The painter, sculptor, performer and versatile artist Armando Marrocco (1939, Galatina) moved from southern Italian Apulia to Milan in 1962, where he has remained to this day. He was initiated into artistic circles by the influential Italian painter and founder of spacialism Lucio Fontana. Marrocco is out of 60. up to 80. for years he collaborated with many prominent names, was a co-founder and member of Italian art groups, a performer who played with fire etc. It was the result of the French critic and philosopher Pierre Restany and the artist Yves Klein, the founder of the new realism. During his rich career, the vital Italian bard realized numerous projects in the open air, in modern gallery spaces, but also in churches and monasteries throughout Italy. He has been a guest at the Venice Biennale and has received numerous awards for his contribution to contemporary Italian art.
An exhibition in the Lapidarium, where works ranging from 60 are dotted. flight 20. century to the present, could be called a mini retrospective. Made of various materials of natural and artificial origin, which the artist sensitively designs, combines and adapts to his vision, they are connected by a Mediterranean sense of beauty. They reflect the author's attachment to solar and sea regions, to quotes from archaic civilizations and humanistic, almost platonic messages, which are already evident in the titles of some works. Despite conceptualist and postmodernist elements, Marrocco appears to us as a classic and skilled craftsman, as a sentient individual and esthete who eavesdrops on cosmic creation, marvels at it and allows it to shine through a colorful, optimistic expression. Taking into account the material, visual and content dimensions of each piece of art, it provides us with stories that, even with this installation, meet in a concrete summer and place. We hear, see and perceive them as disturbing delusions, symbols and archetypes sailing outside our subjective experience of time and space.
Curator: Dr. Robert Simonisek
Photo: Tomaz Grdin, GBJ archive
Slikar, kipar, performer in vsestranski umetnik Armando Marrocco (1939, Galatina) se je leta 1962 iz južnoitalijanske Apulije preselil v Milano, kjer je ostal do danes. V umetniške kroge ga je iniciiral vplivni italijanski slikar in utemeljitelj spacializma Lucio Fontana. Marrocco je od 60. do 80. let sodeloval z mnogimi vidnimi imeni, bil soustanovitelj in član italijanskih umetniških skupin, performer, ki se je poigraval z ognjem etc. Nanj sta vplivala francoski kritik in filozof Pierre Restany ter umetnik Yves Klein, utemeljitelja novega realizma. V svoji bogati karieri je vitalni italijanski bard realiziral številne projekte na prostem, v sodobnih galerijskih prostorih, a prav tako v cerkvah in samostanih po Italiji. Gostoval je na Beneškem bienalu in za svoj doprinos k sodobni italijanski umetnosti prejel številne nagrade.
Razstavo v Lapidariju, kjer se nizajo dela v razponu od 60. let 20. stoletja do danes, bi lahko označili za mini retrospektivo. Narejena iz raznovrstnih materialov naravnega in umetnega izvora, ki jih umetnik senzibilno oblikuje, kombinira in prilagaja svoji viziji, jih povezuje mediteranski čut za lepoto. Zrcalijo avtorjevo navezanost na sončne in morske predele, na citate arhaičnih civilizacij in humanistična, skoraj platonistična sporočila, ki so razvidna že v naslovih nekaterih del. Kljub konceptualističnim in postmodernističnim prvinam, se nam Marrocco prikazuje kot klasik in spreten obrtnik, kot čuteč individuum in estet, ki prisluškuje kozmičnemu stvarstvu, se mu čudi in dopušča, da zasije skozi barvit, optimističen izraz. Ob upoštevanju materialnih, vizualnih in vsebinskih dimenzij posamezne umetnine nam posreduje zgodbe, ki se tudi ob tokratni postavitvi srečujejo v konkretnem poletju in kraju. Slišimo, vidimo in dojemamo jih kot vznemirljive privide, simbole in arhetipe, ki jadrajo zunaj našega subjektivnega doživljanja časa in prostora.
Kustos: dr. Robert Simonišek
Foto: Tomaž Grdin, arhiv GBJ
