perrin-Fayolle, 1968, p. 273, dans Cosimo Zaccaria, Teoria del ritmo, Campanotto Editore, Udine 1993, p. 19 (en note).

9

Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répétition, Presse Universitaire de France, 12° édition, Paris 2014, p. 374-375.

1

In 1967, the “Lo spazio dell’immagine” exhibition in Palazzo Trinci, in Foligno, recognized art in Italy that had offered significant early examples of “environments” through artists like Fontana, Castellani, Fabro, Pascali, Colombo, Scheggi, Mattiacci and others examined by art critics, including Argan, Dorfles, Kultermann, Celant and others, including thorough, insightful essays.

8

Perrin-Fayolle, 1968, p. 273, in Cosimo Zaccaria, Teoria del ritmo, Campanotto Editore, Udine 1993, p. 19 (in note).

9

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 293.

2

Turi Simeti, “Elogio dell’ovale”, Alberto Fiz’s conversation with Turi Simeti in Turi Simeti.

Unlimited, exhibition catalog (Milano, Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea, March 26-May 3, 2014) SilvanaEditoriale, Milano 2014, p. 4.

3

Ibid.

4

Nello Ponente, in Turi Simeti, exhibition catalog (Milano, Galleria Cadario, 1968) republished in Turi Simeti, Catalogo Generale, vol. I, Maretti Editore, Falciano 2007, p. 8.

3

Ibid.

4

Nello Ponente, dans Turi Simeti, catalogue de l’exposition (Milano, Galleria Cadario, 1968) réédité dans Turi Simeti, Catalogo Generale, vol. I, Maretti Editore, Falciano 2007, p. 8.

5

« Turi Simeti, Macchine silenziose », interview de Federico Sardella dans Tele Sagomate, Turi Simeti, catalogue de l’exposition (Padova, Maab Studio d’Arte, 2009) Grafiche Turato, Rubano (Padova) 2009.

6

Francesco Lo Savio, Lo Savio, catalogue de l’exposition (Roma, Galleria Selecta, 1960), Istituto Grafico Tiberino, 1960, réédité dans Bruno Corà, Francesco Lo Savio, “operarius lucis”, catalogue de l’exposition (Prato, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, 22 février-31 mars 2004), sous la direction de Bruno Corà, p. 19.

5

“Turi Simeti, Macchine silenziose” interview by Federico Sardella in Tele Sagomate, Turi Simeti, exhibition catalog (Padova, Maab Studio d’Arte, 2009), Grafiche Turato, Rubano (Padova) 2009.

6

Francesco Lo Savio, Lo Savio, exhibition catalog (Roma, Galleria Selecta, 1960), Istituto Grafico Tiberino, 1960, published in Bruno Corà, Francesco Lo Savio, “operarius lucis,” exhibition catalog (Prato, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, February 22-March 31, 2004), edited

by Bruno Corà, p.19.

7 Turi Simeti, in “Elogio dell’ovale,” quot. p. 14.

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PREMIèRE COUCHE DE ROUGE, Alcamo Marina, 2007. PHOTO DE Enrico Minasso / First red layer, Alcamo Marina, 2007. Photo

by Enrico Minasso

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ŒUVRES WORKS

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collage di buste su tela, 1961 collage / collage 85Ă—100 cm / in 33.5Ă—39.4

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un ovale rosso, 1967 Acrylique sur toile extroflexe / Acrylic on shaped canvas 70×130 cm / in 27.6×51.2

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tre ovali neri su un rettangolo, 1993 Acrylique sur toile extroflexe / Acrylic on shaped canvas 120×200 cm / in 47.2×78.7

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87

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un ovale blu, 2012 Acrylique sur toile extroflexe / Acrylic on shaped canvas 150×200 cm / in 59×78.7

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tre ovali gialli, 2013 Acrylique sur toile extroflexe / Acrylic on shaped canvas 150×120 cm / in 59×47.2

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détail de l’atelier AVENUE Bligny À milan avec des tableaux des années soixante. Photo de René Mächer / Detail of studio on Bligny AVENUE in milan with paintings from the 1960s. Photo

by René Mächer

BIOGRAPHY

Turi Simeti was born in 1929 in Alcamo, in the province of Trapani, Sicily. He moved to Rome in 1958, where he first came into contact with the art world and met Alberto Burri, who was already well known for his Sacchi, and his recent works with burns on paper that gave birth to the series Legni, Plastiche and Ferri (1956 – approx. 1958). In the early ’60s, these inspirations led to Simeti’s first mixed-media works. The world beyond Rome also influenced Simeti’s early art as he soon gained international experience through extended stays in London, Paris and Basel.

In this early period, Simeti acted in accord with the era’s widespread desire to cancel out tradition and the pre-established codes of artistic expression. In his aspiration to strict reductionism, his vocabulary soon became easily recognizable through the use of monochrome and relief as his sole compositional processes.

The form of ellipse made its first appearance in his work, which was to become the iconic figure of his art.

This progressive defining of his vocabulary was not done in isolation. The period of the early ’60s was one of great ferment, in visual arts and elsewhere, bringing into question every aspect of post-war culture. It saw the rapid formation, often chaotic and fleeting, of groups, acronyms and neo-avantgarde trends. Simeti drew close to the visual and structural innovations of Arte Programmata and the New Art Practice. In 1963, he took part in the “Rassegna Arti Figurative di Roma e del Lazio”; in the Premio Termoli prize and the “Arte Visuale” show at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence; the “Nuova Tendenza 3” show in Zagreb in 1965; and exhibitions at the Il Cenobio gallery in Milan, Modena and Reggio Emilia in 1967. He also took part in important

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international exhibitions focused on this area of art, including “Arte Programmata – Aktuel 65” and “Weiss auf Weiss” in Bern in 1965 and 1966.

He was involved in the “Zero Avantgarde” project, which started in 1965 in Lucio Fontana’s studio in Milan and played a major role in his work becoming part of this particular visual art scene. It was followed by exhibitions in the Galleria il Punto in Turin and the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice. In 1965, after settling in Milan, he had his first solo show at the Galerie Wulfengasse in Klagenfurt.

The following year he had a solo show at the Galleria Vismara, with the catalog introduction written by Giuseppe Gatt. The international recognition he had gained brought him overseas to New York. Between 1966 and 1969 he was invited as Artist in Residence at the Fairleigh Dickinson University. He spent long periods there, establishing his own studio and creating many works adhering to the strict poetics he had defined.

His success as part of the contemporary art scene culminated in a series of shows in many galleries in Italy (including Il Chiodo in Palermo, Giraldi in Livorno and Stefanoni in Lecco), and abroad, particularly in Switzerland and Germany, where his success grew over the years (in 1971 his work was shown at the prestigious Galerie m in Bochum, Galerie Loehr in Frankfurt and Galerie Bettina in Zürich).

A major shift in Simeti’s creative path took place in 1971; in an act of radically challenging the current artistic vocabulary and in some ways questioning the very existence of the “work of art” as such, Simeti staged a performance at the Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa with the “Distruzione di un aliante”, keeping the remnants in

signed and numbered blue bins. However, this break was not a disavowal of his work on surface and volumes, though his subsequent works did show an additional lightening of their protruding elements, clearly approaching the poetics of minimalism. This was noticeable in his solo shows in the early ’70s in Bergamo, Verona, Rottweil, Düsseldorf, Oldenburg, Cologne, Munich, and in his participation in several group exhibitions, including “Estensione” at the Casa del Mantegna in Mantua, confirming his affiliation with artists exploring the realm of constructivism.

In the following years his work was displayed in many different European cities like Basel, Düsseldorf and Koblenz.

In 1980, the Pinacoteca Comunale of Macerata hosted a solo show. That same year, he started to work in his new studio in Rio de Janeiro, where he spent long stretches of winter and later exhibited his work, which was successfully received.

Simeti’s work underwent another formal metamorphosis in this period. At this point, his work was taking on a consequential line of inquiry, organized in space-time sequences that expand their duration in the exploration of new complexity. He shifted from single works to diptychs and polyptychs, often featuring a decentralized protruding element; he experimented with different formats and shapes, creating effects of increasing spatial complexity throughout the ’80s.

This period saw him again highly involved in the international scene (though not exclusively).

After several shows in the ’80s in his native Sicily (in Gibellina in 1980, at the Galleria Pagano in Bagheria, and at the Opera Universitaria in Palermo in 1981) and Milan (a solo show at Studio Grossetti, 1982),

his work was shown mainly abroad, at the Galerie Passmann in Freiburg and Galerie Wack in Kaiserslautern in 83, at the Galerie Maier in Kitzbüehl and at the Galerie Ahrens in Koblenz in 1984, at the Galeria Paulo Figueiredo in San Paolo, Brazil and at the Galerie 44 in Düsseldorf in 1985, at the Galerie Apicella in Bonn in 1986, and at the Galerie Monochrome in Aachen in 1987.

After this intense international period, Simeti again showed in Italy in 1989 with a solo show at the Galleria Vismara of Milan. His work was shown in tandem with that of two other artists, Bonalumi and Castellani (“La Tela Estroflessa nell’Area Milanese dal 1958 ad Oggi” at the Galleria Arte Struktura in 1989 and “’58-’80 Bonalumi, Castellani, Simeti / Tre Percorsi,” also in Milan, at the Galleria Milenium, 1990).

The comparison underscored how Simeti’s formal extroversion takes on values that are both contiguous with, and antithetical to, the similar compositional/constructive techniques that Castellani and Bonalumi use.

In the ’90s his shows brought him back and forth between his native Sicily and international arenas. In 1991, he showed a wide array of works at the Museo Civico in Gibellina, with Elena Pontiggia writing the catalog introduction.

In subsequent years, he had solo shows of recent works in Rio de Janeiro, Biberach, Kaiserslautern, Milan (Galleria Vinciana), Bolzano and Trapani, in addition to retrospectives put on in 1996 at the Kunstverein in Ludwigsburg and in Erice, the latter with a catalog contribution

by Marco Meneguzzo. In 1998 he had a solo show at the Galerie Kain in Basel, and the following year other shows in Biberach (again at the Galerie Uli Lang), Ladenburg and Mannhein and he participated in the “Arte in Italia negli anni ’70” exhibition

at La Salerniana in Erice.

At this point, his work was taking shape through multiplying and dispersing projecting elements of volume, through his signature oval form, on the work’s surface.

His colors became more intense and diverse, and he returned to increasingly clear architectural values.

By the turn of the millennium, Simeti was already a longestablished, essential part of the contemporary art and exhibition scene. The list of shows, solo shows, and installations in public and private places is extensive. Solo shows were put on at the Studio d’Arte Harry Zellweger of Basel and at the Galerie Uwe Sacksofsky in Heidelberg, both in 2000; in 2001 at the Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Gallarate. Between 2002 and 2003, many shows were put on at the Fondazione Mudima, Milan, the Galleria Rino Costa, Casale Monferrato, the Galleria Bergamo, Bergamo, the Galerie Maier, Kitzbühel, the Galerie Wack, Kaiserslautern, Immoblilia, Verona, the Galleria Giraldi, Livorno, at the artesilva gallery, in Seregno and at the Carte d’arte Mostre gallery, in Catania. In 2004, his works were shown at the Galleria Poleschi Arte in Milan (with an introduction by Luca Beatrice); in 2005, at the ARTantide space in Lugano, and in 2006, also in Lugano, the Galleria BIM – Banca Intermobiliare put on a solo show for him; also in 2006, the Excalibur gallery in Solcio di Lesa put on a solo show, with a catalog introduction by Flaminio Gualdoni. In November 2007, Simeti was invited by the Fiera D’Arte in Padua for an anthological exhibition organized as a side event.

these were the solo show at the GlobArt Gallery in Acqui Terme in 2007, which included a large catalog; a solo show introduced

by Paolo Campiglio, at the Galleria Poleschi Arte in Milan in 2008; shows at the “Spazio Satura” site in Genoa and at the Armanda Gori Casa D’Arte in Prato (which was then taken to the Fiera D’Arte in Cremona), as well as the Maretti Arte Monaco show in Montecarlo, where some of his recent works were shown in 2009. The major anthological solo exhibition put on in August 2010 in Alcamo, his birthplace, was particularly important, marking his deep, continuous emotional bond with the city.

His most recent works are large white works and were recently shown at the Pino Casagrande contemporary art studio in Rome and the Galleria Salvatore + Caroline Ala in Milan (February 2010). And that’s not all. In 2012 The Mayor Gallery in London took its turn with the show “Turi Simeti – Pianissimo,” and in 2013, he was at the Dep Art gallery in Milan, and then at the Fabbriche Chiaramontane space in Agrigento.

Turi Simeti lives and works in Milan.

Particularly noteworthy are shows involving retrospectives going over Simeti’s now long art career (often accompanied by hefty publications). Among

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CRÉDITS PHOTOGRAPHIQUES / PHOTO CREDITS

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© Archivio Simeti – p. 13-15, 19, 22-24, 27, 31, 40 © Bruno Bani – p. 150-151 © Carolee Campbell – p. 10 © Luca Carrà – p. 33 © Enrico Cattaneo – p. 6-7, 20-21 © Bart Hermam – p. 44-45 © Mimmo Jodice – p. 28-29 © Olimpia Lalli – p. 38-39, 46-47 © René Mächer – p. 144-145 © Enrico Minasso – p. 42-43, 159 © Ana Vitoria Mussi – p. 16-17, 34-35 © Tornabuoni Art – p. 50-141 © Duilio Zanni – p. 37

turi simeti, 2007. photo de Enrico Minasso turi simeti, 2007. photo by Enrico Minasso