Rome, Tornabuoni dedicates an exhibition to Renato Mambor on the 10th anniversary of his death

In Rome, the Tornabuoni Arte gallery is inaugurating a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Renato Mambor (Rome, 1936 - 2014) on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death, realized in collaboration with theMambor Archive and with the scientific advice of Maria Grazia Messina.

Through some 30 works, the exhibition, from May 23 to September 28, 2024, aims to present the artistic path and practice of Renato Mambor, “the ’conceptual’ artist, the most emotionally chilled, within the so-called School of Piazza del Popolo” (so Maria Grazia Messina), highlighting his substantial passages and the poetic and formal coherence always maintained from the first outcomes to the last productions. Despite the plurality of languages used and the multifaceted nature of his intentions, Renato Mambor’s work continuously speaks of observation, language, communicability and relationship with the other.

The invitation is to proceed in the narration of the exhibition from the most historical works to the latest production then retracing it in reverse, implementing Mambor’s own wish: “I would like the work to be reread today from today. Now that we live. [...] The artist is not the one who certifies the present but the one who sets the seeds for the future.”

The itinerary begins with Untitled, from 1958, a tempera on paper that marks a phase of research and experimentation, with references to the Informal movement just past (still not signed Mambor, but “Mambo”). This moment coincides with the first important exhibitions: the 1958 Cinecittà Prize and, the following year, Mambo(r), Schifano, Tacchi, curated by Emilio Villa at the Galleria Appia Antica.

This period also marked an approach to the world of cinema, with experiences on the set and in acting: working at a gas station on the Via Tuscolana, not far from Cinecittà, Mambor had the opportunity to meet the likes of Federico Fellini, who would involve him in the making of La Dolce Vita.

The 1960s opened with a production, close to Lo Savio’s minimalism, that made use of everyday objects, such as industrial wood panels or clothespins, in an attempt to “take the self out of the picture,” seeking objectification, as seen in the two works Green Object and Red Object, both from 1960. Objectification and research are the common thrust of the generation of artists of the Scuola di Piazza del Popolo: “cold in art, warm in life” (so Mambor himself). This same attitude leads him to make use of the conventional signs of road signs(Signal Man, 1962) flat silhouettes, still resting on wood, objective, recognizable by all, decontextualized and transported into the work.

The standardization and zeroing of emotionality is heightened by serializing through the reiteration of the same silhouette by means of a rubber matrix in the 1963 series Stamps: “The use of a recognizable iconic sign was a common point of reference between the artist and the public.” On view is a group of six works related to the Ricalchi series, first presented in 1965 on the occasion of his first solo show at Plinio De Martiis’ Galleria La Tartaruga. Here Mambor examines the images of riddles, devoid of face, individuality and expression but capable of communicating an action: “I wanted to illustrate, to show, a verb. Embrace. Drink. Opening the door. The gesture of sleep....”

It is from the early 1980s that the visual poem Blue Tree, an unpublished work in which the slides are accompanied by the artist’s voice, is presented here in dialogue with the 1966 detachment of the same name The Blue Tree through which Mambor analyzes and separates the various moments of painting-making: “I analyzed the executive procedures of painting through techniques of decomposition in time and space. The drawing and the background were executed in different times and spaces and then recomposed by superimposition.”

Moving to Genoa, in 1967 he was invited by Germano Celant to exhibit at Galleria La Bertesca for the Arte Povera-Im spazio exhibition. In these years he concentrated on the series of works called Itinerari, which he presented in the same gallery and at the Aries Gallery in 1968. Again a matrix is at the center of Mambor’s work, this time rollers for faux tapestries(Itinerario, 1968; Tappezzeria, 1970): “A modular design was already engraved on the roller, all that remained for me was the gesture of execution. I delegated to the instrument the task of style.”

In the following years, the work of Itinerari would take on environmental, photographic and performative dimensions(Macchina traccialinee, 1968 and Itinerario intimo, 1969), among the most famous being the action with Emilio Prini in his studio in Genoa: Mambor “asked Prini to run the roller over him, transforming himself into the very support of the action.”The conception of theEvidenziatore, brought to the exhibition at the Tornabuoni gallery and already exhibited in 1993 on the occasion of the XLV Venice Art Biennial curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, dates from 1970. It is a metal object that opens and closes, hooks up with the function of highlighting objects while leaving them in their proper place. Thus in the artist’s account, “I wanted to show things as they really are, without alterations, shifts, modifications. I wanted to investigate reality, so the Highlighter took the form of a mechanical hand as a metaphor for grasping reality.” Mambor later entrusts third parties with theHighlighter. Children, friends, photographers, artists and critics are thus made an effective part of the creative process and the interplay between artist, Highlighter and highlighted object. The focus of the research is to bring attention to that relationship: “insert the other person’s gesture. Something will change.” Since the mid-1970s, for more than 10 years, Mambor has devoted himself to theater, forming an experimental company, the Trousse Group.

The exhibition then continues with works created from 1987 onward, when painting once again takes a predominant part in his production. To this period belong the works The Observers (Mask), 1983; White Observers, 1996; The Geographic Man/Grey Background, 2012; The Musical Cultivations, 2011. “In the early 1980s I started working on an aesthetic experience that I called the Observer [...] I am not interested in who the person is, the observer is not a portrait to the person, but I am interested in what the person does: the act of observing.” Sculpture, too, becomes a structural part of Mambor’s new production, in a search for space and how to occupy it, a probable legacy of the theatrical experience.

Closing the exhibition is the work Fili, 2012. A series of spools of colored threads is arranged on a wall according to a linear sequence; a double silhouette holds a skein. Separate units to the viewer’s eye are actually linked together; motionless yet in action.

Image: Renato Mambor, Geographic Man (gray background) (2012; mixed media on canvas, 100 x 120 cm)

Rome, Tornabuoni dedicates an exhibition to Renato Mambor on the 10th anniversary of his death

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