In Albissola Marina the fourth stage of the first retrospective on Piero Simondo

From June 4 to September 4, 2022, Albissola Marina ’s MuDA is hosting, in the two venues of the Exhibition Center and the Jorn House Museum, the exhibition Piero Simondo. Laboratory Situation Experiment, dedicated to one of the major artists of the second half of the twentieth century, Piero Simondo (Cosio di Arroscia, 1928 - Turin, 2020), promoted by the City of Albissola Marina and the Simondo Archive, with the fundamental contribution of the De Mari Foundation. The Albissola exhibition (curated by Luca Bochicchio and Daniele Panucci) represents the fourth stage of the show, which in turn is the first anthological retrospective on Piero Simondo. The first three stages were held in Alba (Chiesa di San Domenico), Turin (Accademia Albertina) and San Maurizio Canavese (Casa Ramello) last fall. In addition, during the summer, the concluding panel discussion of this major event will be held in Cosio di Arroscia, Simondo’s hometown. As a whole, this extensive exhibition project had the significant support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo, the Piedmont Region and Compagnia di San Paolo, as well as the supporting members of the Simondo Archive Association.

The exhibition halls of MuDA’s Exhibition Center and Casa Museo Jorn will host a careful selection of paintings, monotypes, sculptures and videos that, through their heterogeneity, mark the decades of Piero Simondo’s activity, spanning the entire second half of the century and dwelling on little-known aspects of the Cosio di Arroscia-born artist’s artistic production. In addition to the monotypes - with which the artist began his experimental research in Alba in the early 1950s together with Pinot Gallizio and, later, Asger Jorn - the exhibition will feature the topologies, the three-dimensional paintings made from the early 1960s in Turin, which constitute a sort of experimental counterpart to the theoretical studies on the concept of space in the theories of Poincaré (the subject of Simondo’s dissertation in philosophy at the University of Turin with Prof. Nicola Abbagnano). Also on display will be a number of large paintings that denote the tension toward space and the architectural environment, also emphasized by decorative panels and mobile sculptures.

Between the 1960s and 1990s, the artist experimented with various techniques of spontaneous image generation (including hypo-paintings, nitro-paintings, decals, collages), which find ample space in the Albissola exhibition. Through the widespread exhibition it will in fact be possible to learn more about the original artistic research of Simondo, a figure who was of considerable importance in the development of international artistic, intellectual and cultural relations in the city of Turin and the Cuneo and Savona area.

Interested in the processes of image-making and the situation-laboratory, Simondo always experimented with anti-conventional techniques and expressive languages. Avoiding flattening on currents or styles and creating works with disparate techniques and materials, he elaborated methodologies and theories in written form as well, producing numerous books and essays on such topics as structuralism, labyrinth, logical thinking, psychology of knowledge, and electronic art. By analyzing the works, theoretical texts and projects, it is possible to follow the developments of the critical thought of a man who has always sought and found in the laboratory and in experimental research the methodological and processual keys to an artistic activity in constant movement, practiced in a social and didactic, as well as aesthetic, key. Accompanying the works will be some experimental videos found in the artist’s personal archive.

Casa Museo Jorn will host two experimental sections: an installation in Jorn’s studio with some of Simondo’s most important works in dialogue with each other and with the evocative space; while in the house, works made by Jorn with children as part of the second experiment of the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus in 1955 will enter into relationship with works made by children who were students of Franco Brunetta. Brunetta (curator of this specific section), the founder of “La Bottega delle Nuove Forme” (San Maurizio Canavese), a schoolmaster and, above all, a pupil and friend of Simondo, together with the children “shopkeepers” carried on Simondo’s experimental workshops, continuing and developing their principles.

The project is accompanied by a rich bilingual (Italian and English) volume, published by Gli Ori and Albertina Press, which contains color images of the exhibited works and a collection of previously unpublished texts by authoritative scholars in art history, philosophy and visual studies: Luca Avanzini, Paul Bernard, Luca Bochicchio, Franco Brunetta, Flaminio Gualdoni, Karen Kurczynski, Lisa Parola, Sandro Ricaldone, Maria Teresa Roberto, Marco Senaldi, and Sara Tongiani. The book can be purchased in the museum bookshop, ordered in bookstores or major online platforms, or by writing to laboratoriosimondo@gmail.com. For information visit the MuDA Albissola Marina website.

Image: Piero Simondo, Polymateric Composition (1961; mixed media on canvas, 85 x 85 cm). Photo by Andrea Guermani

In Albissola Marina the fourth stage of the first retrospective on Piero Simondo

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