Scultura #1

Eliseo Mattiacci (Cagli, 1940 – Fossombrone, 2019) was an italian artist. He moved to Rome in 1964. In 1967 La Tartaruga gallery opened Mattiacci’s first solo exhibition, featuring “Tubo” (Tube), a 150 meters, yellow-coloured, nickel-plated iron tube that “changes the perception of the environment and encourages the public to modify it.” In those years, contemporary artists experienced the limit of conventional institutional spaces together with a strong need of unconventional contexts to express their languages, which drove to a greater freedom in action and forms of expression.  In this scenario, the Roman gallery L’Attico-garage by Fabio Sargentini marked a turning point: Mattiacci in 1969 entered the gallery with a compressor that crushes a path made of pozzolana ash.

Along the years, the research of the artist strengthened around the relation with the specific site, both natural (as a quarry) and human-designed (as an archaeological site) environment; also, his work focused on visible and invisible physical energies – such as gravity force and the attraction generated by large magnets – fueled by a constant, ideal tension to remove weight from the heavy matter. The exhibition held at the archeological site of the Trajan’s Markets in Rome in 2001 has exemplified his established narrative.

Nunzio Di Stefano (Cagnano Amiterno, 1954) lives and works between Rome and Turin. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome and he graduated in the course of Toti Scialoja. His first exhibition was at Galleria Spatia in Bolzano in 1981. In 1985 he exposed in Usa for the first time, at Annina Nosei gallery in New York. From that moment he attracted the interest of collectors and his works started being appreciated internationally. In 1986 at L’Attico in Rome he presented his first works made of wood and lead. Some of them were exposed at the XLII Venice Biennial, where he won the “Premio 2000” award as best young artist. Some of the most important national and international exhibitions are:, Nouvelle Biennale de Paris 1985; Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Nice, Castello Colonna in Genazzano, Galleria Comunale in Bologna;, Aspekte der Italienischen Kunst, 1986; XI Quadriennale in Rome 1996; VI Sydney Biennal 1989; Los Nuevos Romanos, Santiago de Compostela and Madrid; Prospekt ‘89, Frankfurt; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Wien, 1991; III Istanbul Biennale 1992.

In 1994 he exposed in Kodama Gallery in Osaka, Japan, with a solo show. In 1997 Nunzio exposed for the first time his bronze works at the Galerie Alice Pauli in Lausanne. In 2005 he had a solo show at Galleria dello Scudo in Verona, curated by  Lea Vergine, where he presented a series of installations in combusted wood that created alienating spaces. He exposed at MACRO, Rome; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrado; Museum Biedermann in Donaueschingen, Germany; Museo Riso in Palermo; Forte di Belvedere and Palazzo Marino Marini in Florence; Galleria Casamadre in Naples. In 2019 he was invited by Anna-Maria Ehrmann-Schindlbeck at the Galerie der Stadt in Tuttlingen (Germany) for a solo show.

Giovanni Termini (Assoro, 1972) is among the most promising Italian sculptors of his generation. He has drawn the attention of both art critics and the audience due to his interventions aimed at altering and invading the exhibition space, which bends to the artist’s will and becomes one with his work. One notable example is the large reinforced framework made of materials usually employed in the construction industry, presented between 2013 and 2014 at La Pescheria Visual Art Centre in Pesaro.