Hall 2.0 Stand D8
The A arte Invernizzi gallery presents at Art Basel 2019 a solo show of works by Mario Nigro (1917- 1992). The exhibition focuses on the 1950s, retracing the seminal moment of his visual language. Starting with initial abstract-constructive works, Nigro moved - in the “Spazio totale” series on show here - towards a more dynamic and penetrating approach to perception. In these works, the diagonal is accentuated, creating a tension between space and form, and leading to an interweaving and overlapping of planes. The works selected on this occasion are seminal pieces and are of foundamental importance for understanding the later developments of the artist’s work in relation to his investigation of the concepts of time, simultaneity and progressivity.
The exhibition also aims to bring about a dialogue between Mario Nigro’s works and those of four other masters of contemporary art: Rodolfo Aricò, François Morellet, Niele Toroni and Alan Charlton. Representative works of these artists, which actively and poetically interact with works by Nigro, will be shown alongside each other in the stand to highlight the spatial relationships through the revisitation, contradiction and variation of geometrical, structural, and architectural archetypes. This creative process has always been a distinctive feature of all these artists and they have expressed it in ways that are different and yet that run parallel.
Rodolfo Aricò analysed and carried out his personal research regarding the diverse structural and expressive modulations bound to primary forms - an investigation that was not only spatial but also dimensional and chromatic, unfolding a lyrical dimension.
The alteration between perception and actual vision is also key to the works of François Morellet, in which the elements guide the eye through and beyond the physical confines of the straight or curved lines traced out on the canvas and on the wall, so that they end up creating a new idea of space. By means of a combination of dissimilar visual solutions, the artist creates a sense of continuous disorientation, which leads to ambivalent visions.
The works by Niele Toroni are characterised by sequences of marks made with a no. 50 brush at a distance of 30 cm from each other. With their constant and faithful rhythm present a possible path, a succession of hypothetical passes that can be crossed and that with their physical existence describe an elementary and physiological relationship with the world, while also sounding the space in order to discover its essence.
The works by Alan Charlton - which are the vibrant result of a long process of realization - based on the correspondence between pluralism and unity, create a constantly new physical threshold, which unfolds in the segmentation and multiplication of the image in a single, minimal gesture, in the painting of everdifferent greys.

Vernissage (by invitation only):
Wednesday, June 12, 2019, 4pm to 8pm