LORENZO PIEMONTI ©

LORENZO PIEMONTI

Lorenzo Piemonti was born in Carate Brianza in 1935. Singular his approach to painting, which is self-taught; on the occasion of a stage of the Giro d'Italia cycling race, seeing a painting made by Fausto Coppi's fans, he decided to make one dedicated to his idol Gino Bartali. After figurative beginnings, of an uncommon matrix in any case (the "sewing machines"), from the mid-1960s he came to the attention of national and international critics for his plastic results which, drawing from the number their first matrix, carry out in progressionthe multiple variations of a numerical sequence. The result is three-dimensional works with a strong visual and environmental impact. From the mid-1960s, he begins the "Oval Moment" (1965-68) and the "Ovaletubular Moment" (1966-78) in which the sculptures-tubes as columns, tubular objects on the wall, bifrontal constructions and serial models built on the iteration of a single oval form-present the element of prefabrication, the use of the technical intervention of the craftsman who executes the artist's design, the slight manipulation of industrial material by carving an opening. The artist generates alternations of solids (ovals) and voids, of flat and curved surfaces, conveying a message of openness to everything and everyone. The shape of the oval becomes the element that expresses the desire to find a certain balance in the face of the reality of the time. Piemonti spent a decade of his life in Switzerland, and from there his art took on characteristics closer and closer to concrete abstractionism, thanks to his early contacts with Swiss concretism and the influences of some great theorists including Max Bill. His investigation focuses on "aesthetic quantities," on the analysis of color relationships and structure, in relation to visual perception. It is an art based on geometry, arithmetic, elemental purity - the square is its founding matrix - and colors - primary, secondary, tertiary, along with the white/gray/black system - juxtaposed according to color theory studies. A structured but not realistic art, which gives centrality to form and sign in their basic essential meaning, but which never lacks an emotional meaning. From 1973 Piemonti began what can be called the period of performances and "Manipulables." In those years, Piemonti added to the rigor of his works a very significant process of mutation with the practice of performance. In the performance color as signification (1973) in Varese - Galliate, the work is no longer just an aesthetic object but an infinitely manipulable module thanks to the support of people and personalities such as Remo Bianco, Mario Schifano, Bruno Munari, Emilio Isgrò. The artists continuously modify the support proposed by Piemonti, provoking that decomposition of the image that everyone was under the illusion of possessing as the only possible key to interpretation. Among his "manipulable" works, the artist makes multiples that put everyone in a position to form, with the available elements, paintings and compositions according to individual instincts. The multiple causes reflection and the dissolution of the concept of uniqueness of the work; it stimulates the playful instinct; thanks to new production technologies it multiplies the art object industrially with a consequent reduction in costs, making it accessible to a wide audience. It is neither a reproduction nor a copy of an original, but an autonomous original. From his Swiss period emerges the insight that also brought the artist into the fashion world internationally, that of "Mannequins." Thanks to his collaboration with Zurich's Schlaeppischaufensterfiguren, Piemonti began making models for fashion exhibitions (mannequins!) out of fiberglass, with unique and peculiar shapes, playing on extensions, elongations and indentations. His mannequins get to be exhibited in museums in Zurich and Madrid with Balenciaga, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with Yves Saint Laurent, at the Guggenheim in New York with Armani, and others. In 1990 Piemonti became co-founder of Madì Italia, an art movement born in 1946 in Argentina, whose name comes from the contraction of "dialectical materialism." Devoted to the continuous reinvention of mathematical-geometrical laws and based precisely on a logical and mathematical pictorial conception (consistent with his artistic practice carried out until then), Madì is characterized by an original spatiality. Piemonti, in fact, reflects even more on the surface-relief dialectic by freeing the latter from the former with additions of spills and applications of elements external to the basic matrix, as in his chromoplasts that become a synthesis of painting and sculpture. Gradually the geometry sublimates and achieves a chromatic richness that strengthens compositional kinetics and expresses harmony and joyfulness, in a marriage of instinct and reason. The artist's decade-long stay in central Switzerland and contacts with the masters of Swiss concretism (Max Bill, Richard Paul Lohse, Camille Graeser) developed in an individual direction as evidenced by some of his most famous works, the "Chromoplastics." With a representative of the Argentine movement, is founded the group MADI' Italia (dialectical materialism) present in solo and group exhibitions in France, Switzerland, Serbia, USA, Hungary, Romania, Spain, etc. During the Swiss period 1965-1975 Piemonti collaborated as a sculptor with the Schlaeppischaufensterfiguren in Zurich, making models for fashion exhibitions, used by designers such as: Balenciaga in museums in Zurich and Madrid, by Yves Saint Laurent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Museum of Arts and Fashion at the Louvre in Paris, Armani at the Guggenheim in New York, Courege, and others in major metropolises around the world. In the international exhibition route: solo exhibition at the National Museum in Belgrade, since 2003 he has been present with MADI' expression works at Kilgore Law Center and MADI' Museum in Dallas-Texas, Piemonti's works are also found in museums in various Italian and foreign cities. Official critics have often dealt with Lorenzo Piemonti. The great artist and designer Bruno Munari said of his Chromoplastics, "At first it seems to be in front of works that we would call rigorous and geometric 'concrete art.' After a little while that we observe the colored rows, arranged at an angle to the base, a mixture of colors is formed, and by shifting our gaze to the neutral background we see new colors appear and move around the rows. Our perceptual system has been provoked by a color composition that makes us see more of what is on the painting. We are no longer sure of our visual organs; this is a provocation. Lorenzo Piemonti's optical provocations." The Brianza artist's artistic-craftsmanship has led him to numerous solo and group exhibitions in Italy, France, Switzerland, Serbia, the USA, Hungary, Romania and Spain. Among the latest exhibitions: Galleria Civica Mariani in Seregno (2019), Cart 70-10 Gallery in Monza (2017), Schubert Gallery in Milan (2016), 4th Italy-China Biennial in Beijing (2016), MAC Museum of Contemporary Art in Lissone (2013). Piemonti's works can now be found in international and Italian museums, including: National Museum in Belgrade, Kilgore Law Center and Madì Museum in Dallas Texas, Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Turin, Maga in Gallarate, Museo Pagani in Legnano, Museo d'Arte Magi in Pieve di Cento, Museo dei Lumi in Casale Monferrato, Museum of Contemporary Art in Lissone. Piemonti è anche autore di opere pubbliche, come Fratellanza universale (1976), monumento in acciaio collocato nel cortile della scuola elementare di Carate Brianza, suo paese natio. Alto sei metri, articolato su una base triangolare con punti di innalzamento che reggono uno svolgimento modulare che può essere modificato da chiunque nella disposizione asimmetrica degli elementi. Dell’opera di Piemonti si sono interessate Viviane Fradkoff e Anita Villa, rispettivamente dell’università di Ginevra e dell’Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera, che hanno approfondito il suo modo di comunicare nelle tesi di laurea. Muore a Carate Brianza nel 2015, dopo aver lavorato fino alla fine.