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.

An Italian Abstract Expressionist: Enrico Bordoni - Movimento Arte Concreta

Enrico Bordoni was born in Altare in 1904.

Enrico Bordoni (1904-1969)

A professor at the Accademia Brera in Milan, Enrico Bordoni was a member of the abstract art group MAC, Movimento Arte Concreta, which flourished from 1948-1958.

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1949

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1949

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1951

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled woodcut, 1955

Bordoni was one of the most prolific contributors to MAC's publication Documenti d'arte d'oggi. His original silkscreens, woodcuts and lithographs show a powerful and highly-alert sense of rhythm, and their gestural authority and boldly vibrant use of colour link this non-figurative Italian "concrete art" movement with the contemporary Abstract Expressionism of the USA.

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1949

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1956

Enrico Bordoni died in 1969.

The master of spatialism in the Movimento Arte Concreta - Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana was born in Argentina in 1899. Now renowned as the founder of the Spazialismo movement (Spatialism), he was a member of Abstraction-Création in the 1930s, and in the 1950s he was also closely involved in the Italian abstract movement MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta.

Lucio Fontana, Untitled lithograph, 1955

Lucio Fontana, Untitled lithograph, 1955

The two Fontana lithographs above both date from 1955, and are printed on very thin paper, the first on green, the second on orange. They have both been randomly punctured with many small holes, in accordance with Fontana's practice at this period, and his ongoing concern with disrupting the picture plane. His paintings of this date, which are also punctured with holes rather than slashed with cuts (for which he is perhaps more famous), were called Buchi, Holes.

Lucio Fontana

Untitled lithograph, 1958

Apparently Fontana came to find MAC's theoretical rejection of figuration an arid dead-end, leading too many of its artists to take refuge in geometry. But his 1958 lithograph above is anything but arid or geometric. Instead it is lyrical and dreamlike, and makes the most of its unusual support, a highly fibrous buff-coloured paper. One of Italy's most influential 20th-century artists, Lucio Fontana died in 1968.

Augusto Cernigoj - Movimento Arte Concreta

Augusto (or Avgust) Černigoj was born in Trieste in 1898, of Slovenian parentage. He studied at the Fine Art Academy of Bologna, and also at the Bauhaus, where he was the only Italian student. Augusto Černigoj worked as a teacher at the Slovenian school in Trieste. The two works below were contributed to Documenti d'arte d'oggi, the journal of the Movimento Arte Concreta, in 1958. By happenstance, my copies have been hand-signed by Černigoj in pen at the bottom right. Usual copies are unsigned.

Augusto Černigoj

Untitled woodcut, 1958

Augusto Černigoj

Untitled lithograph, 1958

The influence of Hans Arp can be seen in the lithograph, which is a very successful and balanced composition, in my view. Although he was a well-respected artist, the art of Černigoj has only been truly appreciated after his death in 1985. More than 1400 pieces are gathered in the Galleria di Avgust Černigoj in Lipizza.

A Personal Calligraphy: The Art of Gillo Dorfles - Movimento Arte Concreta

The long-lived artist and art critic Gillo Dorfles was born in Trieste in 1910, and in 2013 was still able to be actively involved in designing the Tibetan Pavilion for the 55th Venice Biennale.

Gillo Dorfles

His chief period as an active artist spanned essentially the life of the influential abstract movement he co-founded, MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta. MAC was founded by Gillo Dorfles, Atanasio Soldati, Bruno Munari, and Gianni Monnet in 1948, and disbanded in 1958 after the premature death of Monnet. Writing in the New York Times in 1955, when Dorfles was showing a group of monotypes at the Wittenborn Gallery, D. Ashton notes that, "In most of his prints, the emphasis is on a personal calligraphy that can be read for meaning, like handwriting. . . At times the rhythmic interplay of line resembles the intricate symbolic designs on ancient oriental bronzes. In his delicacy of color and the emphasis on integral rhythms, Dorfles achieves a lyrical quality." These comments apply equally to his lithographs of the same period. Sadly I have found it very hard to capture the deep glowing background colours of these lithographs in my photographs - the originals are really intense and vibrant.

Gillo Dorfles

Five untitled lithographs, 1955

Gillo Dorfles

Two untitled woodcuts, 1956

After the disbandment of MAC, Gillo Dorfles devoted most of his energies to teaching and writing about art and aesthetics, though he also continued to create his own art.

A Travel Sculpture by Bruno Munari: Movimento Arte Concreta

Bruno Munari, about whom there is a very interesting article here relating to a 2002 exhibition at the Milan Dobeš Museum, was one of the four founders of MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta, an Italian abstract art movement that flourished from 1948-1958. Born in Milan in 1907, Munari enjoyed a long career of restless creativity. In the late 1920s and the 1930s Bruno Munari was a member of Marinetti's Futurist movement, from which he disassociated himself after WWII, because of Futurism's links with fascism. Bruno Munari was a pioneer of installation art, mobile and kinetic art, photocopy art and all kinds of inventive creations such as his useless machines and unreadable books. Among his most charming creations are his "sculture da viaggio" - portable sculptures cut out of card that can be folded for travel. One of these was included in the final publication of MAC/Espace, the 1958 volume of Documenti d'arte d'oggi. Beautifully simple, and simply beautiful.

Bruno Munari

Scultura da viaggio, 1958

The two silkscreens below reflect one of Munari's most consistent concerns, the arrangement of planes of colour in a square format. He created the first of these Negativi-Positivi for the cover of Art d'Aujourd'hui in 1952. In 1945 the New York publication the Magazine of Art wrote of Munari's Negativi-Positivi, "his interest lies further in the advance and recession of planes, and in the possibilities for double-focus - that is, planes that seen to shift their position according to the juxtaposition."

Bruno Munari, Negativo/Positivo

Silkscreen, 1955

Bruno Munari, Negativo-Positivo

Silkscreen, 1956-57

(sorry about the wonky photo!)

MAC was dissolved in 1958, after the death of co-founder Gianni Monnet. Bruno Munari lived another 40 years, during which he continued to make art with ceaseless invention, and also forged a career as the creator of highly-innovative picture books for children, which encouraged kinaesthetic learning. Bruno Munari died in Milan in 1998.

Women artists of MAC: Movimento Arte Concreta

What critical attention that has been focused on the Movimento Arte Concreta has been on the male artists who formed the overwhelming majority of the members of MAC. So I thought before I turned my attention to the men I would post about the three women who contributed original art to Documenti d'arte d'oggi.

Simonetta Vigevani Jung (1917-2005)

The first of these is Simonetta Vigevani Jung. She was born Simonetta Irene Jung in Palermo, Sicily in 1917. She first exhibited in Milan in 1955, and in New York the following year at the Duveen-Graham Gallery. Her work is distinguished by its dynamic forms and vivid colours - though colour is not an essential element of her art, as two cool black-and-white studies in line and form go to show. I have to say I personally prefer the colour work, with its enticing sense of cosmic rhythm. Writing of her "Light Forms" (Forme Luce) paintings of 1955 (to which the first six of my lithographs are closely related), Albert Duveen remarks on their "lilting airiness": "The lyrical movements, detached and ethereal, are created with such vivacity that they bespeak of a joyous nature - their voluptuousness, a refined sensuality. Here then is a personal language, emotional but disciplined, stirring us to our very depth. Truly a revelation rarely produced before within the limits of the abstract."

Simonetta Vigevani Jung

Six untitled lithographs (Forme Luce), 1955

Simonetta Vigevani Jung

Two untitled lithographs, 1956-57

Simonetta Vigevani Jung

Untitled lithograph, 1958

Though there is a monograph on her work by Giuseppe Marchiori, Simonetta Vigevani Jung seems to have fallen into underserved obscurity. She was first married to Angelo Vigevani with whom she had a daughter Diana. Vigevani died in a car accident when their daughter was seventeen years old. She remarried and then lived in Brussels with her husband Hubert De Schryver who was a Belgian consul. Simonetta Vigevani Jung died in Brussels in 2005.

Carol Rama (1918- )

The second female member of MAC is Carol Rama. One of Italy's most important female artists of the twentieth century, Carol Rama was born in Turin on 17 April 1918. Though she is now best-known for her provocative drawings and paintings exploring female sexuality, in a naive, almost "Outsider" style, in the 1950s Carol Rama was also an active member of the Movimento Arte Concreta. At this period she often spelled her name as one word, Carolrama. I really like her abstract compositions of this period, with their distinctive arrangements of block forms connected by thin rods.

Carol Rama

Five untitled lithographs, 1955

Carol Rama and Albino Galvano (1907-1990)

Joint composition on one lithographic stone, 1956-57

Carol Rama's lifetime creating art was recognised at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, when she was presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Major retrospectives have been held at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and ICA Boston (1998), at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in her birthplace of Turin (2004), and at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (2005). In 2003 the Esso Gallery, New York, staged the exhibition Carol Rama, past and present.

Regina with her husband, Luigi Bracchi

Lastly, I have two lithographs by the sculptor Regina Cassolo Bracchi, who worked simply as Regina. Regina was born in Mede in 1894, and studied at the Brera Academy. She studied sculpture under Giovanni Battista Alloati. A member of the Futurists from 1933, Regina was also a member of MAC. After the disbanding of MAC, Regina continued to work in a Futurist style.

Regina (1894-1974)

Untitled lithograph, 1955-56

Regina

Untitled lithograph, 1956-57

Regina died in Milan in 1974. The Museo Regina in the Castle of Mede contains more than 500 works left by her husband the artist Luigi Bracchi. A 1991 monograph on her work by Luciano Caramel is now very hard to find. In 2010 the Fondazione Ambrosetti Arte Contemporanea staged an important exhibition on this neglected female artist, REGINA. Futurismo, arte concreta e oltre, curated by Paolo Campiglio.