Enrico Castellani

Fondazione Prada, Milan
Through June 14

In this retrospective, at the new Fondazione Prada premises, about seventy works are on show, ranging from the early relief canvases from 1959, to the extraordinary Spazio Ambiente (1970)—a reconstruction of his Ambiente Bianco (1967).

At the end of the '50s, Enrico Castellani's severe, relief surfaces, together with Lucio Fontana's cuts and Piero Manzoni's achromes, were among the most original contributions being made towards the international developments in art of the period. This evolution was characterized by a radical reaction against the exaggerated, expressive, and subjective use of gesture and materials that branded European Informal art and American action painting.

During the short but crucial period between 1959-60 in Milan, Castellani, together with Manzoni, was an active catalyst in opening up new avenues of artistic research. These branched out in directions both theoretical, with their magazine “Azimuth,” as well as practical, with exhibitions held their gallery of the same name. At that time, Castellani’s work was misunderstood in relation to the established trends, especially since the optical and perceptive effects in his work were emphasized to the detriment of its more relevant aspects. These were to be found in the original concept: the dialectic between space, light and time, which he tried to make physically concrete in his pieces.

In order to address these issues, the artist used two devices to deny the illusory dimension of traditional painting, the first of which was the definitive choice of a single color, often white, which was his favorite. His second motif was the three-dimensional articulation of surface into serial rhythmic structure, rendered vital by reliefs and hollows, which were produced by using nails to support the canvas.

Alongside the monochrome canvases, which include diptychs and triptychs, his 1961 series of “superfici angolari” (angular surfaces) is also on show. The comprehensive exhibition covers his other molded canvases, such as the so-called "baldacchini" series (1962), the “superfici rigate" series (1962), and also displays the piece Trittico Argento (1966), which beautifully accentuates the interaction between internal and external space.

The definitive fusion between the two spatial dimensions is achieved in the last piece on view, Wall of Time (1968). This work is very different from the others, made up of a shelf with a row of seven metronomes, all moving at different speeds, yet it is essential in understanding the profound bond between the rhythmic spatial and temporal elements that are at the very root of all Castellani's work.




Francesco Poli
Translation by Robin Poppelsdorff