THE SHARPER PERCEPTION Dynamic Art, Optical and beyond 14 Jan - 12 Mar THE SHARPER PERCEPTION Dynamic Art, Optical and beyond GR GALLERY 255 Bowery, 10002 New York January 14 - March 12, 2016 Curated by: Translation: powered by: Set per intestazione su foglio Giovanni Granzotto Giovanna Zuddas verticale THE SHARPER PERCEPTION Alberto Pasini A special thanks to: di Giovanni Granzotto Conceived and realized by Paolo Covre Ugo Granzotto Set per intestazione su foglio Antonio, Fiorenzo, Gaspare verticale BEYonD VisUAL PErspEctiVE www.gr-gallery.com e Giancarlo Lucchetta Flavia e Gianni Pasini di Alberto Pasini Set per intestazione su foglio Photograph credit: verticale Archivio Studio d’Arte G.R. Our thanks also go to: Stefano Barazza Pinuccia Agostini Maurizio Elia Tommaso Bet Giancarlo Gennaro Sergio Colussa ART WorKS Cesare Salvadeo Franco Costalonga Kinetic Art, Optical Art and Programmatic Art Nadia Costantini Press office and public relations: Duilio Dal Fabbro Different perceptual developments Alberto Donaudi Luciano Dureghello Transport: Maria Lucia Fabio Flavio Fasan Giorgio Ferrarin Inarte s.r.l. Lalli Munari Simone Prestini Finito di stampare Insurance: Sandi Renko nel mese di dicembre 2015 Generali, Treviso Rossella Tornquist presso le Grafiche De Bastiani Godega di Sant’Urbano - TV Valmore Studio d’Arte © Dario De Bastiani Editore, Graphic Design: Eva Zanardi Vittorio Veneto 2015 Serena Chies ISBN 978-88-8466-466-2 GioVAnni The GR Gallery is undertaking its Ameri- So, referring again to this area of inter- GRANZotto can adventure with an exhibition dedi- est, many supporting, sponsoring and cated to the wide, articulated and even promoting initiatives for young worthy contradictory world of perception. The and talented artists have been actu- THE SHARPER choice has precise foundations in the alized to allow them develop their re- PERCEPTION very DNA of the Gallery, because its Ital- search in the varied perceptive fields: ian sister, the Studio GR, has certainly Marcello De Angelis, Mara Fabbro, been the reference gallery in Italy, but Paolo Radi, Emanuela Fiorelli, and two even perhaps in Europe, since the end Masters, Marco Casentini and Riccardo of last century and for all these years, De Marchi, still young, but who have al- to all the world of Optical and Program- ready drawn original paths, the former matic Art and to many aspects of the on the field of chromatic perception, the varied world of “perception”. latter on the level of a spatial- narrative The inexhaustible activity of this small vision. gallery located in the Italian province is This activity of promotion and salvage, partly represented by some focused ini- even commercial, starting from its birth tiatives: the salvage and the re-launch, that dates back at about 40 years ago, almost twenty years ago, of one of the transformed, more and more in time, most significant groups among the Eu- into an expositive activity, of organiza- ropean avant-gardes in the ‘60s, the tion and receivership of exhibitions in GRAV in Paris - Group de recherche art vi- nearly all the most important museums suelle -, with the re-launch of artists like of Europe and in many of South Ameri- Le Parc, Sobrino, Garcia Rossi and De- ca as well, taking advantage of the very marco in particular; the restart of one of tight connection with the writer of these the Italian masters of Programmed Art, lines, Giovanni Granzotto. Alberto Biasi, co-founder of the Group Now the time has come to make these N in Padua, both in a historical vision artists known, maybe with further new and in a comparative analysis with his discoveries and inclusions, also in the creations of the last years; the re-discov- U.S., also in New York, where exactly 50 ery of Masters who seemed abandoned years ago one of the fundamental bridg- even if they had been decisive on the es of the avant-gardes of every coun- field of the perceptive research, like the try was realized: The Responsive Eye. Venetian Franco Costalonga and Edoer That exhibition seemed to open a new Agostini, or Claudio Rotta Loria from frontier indeed, seemed to mark the end Piedmont; the re-enhancement of the of the “Informel”, not through the met- most important European urban plan- ropolitan coils of Pop Art, but for the im- ner of the color, Jorrit Tornquist, mostly petuous overcoming of the winds of Op- on the artistic level. tical Art, Kinetic Art, Programmatic Art 7 from the other continents. And in fact, present in Bowery a cross section of his ALBErto PAsini Since the Middle Ages up to the dawn- shapes and images. Therefore the work those 99 artists represented the endless wonderful story, connected not only to ing of contemporary art - marked by the cannot be read in an objective and uni- facets of a new art, which found its com- technique, to science, to methodologi- BEYonD VisUAL second postwar period - apart from very versal way any more, neither in its visual mon denominator, its joining link, in the cal precision, but also to the amazing rare exceptions, artists have always pre- appearance, but it generates ambiguity PErspEctiVE identification of the shape, better yet of fantasy of our eyes. sented to their potential spectators a fin- and interest in its user, who becomes an the shapes, plastic or of surface, through Of course “the sharper perception” does ished and static artwork, which, however integral part of it. Even if the artwork re- visual perception, and of the answer of not show the presumption of completing ingenuous or of avant-garde, sets up a mains the same in any context it is pre- the brain to those solicitations, both at a the whole dynamics of a re-discovery series of elements objectively and visu- sented, its perception by the observer conscious and at an unconscious level. with an exhibition, nor of representing ally testable by anyone could observe it. changes, because it is not a mere visual The spectators of that time had the priv- an entire movement: it prefers build up The only tool artists had in their hands, stimulus, but can arouse a specific re- ilege to admire works of Op Art, Cool Art, a little ideal bridge between The Re- in order to diversify their work and make action in the spectator. So it changes Visual Art, “New Abstraction”, Program- sponsive Eye and the present world of it opened to various interpretations, was substantially the users’ statute, trans- matic Art, etc… perception, and between the American leveraging the message. So here it is the forming them from simple observers Unfortunately the follow-up was not and European culture, from its point of insertion of anagrams, of unlikely rela- into essential parts of the artistic object. what the world would have expected view, with its preferences and with its tions or connections, of shapes belong- For the first time an artistic operation and the formidable quality of the per- temporary exclusions, through its par- ing to unrelated figurative universes, to does not want to imply symbolic mean- formers would have deserved. America ticular operative experience. reach the total transfiguration of reality, ings, but places itself as an immedi- remained tied up to other artistic move- Then there will be many other exposi- through Abstract Art, or the pure artis- ate impulse for perception, taken by a ments. But now, after that the interest tions to deepen a research that was tic gesture, liable to any interpretation, series of mental processes: intellective and the attention to this decisive page started 60 years ago and above all to through Informal Art. perception, organized in mathemati- of contemporary art have been relit ev- delve joyfully into the universe of the re- In the ‘50s, thanks to the new techno- cal patterns, inventing an aesthetic re- erywhere, some of us have chosen to lations between eye and reason. logical innovations and materials, to search, based on the optical law of si- radical scientific discoveries about the multaneous contrasts and on the theo- human eye and its perception of the vi- ries of colors. sual stimulus by the brain, the work of The first art movement that faced and, to art acquired a renovated vitality. In fact it be precise, invented this ingenuous cre- shook off the static nature of its own im- ative approach, was the Kinetic and Pro- age and gained a sparkle unconceivable grammatic Art, developed between Eu- before. Since that moment new variables rope and South America since the ‘50s. have started to play: the work of art does Supported by the Gestalt theories, the not appear in the same way any more to psychology of shape, a branch that any observer; it changes, in fact, accord- studies the mechanisms and the vari- ing to the changing of the observation ous facets of visual perception, the point, of the surrounding environment, movement experimented this teaching of the incoming illumination, or, in rarer as first. This vision spread at the begin- cases, is set to real movement through ning of the ‘60s, radically restyling the little engines or other technical tricks, figure of the traditional artists who then generating a continuous becoming of will interpret, through a privileged sen- 8 9 sibility, a series of events, creating com- po MID, Milan 1964; Opara, Vienna tators. It in fact embraces a collective tracks of Informal Art through the use of positions marked by an innate techni- 1964; Center for Advanced Creative imagination, very trendy at that time, light, together with the aim to create an cal ability and the unmistakable sign of Study, London, 1964. and reduces the distance between pure harmonic relation among man, nature their hands. The work so becomes impersonal in the art and design or fashion, cumulating and machine, through the juxtaposition Since then, the artists start to express season of Kinetic art, but, paradoxi- works of every kind, as far as fit for a of the traditional artistic methodologies themselves through unusual mechanic cally, more then ever before, typical of generic context of perception or move- to the use of the new technologies.