ARTISTS
Lucio Saffaro
Orlando Strati
Monica Mazzone
CURATED BY
Tatiana Basso
COLLABORATION
Controcorrente Association
Lucio Saffaro Foundation
CSN - Archivio Nazionale Cinema Impresa
CATALOGUE ED. PENDRAGON
Texts by: Tatiana Basso - Bruno D'Amore - Carlotta Minarelli - Gisella Vismara
TENDENTE INFINITO
18.11.2023-13.01.2024
From November 18 to January 20, 2024, Studio la Linea Verticale - Contemporary Art, presents the exhibition "Tending towards Infinity," curated by Tatiana Basso. Following the extensive retrospective "Journey to the Unknown, Lucio Saffaro between Art and Science," held between May and September at Palazzo Fava in Bologna, the gallery continues the discourse, starting from Saffaro himself and reaching contemporary times. Two generations succeeding him, Orlando Strati (1949) and Monica Mazzone (1984), are placed in dialogue with one of the most unconventional figures in the history of Italian art. On this occasion, a rich catalog will be presented by Edizioni Pendragon, featuring critical texts by Tatiana Basso, Bruno D’Amore, Carlotta Minarelli, and Gisella Vismara, produced with the support of the Associazione Controcorrente, the Fondazione Lucio Saffaro, and in collaboration with CSC - Archivio Nazionale Cinema Impresa. The exhibition "Tending towards Infinity" provides an opportunity for the gallery and its audience to explore artists working in the vertical direction, specifically through geometry and the mathematical and physical laws that govern the cosmos. Working vertically is inherently aimed at infinity, and artwork following this direction demonstrates aspirations for eternity. "Tending towards Infinity" can be imagined as a Vertical Line: aligning vertically with the Earth, humans can project themselves towards the infinity of the Universe and the infinity of Being. The pioneer and master of the exhibition, in chronological order, is certainly Lucio Saffaro, who perfectly condensed science and spirituality, erroneously considered separate and belonging to incompatible domains in modernity. Using black straight lines, perfect incisions outlining his solids, he not only demonstrated intellectual abilities and mathematical knowledge but also encapsulated the color of the sea and the sky, as well as the symbolic color of the spiritual—a Saffarian blue that is a symptom of the elevated dimension of his research. Orlando Strati is guided by gravitational forces and works with particles, separating and colliding them in a confrontation with the black space of the Universe similar to that of a Demiurge desiring to create the Big Bang. Starting from universal dust, he attempts all possible combinations to solve the enigma of Creation, and, not by chance, every line and every point naturally converge into geometric visions. Finally, Monica Mazzone, officially beginning her collaboration with Studio la Linea Verticale, moves away from the telescope, stops looking outward to deeply investigate the interior of Being. Every geometry becomes an endo-metry and an endoscopy that is externalized by the artist through emotional halftones and anthropometric proportions, revealing the unstable humanity inside the solid that comes to life.
PDF EXHIBITION - CATALOGUE
CRITICAL TEXT
By Tatiana Basso
About the painter, poet, mathematician Lucio Saffaro (Trieste 1929), Giovanni Maria Accame wrote, 'One would not grasp one of the cornerstones of his work unless one understood that, here, the pursuit of perfection is lived as a continuous experience of its absence. A condition that drives the artist to make pursuit his perpetual state and, therefore, to continually make his experience mobile and never complete.' These words clarify the essence of Lucio Saffaro's exploration during the retrospective exhibition dedicated to him in the halls of the Palazzo Poggi Museum in 2004, six years after his passing. A way of traversing his own time was that of the Trieste-born but adopted Bolognese painter, marked by the search for the ineffable and miraculous ultimate element, in the plurality of its forms and nomenclatures, destined to inhabit an additional ontological dimension, in the manner of the unmistakable contemplative polyhedra, suspended in architectural spaces and ornamental motifs, which, from the mid-1960s – but anticipated by some works of the previous so-called 'metaphysical' period – the artist chose as the primary subject of his iconography.
INSTALLATION VIEW
LUCIO SAFFARO
Biographical notes
ORLANDO STRATI
Biographical notes
MONICA MAZZONE
Biographical notes
Lucio Saffaro, born in Trieste in 1929, was a multifaceted figure in 20th-century Italy. A painter, poet, writer, and mathematician, he earned a degree in pure physics with a thesis on electronic computers from the University of Bologna, a city that was his residence from 1945 until his passing in 1998. One of his most well-known contributions, disseminated in Italy and abroad through conferences and scientific publications, commented on by authoritative scholars, was in the field of determining new polyhedra. These research efforts have, on various occasions, found a place in the pages of the "Enciclopedia della Scienza e della Tecnica Mondadori" (Mondadori Encyclopedia of Science and Technology). Alongside his scientific activities, Lucio Saffaro published around fifty literary works, reviewed by authoritative critics, with various Italian publishers, including Lerici, Scheiwiller, La Nuova Foglio, Mondadori's Almanacco dello Specchio, and Paradoxos Editions conceived by Saffaro himself. His first solo exhibition, presented by Arcangeli, took place at the Galleria dell’Obelisco in Rome in 1962.
Orlando Strati (born in Rome in 1949) graduated in Sociology from the University of Trento in 1981 with a thesis titled "Photography as Reflection: Historical-Social Use and Critical-Artistic Use." In 1970, he began engaging in experimental artistic research in visual communication, exhibiting both in Italy and abroad. In 1980, after staging shows and performances involving magnetic tape, music, and multimedia images at the Teatro del Falcone in Genoa and the GNAM in Rome, he temporarily suspended this phase, which is documented in publications such as "Forme" No. 64, "Les arts" No. 4, "Gala International" No. 77, "Maison Vogue" No. 57, and "Ammeublement des intérieurs" No. 263. Notable authors such as Umbro Apollonio, Bruno D’Amore, and Bruno Munari have written about his work.
Monica Mazzone (born in Milan in 1984) is a visual artist who lives and works between Milan and New York. She graduated with honors in Visual Arts-Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, with an experimental thesis on soap bubbles. Later, she specialized in Cultural Event Management at the IED-European Institute of Design, achieving the highest marks. Her first solo exhibition, titled "Per un quasi infinito" (For an Almost Infinite), set up at the Formentini Gallery – Nuovo CIB (2009) in Milan, marked the beginning of her personal research project. This project was developed and presented to the public on various occasions, including her first international solo exhibition, "The Perfect Universe" (2014), at the Merkur Gallery in Istanbul. From then on, a crescendo of exhibitions in both public and private spaces, in Italy and abroad, solidified her exploration and study of pure mathematics and sacred geometry. She names her entire research 'Geometria Emotiva,' an empirical investigation that regards geometry as the regulating principle of the creative act, aiming to rationalize lived emotions and understand the occurrences of the world.
APPOINTMENTS
VERNISSAGE
Sabato 18 novembre ore 18
Via dell'Oro 4B - Bologna
FINISSAGE
Sabato 20 gennaio ore 18-20
Via dell'Oro 4B - Bologna
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
Be the first to know updates about Studio la Linea Verticale Gallery. Receive emails about new exhibitions, vernissage and events.
