exhibition

Ermanno Leinardi (1933-2006): 'Spazio Ambiguo' paintings from 1960s to 1990s

14.Sep.07 - 12.Oct.07
Mon - Fri 10.30 - 17.30, Sat (during shows) 11 - 14.30

Austin / Desmond Fine Art
Pied Bull Yard (entrance to gallery)
68-69 Great Russell Street
London
London WC1B 3BN
+44 (0)20 7242 4443
gallery@austindesmond.com
www.austindesmond.com
Tube Holborn, Tottenham Court Road, Bloomsbury / Soho

The show follows the development of Ermanno Leinardi’s investigation into the creative possibilities offered by a small oval, the line and/or cuboid rectangular solid. The repeated and consequent use of the ‘0’ represents an experimental method of composition. While referring back to lyrical abstraction, his work breathes new life into constructivism and geometric art.

While painting in his studio in 1965, Leinardi accidentally spilt ink on the floor. He decided to integrate the resulting spot into his work and to explore its creative implications. A year later it became an ‘0’. With the help of this oval he took on the challenge of constructing form and movement in space. Initially, he limited himself to the use of black and white only, with occasional accents placed in primary colour or shades of gray. From the late 1970s onwards, he increasingly introduced colour - not only primary colours as might be expected - but a rich palette of violets, yellows, blues, greens, browns, ... and pink. The emphasis moved from confrontations between lines and circles before a monochrome background to “ambiguous spaces”, as he called them with a nod towards Lucio Fontana’s Movimento Spaziale and Antonio Calderara’s Spazio Mentale. The developing paintings hover uncertainly between two- and three-dimensionality and are composed from unusually matched colours. The '0', both symbol and object, usually is in relief and placed within the composition as a kind of reference point, a means with which to explore and try to understand the surrounding space with its optical illusions.

Leinardi formed defining friendships with the artist Calderara and the painter / art critic Michel Seuphor. Both Leinardi’s and Calderara’s work contrasts with Constructivism and "art concrète" in that they did not follow strictly radical concepts or colour schemes, but were partly guided by intuition. Leinardi reduced his visual vocabulary to a minimum in order to open the window to an infinity of possibilities. Seuphor points out that Leinardi’s “originality is manifest in the choice of two forms apparently in opposition: the zero and the straight line.” From the 1960s to his death in 2006, Leinardi remained faithful to these two components, be it in the medium of painting, watercolour or print. His approach was fresh and focussed to the last, his compositions never ceased to stimulate and surprise.

In 1966 Leinardi co-founded the art group Transazionale (with T. Casula, U. Ugo, I. Utzeri) proposing a renewal of art in Sardinia through the means of a working ethos inspired by transactional analysis and furthering the cause of abstract, concrete and informal art. He however also reached beyond the boundaries of Italy maintaining close contact with abstract artists Europe-wide. In 1970 the Centre Constructivisme et Mouvement Paris staged a one person show presented by the Italian art historian and politician Giulio Carlo Argan and in 1973 the longstanding director of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Rome) Palma Bucarelli included his work in the X Quadriennale of Rome. Leinardi taught at the Roman Istituto Statale d'Arte (1969/70) and the Akademie für Bildende Kunst, Trier (1991-94). In the 1970s he was artistic director of the Galleria Contini, Rome, and later served as a consultant to the Atélier Arp for graphic arts, Locarno. After sojourns in Rome, Milan, Zurich and Paris, Leinardi moved to Calasetta, Sardinia, in 1979. In 2000 he founded the Civico Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Calasetta that houses his personal collection of works by European abstract, concrete and Informell artists, such as Calderara, S. Delaunay, Dorazio, Fontana, Seuphor, Nemours and Honegger.

Ermanno Leinardi won several national prizes and public commissions. Between 1961 and 2005 his work was presented in one person shows and group exhibitions in cities throughout Europe. Between 1995 and 1997 the Calcografia Nazionale (Rome) presented his anthology of prints in a major Italian touring show. Ermanno Leinardi's work is represented in numerous European public collections, amongst which the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Rome), the Fondazione Calderara di Vaciago (Novara, I), the Museé des Beaux Arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds (CH), the Arp Collection (CH), and the Moderne Galerie des Saarlandmuseums (DE).