Metallo nero opaco uniforme Black Metal Uniform Opaque

Details

FRANCESCO LO SAVIO (1935-1963)
Metallo nero opaco uniforme
Black Metal Uniform Opaque
signed, inscribed and dated ‘LO SAVIO 1960 ITALIA SPAZIO - WCE X-1R’ (on the reverse)
metal
39¾ x 79.1/8 x 7¾in. (100.8 x 200.8 x 20cm.)
Executed in 1960

Provenance

Galleria La Salita, Rome.
Studio Casoli, Milan.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature

F. Lo Savio, Spazio-Luce, vol. I, Rome 1962.
G. Celant, Francesco Lo Savio, Spazio e Luce, Turin 1975.
G. Celant, Arte Povera, Basel 1989 (illustrated, p. 39).

Exhibited

Rome, Galleria La Salita, Dipinti e metalli, 1961.
Rome, Galleria La Salita, 0 + 0, 1961.
Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rassegna delle arti figurative (Retrospettiva), 1965.
Rome, Galleria La Salita, Opere 1959-63, 1967.
Rome, Galleria La Salita, Un’analisi mentale dell’esperienza visiva, 1968.
Venice, XXXIV Biennale Internazionale d’Arte, Linee della ricerca contemporanea, 1968.
Venice, XXXVI Biennale Internazionale d’Arte, Retrospettiva, 1972.
Dusseldorf, Galerie Denise René - Hans Mayer, Francesco Lo Savio, 1974. This exhibition later travelled to Munich, Kunstarum.
Milan, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC), Francesco Lo Savio, 1979, no. 43.
Paris, Musée national d'Art modern, Centre Georges Pompidou, Identité Italienne-L’art depuis 1959, 1981 (incorrectly illustrated, pp. 62 and 99).
Bielefeld, Kunsthalle, Francesco Lo Savio: Raum - Licht, 1986, no. 38 (illustrated in colour, p. 73 and illustrated, p. 104). This exhibition later travelled to Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller.
Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma anni ’60. Al di là della pittura, 1990-1991 (illustrated, p. 79).
New York, Guggenheim Museum, The Italian Metamorphosis 1943-1968, 1994- 1995, no. 109 (illustrated in colour, unpaged). This exhibition later travelled to Milan, Triennale di Milano and Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Brought to you by

Alessandro Diotallevi

adiotallevi@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2954

Lot Essay

Our passion for Lo Savio could not fail to bring into the collection another of his rare, significant works: a “metal”. In this work too, with great consistency, the artist has pursued his investigation of light: the refraction of this on the “metallo nero opaco uniforme” (uniform opaque black metal) redefines the work’s space, but also that which surrounds it, by means of certain expedients that find different solutions in the forms realised in the metals. Ours has what we call a “wing flap”, which seems to me to be an element of dynamism, that might lead the metal to take flight, from one moment to the next. But leaving aside my fervent imagination, we have always thought that, albeit with a different path of investigation, in its formal approach the work of Lo Savio contains some characteristics of American minimalism (particularly in some of its expressions).

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