Sponsored by Sondrio Culture Council Office

Credito Valtellinese, in association with Sondrio City Council Culture Council Office, is inaugurating the exhibition entitled "The Space Movement". The exhibition will open on Tuesday, October 6 1998 in its Gallery in Sondrio. It is the second-last exhibition of a five-exhibition cycle dedicated to the '50s in Milan.

The cycle Art in Milan 1946 -1959 began in February 1997 with the exhibition entitled "Real, Concrete, Abstract. From Post-cubism to the late Naturalism". Then, in July of the same year, the exhibition entitled "MAC and similar movements" (MAC is the acronym of Movimento per l'Arte Concreta, that is Movement for the Concrete Art) was mounted. In March 1998, the cycle third exhibition entitled "The Nuclear Movement" was mounted in Sondrio, Perugia and Milan, where it will last until October 31, 1998. At the beginning of 1999, the exhibition entitled "The Existential Realism" will end the cycle. This fourth exhibition is organised by Credito Valtellinese and attended to by Martina Corgnati. It goes through all the stages of the Space Movement history, since the origins, in 1948, until 1958, when the movement published its last manifesto. All artists who joined the group and took part in exhibitions as Space Movement exponents are represented.

Approximately 90 works will be exhibited, among which pictures, designs, ceramic sculptures, papers and documents realised by 21 artists who worked in Milan and Venice. In addition to Lucio Fontana, Roberto Crippa, Gianni Dova and Cesare Peverelli, also Ettore Sottsass, Beniamino Joppolo, Enrico Donati, Giancarlo Carozzi, Aldo Bergolli, Emilio Scanavino, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Alberto Burri, Ladislav Serpan, Sebastian Matta worked in Milan. Virgilio Guidi, Mario de Luigi, Edmondo Bacci, Gino Morandi, Bruno De Toffoli, Tancredi and Vinicio Vianello worked in Venice. The exhibition includes a series of Space concepts belonging to the so-called "holes" phase (1949-1957). In some works, the surface infractions are similar to a rigorous geometric plot. Backgrounds are almost monochromatic, like evocative constellations adorning a great nocturnal sky. Other works are more complicated and more "baroque", enriched with sand, pigments, stones and stained glasses. Moreover, there are space drawings, space plans, and the first picture by Fontana, where he realised a "cut" together with other elements.

The Space Art Manifesto, dated November 26, 1951 and written by Fontana, Dove, Peverelli, and many others, contains excerpts that are particularly helpful in order to understand this complex movement. "During the last five years, the artists turned exactly towards our movements, regarding those spaces, the universal conception of the matter that inspires science, philosophy and art as elements of reality.

A series of manifestations tried to paint the energy that is in every thing and those spaces regarded as "plastic materials". We reaffirm the priority of the art, as an intuitive force of the world and go ahead in the same way to guess, through our works, the points of the spirit knowledge will achieve".

A catalogue, published by Credito Valtellinese and edited by Martina Corgnati, contains the copy of the exhibits, Milena Milani and Cesare Peverelli's unknown testimonies, all manifestos of the group and the bio-bibliographical cards of the artists and of their works, edited by Emma Gravagnuolo.

A coach will be provided for critics and journalists attending the exhibition.
Program:
10h.00 departure from Piazza Castello, Milan.
12h.00 Press conference and visit to the exhibition.
13h.30 Lunch - 14h.30 departure for Milan.
Arrival at 16h.30

For further information
Credito Valtellinese Gallery, Sondrio Phone 0342. 522738
E-Mail:creval@creval.it