Not Monet, Monnet - Movimento Arte Concreta

Gianni Monnet seems to have fallen through the cracks of art history, which is sad in all sorts of ways. Of all the artists of MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta, which lasted from 1948 to 1958, Gianni Monnet seems to have been the joker in the pack. His original works contributed to Documenti d'arte d'oggi, the movement's four-volume journal, are almost uncategorisable, so intent was Monnet on sticking on various bits of material, ranging from furry purple felt to sandpaper to corrugated card. I've already posted here about an instance in which a lithograph had holes hand-punched through it, a piece of scrumpled newspaper collaged to it, and sandpaper and corrugated card fixed to the facing page in order to make visible impressions on the surface of the litho. Surface and the rupturing of the surface; texture and the effects of texture on the untextured surface; these seem to have been his obsessions.

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1955

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1955

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1956

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1956

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, with hand-punched holes, collaged newspaper,

and deliberate surface impressions from facing page, 1956-57

Gianni Monnet

Lithograph for the cover of Documenti d'arte d'oggi, 1958

with die-cut hole, collaged corrugated card and collaged furry purple felt

Gianni Monnet was born in Turin in 1912. He trained as an architect, before moving to Milan in 1946 to become an artist. Two years later he co-founded the influential abstract art group MAC, Movimente Arte Concreta, alongside Gillo Dorfles, Atanasio Soldati, and Bruno Munari. Inspired by Theo van Doesburg and the Dutch De Stijl movement, and also by the Swiss painter Max Bill, MAC espoused a severe aesthetic in which only the "concrete" elements of form and colour were the artist's only true concern. The premature death of Gianni Monnet in 1958 led to the disbanding of MAC in May of that year. Without this elusive and mercurial figure, the others seem not to have had the heart to carry on.