Aldo Mondino. Tappeti e quadrettature
from 24 November 2015 to 12 February 2016
Milano
Aldo Mondino. Tappeti e quadrettature
Ten years after his death – he died in 2005 in Turin, where he was born in 1938 – Aldo Mondino is once again emerging as one of the most interesting and creative artists of his generation. Unconventional and non-conformist for his time, Mondino anticipated the themes of a global and cross-cultural art. In the early 1960s, following an initial stay in Paris, he developed his Surrealist inspiration through wordplay, nonsense and puns. Meanwhile, he ‘studied’ Pop Art, though capturing its more conceptual and detached aspect, eventually engaging with Arte Povera by participating in the historic exhibition Con/templ’/azione ( Turin, 1967).
It is precisely from this period that the Quadrettature originate, representing a cycle already mature within the early phase of Mondino’s work.
Two theoretical strands underpin the structure of these works: the use of banal, very simple, easily repeatable images that evoke a naive and schoolboyish way of ‘making art’; the other is the use of squared paper, which harks back to the sometimes clumsy attempts to bring order to a child’s drawing. According to Mondino himself, the Quadrettature signified “abandoning Surrealism and drawing inspiration from existing subjects, rediscovering my childhood as a painter and re-enacting it as an adult”.
The Tappeti, on the other hand, date from the 1990s and represent a subject Mondino worked on during the later phase of his career. It is difficult to define them simply as paintings; rather, they are object-paintings superimposed in wall compositions, featuring bright colours and created on Eraclite, an industrial material used in construction. It is no coincidence that we speak of “Orientalism” in this cycle of works by the Turin-based artist. His vision of the East is not nostalgic but amused and fascinated, and allows him to transcend those boundaries—albeit tenuous in his case, given his open-mindedness—which the Western man, convinced of his own cultural supremacy, imposes upon himself. It is also a period in which we witness a curious proposal for religious syncretism, dictated, rather than by an authentic spiritual calling, by an extraordinary intellectual curiosity.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, featuring two essays by Luca Beatrice, images of all the works on display and reproductions of a series of other works, including tapestries and grid-patterned pieces.
It is precisely from this period that the Quadrettature originate, representing a cycle already mature within the early phase of Mondino’s work.
Two theoretical strands underpin the structure of these works: the use of banal, very simple, easily repeatable images that evoke a naive and schoolboyish way of ‘making art’; the other is the use of squared paper, which harks back to the sometimes clumsy attempts to bring order to a child’s drawing. According to Mondino himself, the Quadrettature signified “abandoning Surrealism and drawing inspiration from existing subjects, rediscovering my childhood as a painter and re-enacting it as an adult”.
The Tappeti, on the other hand, date from the 1990s and represent a subject Mondino worked on during the later phase of his career. It is difficult to define them simply as paintings; rather, they are object-paintings superimposed in wall compositions, featuring bright colours and created on Eraclite, an industrial material used in construction. It is no coincidence that we speak of “Orientalism” in this cycle of works by the Turin-based artist. His vision of the East is not nostalgic but amused and fascinated, and allows him to transcend those boundaries—albeit tenuous in his case, given his open-mindedness—which the Western man, convinced of his own cultural supremacy, imposes upon himself. It is also a period in which we witness a curious proposal for religious syncretism, dictated, rather than by an authentic spiritual calling, by an extraordinary intellectual curiosity.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, featuring two essays by Luca Beatrice, images of all the works on display and reproductions of a series of other works, including tapestries and grid-patterned pieces.
Aldo Mondino. Tappeti e quadrettature
No no no non, 1964
acrilico su zerbino in cocco
120 × 149 cm
Tappeti stesi, (s.d.).
olio su eraclite
200 × 100 cm
Tappeti stesi, 1994
olio su eraclite
160 × 179 cm
Mezzo notturno indiano, 2001
olio e legno su linoleum
199 × 97 cm
Opere correlate
Nessuna opera correlata trovata