Alberto Biasi

Biography

Alberto Biasi was born in Padua on June 2, 1937 from Giuseppe and Silvia Zappi Recordati. His family has already given to art a painter, Lavinia Fontana, a well-known name of 17th-century painting and a poet, Tirsi Leucasio, initiator with Metastasio dell'Arcadia. Soon, in the years of the war, Biasi remains orphaned by his mother and is welcomed by his paternal grandmother in Carrara San Giorgio, a small village in the Padua countryside where his grandmother ran an inn. He grew up in contact with the village people, in an extended family atmosphere, until his high school years, when he returned to Padua to attend the Classical High School, then moved to Venice to follow the Institute of Architecture and the Superior Course of Industrial Design, where he won a scholarship established by Paolo Venini. These are years of knowledge and artistic passions, approaching and deepening fundamental moments of the art of the twentieth century: the Neoplastic movement, Futurism, Dadaism enter and root in the training path of the young Biasi.

In 1958 he began teaching design and art history in the public school and in 1969 he was awarded the chair of the arts of advertising graphics (which he maintained continuously until 1988). Meanwhile, the activity of an artist takes shape: in '59 he received from the hands of Virgilio Guidi the first prize at the 4th Youth Biennale of Art of Citadella. It is the first public recognition of an artist who was, albeit very young, filtering out ferments, political ideals, artistic anxieties: the Enne Group was born, in Padua, with which he will work (but Biasi is the soul and the driving force of the historical artistic group) until its final dissolution in '67. Biasi soon extended his contacts to national and international level: he exhibited in 1960 with Manzoni and Castellani and the European artists of the 'New Artistic Conception'. The innovative spirit of those years sees him as the protagonist: in '61 he joined the movement "Nuove Tendenze", in '62, as Group N, with Bruno Munari, Enzo Mari and group T participates in the foundation of the movement of The Programmed Art.

Biasi in these early years articulates his art according to new canons of research: the interaction of the viewer with the work becomes an inescapable foundation, the movement, in its passive sense of virtual motion, apparent effect of movement, leads the artist to address the problems of kineticism and the consequent research on visual perception and individual reaction to the light stimulus. The activity of this period is marked by the "Trame", the first study on the interference of the movement of the gaze and natural light on a static and layered surface, of natural inspiration, the result of the observation of complex and primitive elements such as beehives. Alongside the "Trame" he soon realized the "Rilievi ottico-dinamici": overlays of lamellar structures played on the effect of contrasting chromatisms and activated by the movement of the spectator who becomes with this "actor", jointly responsible for the visual event. Then the "Dynamic Shapes" obtained through the twisting of materials prepared in thin foils and arranged according to strictly calculated geometries applied on different chromatic bottoms, the "Photoreflections" in real motion and the "Environments" with unstable perception, iridescent atmospheres of lights and liquids in motion. To be mentioned, belonging to this last section of creations the "Il grande tuffo nell'arcobaleno", "Eco", and the triptych "I am, you are, he is, so we are".

In the meantime, Group N is dissolved and, abandoned the choral tone, embraced to adhere to a strong political and ideological commitment (at the time of the activity of the 'N' group, Biasi defined himself as an artistic operator, thus meaning a port of social implication), the artistic activity of Biasi continues in "solo" developing those themes that will remain a 'happy obsession' to this day. His civil commitment, however, will remain present over the years, with participation and sharing in city life, until he joined the post of President of the Provincial Tourism Authority of Padua in the late seventies and early eighties when he will develop cultural and artistic projects concerning Padua, its cultural history and its landscape territory.

Meanwhile, his art finds new stages of study and experimentation. Deepening research into the luminous impact of natural light, Biasi develops new solutions with"Politipi", from the sure hypnotic fascination realized by twists,overlapping planes, weaves of foils and slats, thus interacting, in the pursuit of harmonic movement, with depth, third dimension more allusion than really questioned. The Politipi of the seventies, evolved in the following decade acquiring figurative intentions: the perceptual effects become more and more complex, attracted by a figural evidence that encompasses other three-dimensional, deception or real sinkings of light intercepted in the layers of overlapping matter. The game between spectator-actor and work becomes more and more articulate and free, the form is enriched with easily recognizable images of which the eye is confidently certain; in them, however, are opened new optical 'traps' manipulated by the light that varies with the shift of the point of view: it confirms and attests to the absolute variable of perception in the viewer, which interrogated and provoked in the great anthology at the Museum of hermitages in Padua in 1988 responds with an enthusiastic turnout (42000 visitors).

In the 1990s the Politipi are enriched by an element until now partially neglected by Alberto Biasi,painting, in the form of insertions of color, traces, shadows, allusions that support in counterpoint the articulated structure of stratified surfaces; Thus are born the "Assemblaggi" often developed in ditti and triptych that develop, in the most recent years, until today, an increasingly strict and consistent color severity, tending to monochrome. The extreme rigour of monochrome enhances, in the juxtaposition and overlap of surfaces, assembled together, the point of 'breaking', crisis in linear reading, where the planes of color converge in a three-dimensional source, alluding to an energy-generating space. And it is from this space that Biasi's investigation moves into the new, yet underlying in all its production, attention to sculpture. Corten steel, aluminum, metacrilate are the media of Biasi's challenge to three-dimensional space, addressed in the large measurements of works also from outside: totems, slabs with vertical development, as well as interrupted spirals, propellers of dense metal tubols become transpositions, reinventions, outcomes of the 'happy obsession', of the constant search for Biasi in the field of visual perception.

After participating in the twelve exhibitions of group N, Biasi has exhibited more than one hundred solo exhibitions and participated in countless collectives, including the XXXII and the XLII Venice Biennale, the X, XI and XIV Quadriennale in Rome, the XI Biennale of San Paulo and the most well-known international galleries of graphics, obtaining numerous and important awards, in particular that obtained with the multiple "I am" at the World Print Competition '73 in collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Art. In 2006, thirty of his historical works were exhibited in the halls of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and in 2009 his anthology "Kaleidoscope: from plots to assemblages" at the Museum of the Royal Palace in Genoa. His works can be found at the Modern Art Museum in New York, at the National Gallery in Rome, at the Hermitage of St. Petersburg, in the Museums of Belgrade, Bolzano, Bratislava, Buenos Aires, Ciudad Bolivar, Epinal, Gallarate, Guayaquil, Livorno, Lodz, Ljubljana, Middletown, Padua, Prague, San Francisco, St. Louis, Tokyo, Turin, Ulm, Venice, Waldenbuch, Wroclaw, Zagreb, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Tags: Alberto Biasi - Biasi - Groupo N - Nuove tendenze - Programmed Art - Kinetic - Rilievi ottico-dinamici - Politipi- Assemblaggio- Torsione

Alberto Biasi - Programmed Art

Programmed or Kinetic Art is an international art movement that has left an indelible mark on 20th-century art. Umberto Eco uses the term "Programmed Art" to present the historic exhibition at the Olivetti in Milan in 1962, organized by Bruno Munari. The great critic Giulio Carlo Argan calls it "arte gestaltica", while Lea Vergine will definitively establish its importance in Italy by describing it as the Last Vanguard, in the eponymous retrospective at the Royal Palace in Milan in 1984. The Programmed or Kinetic Art but also optical art have a common genesis: they arise from the innovative study, by artists, of the mechanisms of vision, optical and bright phenomena, in line with scientific advances from the post-war period onwards. All over the world, both informal and abstraction in painting no longer satisfy the search for young artists. Looking at Marcel Duchamp, Futurism - or more recent experiences such as the research of Bruno Munari,who already in the 1930s made "Useless Machines", and published the Manifesto of mcchinism in 1952 - we want to be able to create works that really involve the viewer, visually but also psychologically, and definitively overcome the concept of art as representation and expression: finally art becomes experience, and then it will be even environment. No in secondary importance, it is also the push of new artists to work in groups, so aggregations of artists are born who try to overcome the individualism of the figure of the artist: in Italy the first will be the MAC – Concreta Art Movement (formed around Munari himself) and later Group T in Milan and Group N in Padua. Important for Italian artists will be the experience of Azimuth, gallery and magazine animated by Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani. Although they are not expressly part of the movement, the innovative, monochrome, anti-figurative works of the two artists – along with those of their neighbours such as Agostino Bonalumi and Dadamaino, will be very important to pave the way for the experimentation of the Programmed Art. The Kinetic or Programmed Art movement is established thanks to contemporary ferments all over the world: Group T in Milan, Group N in Padua, GRAV in Paris, Group Zero in Dusseldorf. In America the trend is called Optical Art or Op-Art (as opposed to Pop-art, which dominated the scene in the 1960s). In Zagreb the movement finds a supporter in the critic Marko Mestrovic, who organizes the international events "Nova Tendencije"(New Tendency),in which all young Italian artists participate. Not only Enzo Mari, Manzoni, Bonalumi and Castellani, but also Getulio Alviani will be among the most active Italians in "Nova Tendencije", which will also become an international movement. Alviani'sworks, using the treated aluminum sheet, look for continuous visual tensions between reflection, visual ambiguity, apparent movement, light and vibration, using as a "motor" the visual interaction of the metal with the viewer's gaze. Marina Apollonio also joined the movement in 1965, encouraged by the encounter with Alviani, and as the latter uses modern industrial materials, to create structured works that transform into dynamic surfaces (metallic reliefs to alternating chromatic sequences) or that seek the apparent movement with optical geometric effects (Circular Dynamics). In Milan, the Arte Programmata is well represented by Group T, founded by Davide Boriani and Gabriele De Vecchi, to which Gianni Colombo, Giovanni Anceschi and finally Grazia Varisco are added. The group's first exhibition , Miriorama 1 , was in 1960 at the Pater Gallery (Gallery where Paolo Scheggi and Vanna Nicolotti will also exhibit at that time, with their three-dimensional canvases of several overlapping floors). Group T presents works in motion, consisting of mechanisms that animate them, without any representative intent. Colombo uses motors to move its surfaces; in those of Anceschi is the colored liquid that flows in tubes that can be moved by the hands of the viewer; while Boriani's magnetic surfaces use magnets and iron dust to get the work moving. Grazia Varisco creates works moved by mechanical motors and internal luminescence (variable light schemes) and structures in mobile industrial materials animated by multifaceted glass that breaks down its shapes. From the idea of work in motion through visual effects we then move to works that actually move on their own, or sometimes - in open break with the past - the viewer is asked to operate them directly with their own hands. Frequent exchanges and co-operations in exhibitions are with the N Group of Padua, formed shortly after Group T, by young people from architectural and industrial design studios: Alberto Biasi,Ennio Chiggio, Toni Costa, Edoardo Landi, Manfredo Massironi. They too embrace the new concept of art and are particularly active in popularizing it (for example, bringing to Padua the exhibition "The new artistic conception", by the Azimuth Gallery, in 1960), and accentuate the importance of the conceptual approach: the exhibition "No one is invited to take part" is a striking example. From Group N, the personality of Alberto Biasi,the group's animator, emerges that addresses in his works the themes of kineticism and visual perception, among the first works the "Trame", in which he studies the interference of the movement of the gaze on layered surfaces, and the "Optical-dynamic reliefs", lamelular structures with contrasting chromaticisms that "activate" thanks to the interaction with the viewer, who moves makes active use of a work in consequent optical movement. Edoardo Landi instead seeks the involvement of the viewer with the optical stimulation given by geometric and elementary forms, excellent examples of Optical compositions for a research that will continue even in the 70s. The Italian painting is complemented by figures who also operate in other cities, such as Franco Costalonga who conducts an in-depth research on optical effects in the work, as in chromokinetic objects in which he will experiment with countless combinations with the use of spherical mirrors. Costalonga participated in the founding of the "Dialettica delle tendenze" and "Verifica 8+1" groups with other Venetian artists in line with the international trend of Programmed Art in the 1960s. The success for the Programmed Art is evidenced by the exhibition of the same name in 1962 at the Olivetti store in Milan, then repeated at the company's headquarters in New York and at the 4th Biennale of San Marino (titled Beyond the Informal) in 1963, and will be definitively sanctioned with the incredible success of the exhibition The Responsive Eye,organized in 1965 by the MoMa in New York (180,000 visitors), in which almost all Italian exponents were exhibited, from Enrico CasteIlani to Getulio Alviani,from Group T to Group N, along with the greatest international artists from Josef Albers to Victor Vasarely.

Tags: Programmed Art - Kinetic Art - Optical Art - Agostino Bonalumi - Getulio Alviani - Manfredo Massironi - Alberto Biasi - Franco Costalonga - Vanna Nicolotti - Kinetism - Chromokine Object - Victor Vasarely - The Responsive Eye - Concrete Art Movement - Grav - Group Zero - Bruno Munari