SALVO
AUTOGRILL
March 14 to May 30, 2020
There all is order and beauty
Abundance, peace, and voluptuousness
— Baudelaire, Invitation to the Voyage, 1857
Here there is no space to write about Salvo (Salvatore Mangione, Leonforte, Sicily 1947 – Turin 2015), the conceptual artist from the end of the 1960s to the early 1970s, the citationist-narcissist, the narcissist-ironist, the friend of Alighiero Boetti, the friend of but different to the Turin circle of Arte Povera. Neither is there space to write about his early turn to painting (1973); very little wild, and certainly well before the many international Transavantgardes. Nor surely space to write about the many phases of his painting, apparently naïve but very cultivated in reality. The first, from the history of painting (the d’après), with accents of heavy narcissism that also emerge in his list-canvases Italia and Sicilia, and then, after 1976, the landscape paintings, peppered with classical ruins. Less space even to write about his countless other landscapes⎯both urban and natural: references to places that exist, but have been so irredeemably reworked to become as so many elsewheres.
There is at least the space to write that all of Salvo’s painting⎯which is, in fact, the continuation of his previous work by other means ⎯depicts, precisely, an “elsewhere”, a utopian place, outside of time or, even better, motionless in time. Childhood is that place. Dream is that place. Memory is that place. Wonder is that place. Exoticism is that place. That place where everything is order, abundance, peace and lust. The order of landscapes (almost) without people or movement, sunk in moonlight or blinded by the meridian sun. The ringing, almost psychedelic abundance of light and colour. The abundance of vision of childish fantasy, where clouds are candyfloss, houses marzipan, and trees evergreen and puffy with leaves. The calm of places where wind does not blow, time does not go by, history does not evolve. And the pleasure of living in such places.
And so, the three small urban landscapes exhibited in Berlin are examples, among the many possible, of this transfiguration from reality into order, abundance, peace and pleasure. The canvases, as invitations to the voyage, are as postcards sent from places visited in person and then re-visited through painting. A version of a landscape as toy that Mario Sironi would have painted bleak, in scales of grey and brown (Untitled,1987). A Morandian vision of Pisa, where nothing, no tower is at all leaning, and the sun beats down on the buildings composing an exact geometry (Pisa, 2007). A view of Catania, more sugary than ever, seen through the memories of the time the artist left Sicily as a child (1955 Ventidue anni dopo / Twenty-two years later, 2014).
And then that great highway scape (L’autogrill / The gas station, 2014), unexpectedly lush with light and nature. If Salvo’s paintings normally stop reality in an unmoving time, here it goes beyond that. As if he celebrated an exorcism against the time of his life that was running out, the artist painted a truck that stopped (or is going? It’s never clear) against the traffic. Which is like saying: against time. Stopping the running of time, Salvo has again taken his subjects, even the most banal ones, in a dimension of fable and myth.
In the end, all his work is this: a movement from reality to fable, if not to myth. The frequent citationism, and the narcissism that permeates his work from the beginning, are both part of this movement outside of time, towards the regime of myth. So, as the painter portrays himself blessing, as a new Raphael, as the best, well, as myth, the artist remains alive, saved: Salvo.
Difference in sameness
The obvious in the unpredictable
The novelty in the old
from: Salvo, Della Pittura / On Painting / Über die Malerei
Ed Paul Maenz & Gerd de Vries, 1980
— Luca Cerizza (translated by Alessio Perrone)
Untitled, 1987
Oil on board
28,5 x 21 cm / 11 x 8 in
Signed on the front lower left: Salvo, 87
City views with cars, vans and trams have been a recurring motif in Salvo since the late 1970s and 1980s. Abstractions reminiscent of the experiments of the avant-garde of the 1920s became the artist's stylistic device. The vehicle is represented here in simple geometric figures and juxtaposed with the isometric environment. Monochrome surfaces of colour, alternating with light and shadow, characterise the pictorial space. What is depicted, however, is only created in the mind of the viewer. The simple colored areas are only marked by the tire as a delivery van. In this way, the painter and the viewer are linked to "jointly binding events or views and presuppose the imagination and sensitivity of the eyewitness."
Lit.: Johann-Karl Schmidt, Über das Behagen in der Kultur, in: Salvo, Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Ostfildern 1994.
L'autogrill, 2014
Oil on canvas
140 x 190 cm / 55 x 75 in
The large-format canvas work, which was created in Salvo's last year of work, shows a constant in Italian travel culture: the Autogrill gas station and rest stop. It is the only known depiction of a gas station in the artist's œuvre. Salvo often chose travel motifs, but these were usually railway stations or bus stops. What is striking is the strong fixation on central perspective, with which Salvo orientates himself on great predecessors of the Italian Renaissance. The strong attraction towards the centre is only broken by the truck that seems to drive against the direction of the arrow in the oncoming traffic. The artist depicts the motif in a mixture of landscape and city view and „so it becomes legitimate to also venture into a prosaic Autogrill, linked to the splendors of a small realism of our times, but to make it be reborn in a phantasmagoria of colors, sparkling like a christmas tree.“
Lit.: Renato Barilli, A radiant epiphany of Painting, in: Salvo, Modena 2015.
Cose che fumano, 2004
Acrylic on paper, lined on canvas
30 x 40 cm / 12 x 16 in
The still life Cose che fumano is related to the bar scenes that Salvo has been following regularly since the 1980s. A steaming mug of coffee and a smoking cigarette in an ashtray are presented here equally and radiate a kind of metaphysical loneliness. Salvo focuses on things that others would not consider worthy of a picture and demonstrates an extraordinary ability to observe the depiction of the profane elements from the bar. In 1980, Salvo stated in his tract “About painting - in the style of Wittgenstein”: painting is closely linked to "seeing". The picture is the result of "seeing".
Lit.: Salvo, Della Pittura -Imitazione di Wittgenstein, hg. von Paul Maenz und Gerd de Vries, Köln 1986.
Pisa, 2007
Oil on canvas
40 x 80 cm / 16 x 31 in
Signed verso: Salvo, Pisa, sigla B
Following the title of the anonymous city scene we see a view of Pisa, but without revealing the origin directly through the picture. The greatly simplified representation of shapes and colors looks like a deserted backdrop in miniature optics. The otherwise crowded city is represented here as a windowless shell of society. The light-dark contrasts and the sharp shading across color areas are captivating. „The aim is to achieve a many-fold vision: not to offer a single luminous point, but rather several points, several sources of light. This creates unreal surface rhythms, eliminating any borderlines between illuminated parts and shaded parts, precisely because the shadow itself is no more than a simple modification of the bright areas.“
Lit.: Luigi Meneghelli, The self, the other and the elsewhere, in: Salvo - archeologie del futuro, Verona 1992.
1955 Ventidue anni dopo, 2014
Oil on canvas
35 x 50 cm / 14 x 20 in
Signed verso: Salvo, 1955 Ventidue anni dopo, 2014
In this work Salvo shows a view of the city of Catania in Sicily, alluding autobiographically to the youth he spent on the southern Italian island. With sweeping gestures, the artist depicts the baroque of the cathedral and continues it in the curved, serpentine clouds. Opposite the rounded, organic shapes, Salvo shows monolithic blocks on the left, which provide the greatest possible contrast to the rest of the picture and are more reminiscent of the cityscape of Pisa. A confrontation between classical and modern architecture is created. 1955 Ventidue anni dopo thus combines both ways in which Salvo deals with architecture and symbolizes his work perfectly. „Despite his historical orientation you can always recognize a Salvo – partly because of the tension in the lucid planning of the picture caused by the personal rendering of light and form and the unusually, expressive tonalities.“
Lit.: Elbrig de Groot, Salvo and the painterly tradition, in: Salvo – Schilderijen Paintings 1975-1987, Rotterdam 1988.
Still life, 2013
Oil on jute
40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 in
Signed verso: ME 1, STILL LIFE, Salvo
The still life with typical Italian vegetables occupies a special position in Salvo's work. The objects are not arranged decently and appear somewhat chaotic, quite different from the perfect stage still lifes of the 18th century. The unusual depiction in the artist's œuvre thus creates a bridge between classical picture types and the artist's own personal style. The still life, too, embeds Salvo in his magical world of iridescent colour surfaces, blurring the boundaries between real object and dream world.
Untitled, n.d.
Ball pen on paper
42,8 x 32,8 cm / 16 x 12 in (framed)
The preliminary drawing for one of Salvo's Bar paintings shows the artist's approach to capturing everyday motifs. With quick ballpoint pen sketches Salvo captures a pose that seems familiar from everyday life. This is how the artist judges his graphic works: "You see, here in the sketches one recognizes a fleetingness in thinking, in execution and expression, which is no longer present in the completed work".
Lit.: Salvo, Della Pittura - Imitazione di Wittgenstein, hg. von Paul Maenz und Gerd de Vries, Köln 1986.
Untitled (dopo Sottsass), n.d.
Ink on paper
Diptych each 29,5 x 21 cm / 11 x 8 in
In these drawings, which are conceived as diptychs, Salvo is inspired by ceramic designs by the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass. The typical works of postmodernism are presented by Salvo in an analytical manner and broken down into their geometric individual parts. Guiding lines make it possible to understand the artistic process.
Untitled, n.d.
Ink on paper
29,5 x 21 cm / 11 x 8 in
In the drawing of a simple candle vessel, Salvo's preoccupation with marginal aspects becomes clear. An inconspicuous object becomes the object of an intensive study in which the artist reconstructs the vessel geometrically. This work also served as a preliminary drawing for one of the bar scenes that Salvo had been pursuing since the 1980s.
About the artist
Salvo was born 1947 in Leonforte, Italy and died 2015 in Turin, Italy. His oeuvre ranges from painting and photography to conceptual art. Though briefly associated with the Povera movement, he avoided full commitment to any school and experimented with paintings in mixed technique or marble tomb-stones with different epitaphs. Most of his work is tainted with existentialist dilemmas, exploring the relationship between the human perception and metaphysical subjects. His work often revisits paintings of the Early Renaissance, creating different versions that included his self-portraits or iconic Italian landscapes of vivid colours and simplified structure.
His works have been shown in solo shows at the Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano (2017), Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Lissone (2015), The Corridor, Reykjavik (2006), Trevi Flash Art Museum,Trevi (2003),
Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo (2002), Kunstmuseum Luzern (1983), Le Nouveau Musèe, Lion (1983) and many others. In addition, the artist has taken part in numerous group shows, including exhibitions at Mazzoleni, London (2018), Parkview Green Exhibition Hall, Beijing (2016), Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan (2015), Triennale, Milan (2014), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2008), The second Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing (2005), Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2005), PS1 Contemporary Art Center, NewYork (1999), La 41. Biennale di Venezia, Venice (1984), Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (1978) and documenta 5, Kassel (1972).
SALVO
AUTOGRILL
March 14 to May 30, 2020
There all is order and beauty
Abundance, peace, and voluptuousness
— Baudelaire, Invitation to the Voyage, 1857
Here there is no space to write about Salvo (Salvatore Mangione, Leonforte, Sicily 1947 – Turin 2015), the conceptual artist from the end of the 1960s to the early 1970s, the citationist-narcissist, the narcissist-ironist, the friend of Alighiero Boetti, the friend of but different to the Turin circle of Arte Povera. Neither is there space to write about his early turn to painting (1973); very little wild, and certainly well before the many international Transavantgardes. Nor surely space to write about the many phases of his painting, apparently naïve but very cultivated in reality. The first, from the history of painting (the d’après), with accents of heavy narcissism that also emerge in his list-canvases Italia and Sicilia, and then, after 1976, the landscape paintings, peppered with classical ruins. Less space even to write about his countless other landscapes⎯both urban and natural: references to places that exist, but have been so irredeemably reworked to become as so many elsewheres.
There is at least the space to write that all of Salvo’s painting⎯which is, in fact, the continuation of his previous work by other means ⎯depicts, precisely, an “elsewhere”, a utopian place, outside of time or, even better, motionless in time. Childhood is that place. Dream is that place. Memory is that place. Wonder is that place. Exoticism is that place. That place where everything is order, abundance, peace and lust. The order of landscapes (almost) without people or movement, sunk in moonlight or blinded by the meridian sun. The ringing, almost psychedelic abundance of light and colour. The abundance of vision of childish fantasy, where clouds are candyfloss, houses marzipan, and trees evergreen and puffy with leaves. The calm of places where wind does not blow, time does not go by, history does not evolve. And the pleasure of living in such places.
And so, the three small urban landscapes exhibited in Berlin are examples, among the many possible, of this transfiguration from reality into order, abundance, peace and pleasure. The canvases, as invitations to the voyage, are as postcards sent from places visited in person and then re-visited through painting. A version of a landscape as toy that Mario Sironi would have painted bleak, in scales of grey and brown (Untitled,1987). A Morandian vision of Pisa, where nothing, no tower is at all leaning, and the sun beats down on the buildings composing an exact geometry (Pisa, 2007). A view of Catania, more sugary than ever, seen through the memories of the time the artist left Sicily as a child (1955 Ventidue anni dopo / Twenty-two years later, 2014).
And then that great highway scape (L’autogrill / The gas station, 2014), unexpectedly lush with light and nature. If Salvo’s paintings normally stop reality in an unmoving time, here it goes beyond that. As if he celebrated an exorcism against the time of his life that was running out, the artist painted a truck that stopped (or is going? It’s never clear) against the traffic. Which is like saying: against time. Stopping the running of time, Salvo has again taken his subjects, even the most banal ones, in a dimension of fable and myth.
In the end, all his work is this: a movement from reality to fable, if not to myth. The frequent citationism, and the narcissism that permeates his work from the beginning, are both part of this movement outside of time, towards the regime of myth. So, as the painter portrays himself blessing, as a new Raphael, as the best, well, as myth, the artist remains alive, saved: Salvo.
Difference in sameness
The obvious in the unpredictable
The novelty in the old
from: Salvo, Della Pittura / On Painting / Über die Malerei
Ed Paul Maenz & Gerd de Vries, 1980
— Luca Cerizza (translated by Alessio Perrone)
Untitled, 1987
Oil on board
28,5 x 21 cm / 11 x 8 in
Signed on the front lower left: Salvo, 87
City views with cars, vans and trams have been a recurring motif in Salvo since the late 1970s and 1980s. Abstractions reminiscent of the experiments of the avant-garde of the 1920s became the artist's stylistic device. The vehicle is represented here in simple geometric figures and juxtaposed with the isometric environment. Monochrome surfaces of colour, alternating with light and shadow, characterise the pictorial space. What is depicted, however, is only created in the mind of the viewer. The simple colored areas are only marked by the tire as a delivery van. In this way, the painter and the viewer are linked to "jointly binding events or views and presuppose the imagination and sensitivity of the eyewitness."
Lit.: Johann-Karl Schmidt, Über das Behagen in der Kultur, in: Salvo, Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Ostfildern 1994.
L'autogrill, 2014
Oil on canvas
140 x 190 cm / 55 x 75 in
The large-format canvas work, which was created in Salvo's last year of work, shows a constant in Italian travel culture: the Autogrill gas station and rest stop. It is the only known depiction of a gas station in the artist's œuvre. Salvo often chose travel motifs, but these were usually railway stations or bus stops. What is striking is the strong fixation on central perspective, with which Salvo orientates himself on great predecessors of the Italian Renaissance. The strong attraction towards the centre is only broken by the truck that seems to drive against the direction of the arrow in the oncoming traffic. The artist depicts the motif in a mixture of landscape and city view and „so it becomes legitimate to also venture into a prosaic Autogrill, linked to the splendors of a small realism of our times, but to make it be reborn in a phantasmagoria of colors, sparkling like a christmas tree.“
Lit.: Renato Barilli, A radiant epiphany of Painting, in: Salvo, Modena 2015.
Pisa, 2007
Oil on canvas
40 x 80 cm / 16 x 31 in
Signed verso: Salvo, Pisa, sigla B
Following the title of the anonymous city scene we see a view of Pisa, but without revealing the origin directly through the picture. The greatly simplified representation of shapes and colors looks like a deserted backdrop in miniature optics. The otherwise crowded city is represented here as a windowless shell of society. The light-dark contrasts and the sharp shading across color areas are captivating. „The aim is to achieve a many-fold vision: not to offer a single luminous point, but rather several points, several sources of light. This creates unreal surface rhythms, eliminating any borderlines between illuminated parts and shaded parts, precisely because the shadow itself is no more than a simple modification of the bright areas.“
Lit.: Luigi Meneghelli, The self, the other and the elsewhere, in: Salvo - archeologie del futuro, Verona 1992.
Cose che fumano, 2004
Acrylic on paper, lined on canvas
30 x 40 cm / 12 x 16 in
The still life Cose che fumano is related to the bar scenes that Salvo has been following regularly since the 1980s. A steaming mug of coffee and a smoking cigarette in an ashtray are presented here equally and radiate a kind of metaphysical loneliness. Salvo focuses on things that others would not consider worthy of a picture and demonstrates an extraordinary ability to observe the depiction of the profane elements from the bar. In 1980, Salvo stated in his tract “About painting - in the style of Wittgenstein”: painting is closely linked to "seeing". The picture is the result of "seeing".
Lit.: Salvo, Della Pittura -Imitazione di Wittgenstein, hg. von Paul Maenz und Gerd de Vries, Köln 1986.
1955 Ventidue anni dopo, 2014
Oil on canvas
35 x 50 cm / 14 x 20 in
Signed verso: Salvo, 1955 Ventidue anni dopo, 2014
In this work Salvo shows a view of the city of Catania in Sicily, alluding autobiographically to the youth he spent on the southern Italian island. With sweeping gestures, the artist depicts the baroque of the cathedral and continues it in the curved, serpentine clouds. Opposite the rounded, organic shapes, Salvo shows monolithic blocks on the left, which provide the greatest possible contrast to the rest of the picture and are more reminiscent of the cityscape of Pisa. A confrontation between classical and modern architecture is created. 1955 Ventidue anni dopo thus combines both ways in which Salvo deals with architecture and symbolizes his work perfectly. „Despite his historical orientation you can always recognize a Salvo – partly because of the tension in the lucid planning of the picture caused by the personal rendering of light and form and the unusually, expressive tonalities.“
Lit.: Elbrig de Groot, Salvo and the painterly tradition, in: Salvo – Schilderijen Paintings 1975-1987, Rotterdam 1988.
Still life, 2013
Oil on jute
40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 in
Signed verso: ME 1, STILL LIFE, Salvo
The still life with typical Italian vegetables occupies a special position in Salvo's work. The objects are not arranged decently and appear somewhat chaotic, quite different from the perfect stage still lifes of the 18th century. The unusual depiction in the artist's œuvre thus creates a bridge between classical picture types and the artist's own personal style. The still life, too, embeds Salvo in his magical world of iridescent colour surfaces, blurring the boundaries between real object and dream world.
Untitled, n.d.
Ball pen on paper
42,8 x 32,8 cm / 16 x 12 in (framed)
The preliminary drawing for one of Salvo's Bar paintings shows the artist's approach to capturing everyday motifs. With quick ballpoint pen sketches Salvo captures a pose that seems familiar from everyday life. This is how the artist judges his graphic works: "You see, here in the sketches one recognizes a fleetingness in thinking, in execution and expression, which is no longer present in the completed work".
Lit.: Salvo, Della Pittura - Imitazione di Wittgenstein, hg. von Paul Maenz und Gerd de Vries, Köln 1986.
Untitled (dopo Sottsass), n.d.
Ink on paper
Diptych each 29,5 x 21 cm / 11 x 8 in
In these drawings, which are conceived as diptychs, Salvo is inspired by ceramic designs by the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass. The typical works of postmodernism are presented by Salvo in an analytical manner and broken down into their geometric individual parts. Guiding lines make it possible to understand the artistic process.
About the artist
SALVO was born 1947 in Leonforte, Italy and died 2015 in Turin, Italy. His oeuvre ranges from painting and photography to conceptual art. Though briefly associated with the Povera movement, he avoided full commitment to any school and experimented with paintings in mixed technique or marble tomb-stones with different epitaphs. Most of his work is tainted with existentialist dilemmas, exploring the relationship between the human perception and metaphysical subjects. His work often revisits paintings of the Early Renaissance, creating different versions that included his self-portraits or iconic Italian landscapes of vivid colours and simplified structure.
His works have been shown in solo shows at the Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano (2017), Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Lissone (2015), The Corridor, Reykjavik (2006), Trevi Flash Art Museum,Trevi (2003),
Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo (2002), Kunstmuseum Luzern (1983), Le Nouveau Musèe, Lion (1983) and many others. In addition, the artist has taken part in numerous group shows, including exhibitions at Mazzoleni, London (2018), Parkview Green Exhibition Hall, Beijing (2016), Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan (2015), Triennale, Milan (2014), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2008), The second Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing (2005), Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2005), PS1 Contemporary Art Center, NewYork (1999), La 41. Biennale di Venezia, Venice (1984), Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (1978) and documenta 5, Kassel (1972).