A arte Invernizzi
21 may – 16 july 2015
via D. Scarlatti 12, 20124 Milano

Curated by Marco Scotini

The A arte Invernizzi gallery will open on Tuesday 21 May 2015 at 18.30 a solo exhibition of works by Gianni Colombo which reproposes a new reconstruction of his last personal exhibition, held between 1992 and 1993 at the Galerie Hoffmann in Friedberg (Germany).
This is an important homage to the final phase of the artist’s research treating the “Spazio curvo” (der gekrümmte raum) which in the “Spazio diagoniometrico” (für Hans Poelzig) saw a real aim achieved in Colombo’s creative career. In this way the exhibition allows the visitor to go back over a very significant moment of the artist’s entire activity, from among prominently acknowledged international protagonists of Italian art as early as the close of the 1950s, and bears witness to the enduring actuality of his work.

The work entitled “Bariestesia” is installed at the entrance to the gallery, complete with the drawings of the work’s project as carried out by the artist. This work, which induces the visitor to verify the conditions of his own equilibrium in a continuous variation of steps that follow each other in using the staircase, inclines the surface with the result of creating unexpected courses.
On the gallery’s upper floor the visitor finds Gianni Colombo’s last work – “Opus incertum” which evolved his research tied to the instability of perceptive principles and to disorientation – together with two works that belong to the “Spazio curvo” cycle that are made up of circular metallic structures in movement which investigate the continuous varying of forms and which generate a sensation of reiterated cognitive elusiveness.
In the second room of the upper floor we have the presentation of “Spazio curvo”, a work which by means of the rotatory movement of the luminous element that composes it, immersed in the dark room, underlines and accentuates the perceptive rhythmic alternation, in this way intentionally disorientating the observer.
The gallery’s lower floor houses the work entitled “Spazio diagoniometrico”, a masterpiece of the artist’s last phase dedicated to spatial investigation on an environmental scale: made up of twelve suspended and rotating cones that redefine the architectural and experiential coordinates of space, this work alters the observer\\\\\\\’s perception by offering diverse possibilities. The homage-work to the architect Poelzig – or better, to his Grosse Schauspielhaus formerly in Berlin – instead refers to that moment of German Expressionism of the 1920s which in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari finds one of Colombo’s most important referents.

In the other spaces of the gallery as the completion and counterpoint of the nucleus that reconstructs the exhibition of 1992, Francesca Pola goes over Gianni Colombo’s creative career by way of the presentation of fundamental works such as “Strutturazione pulsante” (1959), “Senza titolo [Superficie in variazione]” (1959), “Strutturazione acentrica” (1962), “Strutturazione ritmica” (1964), “After points” (1964), “After points” (1965), “Spazio elastico. 5 quadrati” (1967), “Spazio elastico” (1967-69), “Spazio elastico – Cubo” (1968-88), “Spazio elastico. Triangolo” (1981), “Spazio elastico. Doppio + in cerchio” (1983-1987), “Senza titolo [Opus incertum]” (1992).

On the occasion of the exhibition a bilingual monograph will be published with an essay by Marco Scotini which looks at the artist\\\\\\\’s environmental works with specific in-depth investigation regarding the one-man exhibitions held in 1992 in Friedberg and in 2015 in Milan, an essay by Francesca Pola which rereads the artist\\\\\\\’s career by way of the works produced from the end of the 1950s up until 1992, texts by Christine Dirnaichner, Carlo Invernizzi and Giorgio Verzotti, a testimony on the part of Stefano Boccalini, images that document Gianni Colombo’s entire work and updated bio-bibliographical notes.
The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Archivio Gianni Colombo in Milan and the Galerie Hoffmann in Friedberg.

CATALOGUE WITH ESSAYS BY: FRANCESCA POLA AND MARCO SCOTINI
TEXTS BY: STEFANO BOCCALINI, CHRISTINE DIRNAICHNER, CARLO INVERNIZZI AND GIORGIO VERZOTTI