#revision - ITALIAN NEO-AVANTGARDE

Whilst I have covered the neo-avant garde in a previous post, I would like to think more specifically about the Italian neo-avant garde artists, namely Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri and Piero Manzoni. Of course Peter Burger's Theory of the Avant-Garde comments on the failings of the neo-avant gardes, stating that any revolutionary tendencies are replaced with repetition and institutionalisation, I would like to this about the Italian artists as reacting to their post-war status in Italy. Whilst they all do in some ways deal with the idea of the 'monochrome', it is less so in a repetitive and reductive way as seen the American East coast artists, and more so in a culturally significant way.

For artists like Burri and Fontana the dialectic relationship of damage and repair is evident in their works, and for Jaimey Hamilton, this can be reminiscent of the damage caused by the war, particularly in the case of Burri. Hid stitched burlap sacks are overlaying red painting or globulous plastic surfaces which have an uncanny resemblance to the injured body. Whilst Hamilton appreciates that Burri himself has never admitted to any of these suggestions that have been made about his work, he employs a Freudian theory of repetition through repression to enforce his argument, stating that the dynamic of damage and notions of war are undeniable. Instead of simply rethinking the monochromatic and reductive tropes of the historic avant-garde as Burger would suggest, Burri is instead creating work out of a culturally situation and time.

This type of damage is reflected in the work of Fontana too, however with less conviction and explicitness than in Burri. Fontana's Spatial Concepts from the 1950's deal with the gestural movements, from stabbing to slicing, which play with the stability of the surface. Greenberg believes that the surface of the work in an important part of modernist painting, but Fontana almost violates this by destroying this plane. Fontana believed that the something new had to be created to replace the traditions of painting and sculpture, and to do this he creates through his destruction in an ironically similar way to the nihilism and utopian dialectic that runs deep in the historic avant-garde.

Alongside the dynamic of damage, there is also a fascination with the commodity and it's new found place in society, especially within the art market. For Manzoni, this was a key theme that ran through his work. As noted before, he had his Acromes, which dealt with the reduction of the last pictorial element that runs through most monochromes, colour, and deals with repetitions and differences within them. Some of his other work was more heavily based on consumer culture, and was acted out in a performative way. In a 70 minute performance participation piece, Manzoni hard boiled eggs and signed the shell with his thumb. These eggs were then given out to viewers and eaten, literally consuming his art works and the 'aura' of the artist. In the crude Artist's Shit, tins of what is meant to be Manzoni's faeces is placed in tins and sold for the weight of gold at the time. The packaging was printed in different languages so that it was a true global mass consumed commodity, and it is clear that these gestural and performative works question the ideals and values of the art world.

The performance aspect of all three of these artists work is just one way that they are united. Black and white photographs by Ugo Mulas heighten the drama and narrate the story of creation that these works go through.

Images to use: