FABRO, LUCIANO / FERNANDES, JOÃO / ROWELL, MARGIT
Catalogue of exhibition in Velázquez Palace, (november 2014-april 2015). A generation of artists emerged in Italy in the second half of the 20th century who, influenced by a questioning of the nature Piero Manzoni artwork and the ground-breaking concept of Lucio Fontana's space, and turning to the use of simple, everyday materials (that is, stripped of any auratic encumbrance), realised a series of works that, without relinquishing a kind of poetic awareness of the world, were profoundly critical of industrialisation and consumer society. Of these artists, grouped together in numerous exhibitions under the term "Arte Povera", Luciano Fabro (Turin, 1936 - Milan, 2007) was the one with a more emphatic connection to the emergence of a new and revised approach located in the tradition. Thus he explored the creative possibilities and perspectives that, in a country like Italy, continued to open the ruins of the past.By mixing a reflection on classical problems related to the history of sculptural practice ¿the tension between weight, balance and density; the relationship between sculpture and architecture¿ with an exploration of themes such as the need to rethink the sculpted object, and its relationship with the viewer and the spatial context it is inserted in, as well as the potential and implications of working with transparency and flexibility, Luciano Fabro was an influential figure in the expansion and redefinition of the limits of sculpture, which he always formulated as an instrument in the critical assimilation of space.
