The Gallant Apparel. Italian Art and the Modern. Remo Bianco, Alighiero Boetti, Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Dadamaino, Gino De Dominicis, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Mario Merz, Giulio Paolini, Paolo Scheggi, Ettore Spalletti

ROBILANT + VOENA are thrilled to announce an exhibition of twentieth century Italian art, scheduled to coincide with the numerous cultural events in London during October, opening on 27 September through to 27 October. Taking as its point of departure Lucio Fontana's Spatialism, proclaimed in his Manifestos of 1947 and 1948, 'THE GALLANT APPAREL: Italian Art and the Modern' charts a line through the main exponents of Italian modern and contemporary art from Lucio Fontana to Ettore Spalletti, and examines the development of ideas about art and its production in Italy from the late 1950s right through to the 1990s.
We hope that this survey will guide the viewer through the peculiarity of the language of Italian post-war art, which carries the conviction that it is truly the 'form of the language' that gives form to the world. The exhibition will explore the fascination with surface, texture and thee-dimensionality in painting prevalent amongst many of these artists, whether it be through Fontana's revolutionary Buchi or Tagli (holes or slashes), or through Castellani and Bonalumi's protrusions, the overlaid constructions of Scheggi and Bianco, or the cut canvases of Dadamaino.
Special attention will be given to Fontana, represented by six important paintings and sculptures, as the catalyst for the most significant debate in midcentury Italian art and a vital inspiration for those who followed him. Three artists for whom Fontana's influence was paramount were Manzoni, Bonalumi and Castellani, who in turn created their own platform (Gallery Azimut) for showing art which interrogated the limits of physicality and the art world's obsession with permanence, directly prefiguring conceptual art. Paolini's conceptual research into art as mirroring or selfreflection, will also be addressed, as will De Dominici's 'figurative conceptualism'. Mario Merz will be represented by a rare 11 piece photography and light installation not seen in public since Documeta 5, 1972.