In Astratto: Abstraction in Italy 1930-1980, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art - review

A damp squib, with many of the paintings modest in scale and ambition — confirming that many of these artists have remained minor figures in art history for good reason
9 July 2012

I have learned a tremendous amount about Italian modern art from the Estorick Collection, and the Islington gallery’s latest show seemed to promise another educational experience. Drawn from three Ligurian collections, it attempts to look beyond the few Italian abstract painters to have made a significant impact internationally, like Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni.

Alas, it is a damp squib, with many of the paintings modest in scale and ambition, and decidedly provincial. This is partly because some artists are represented by inferior works but largely because the greats of abstraction cast long shadows across so much of the work.

Gino Ghiringhelli and Mauro Reggiani’s paintings, featuring intersecting planes of colour with angular and geometric shapes, fuse the cubism of Pablo Picasso with a “neoplastic” abstraction of Piet Mondrian. But so much is lost in their interpretation, lacking the fluency of Picasso’s interlocking forms and the almost musical balance and exquisite surfaces of Mondrian’s paintings.

In the post-war era, too, the selection here suffers in comparison with abstract expressionism in the US and art informel in Europe. Giuseppe Allosia’s clumsy experiments with Jackson Pollock’s dripping technique only emphasise the American’s superior poise and control.

Amid the mediocrity, though, two works are beacons of brilliance. Fontana’s Spatial Concept (1965-66), a gold painting into which Fontana has torn a hole, and Manzoni’s Achrome (1958), a pure white canvas with pronounced folds and grooves across its centre, both exploited the physical characteristics of the canvas, and took abstract art somewhere new and strange. They remain radical today.

As a label tells us, Manzoni was critical of the easily appreciated style of the art around him. It is an apt critique of so much in this show — and confirms that many of these artists have remained minor figures in art history for good reason.

In Astratto: Abstraction in Italy 1930-1980 runs until September 9 (020 7704 9522, estorickcollection.com).

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