Gilberto Zorio

Gilberto Zorio
02.11.2017 - 18.02.2018

For the first time in a public museum in Turin, the Castello di Rivoli presents a major retrospective devoted to the work of Gilberto Zorio (b. Andorno Micca, 1944), a contemporary art pioneer and a key member of Arte Povera. Curated by Marcella Beccaria and developed in dialogue with the artist himself, this exhibition includes new installations together with historical works, spanning over 50 years of the artist’s career.

This comprehensive and innovative presentation features some of Zorio’s most important works from his early days, including historical installations jealously guarded by the artist in his own private collection. These rare pieces will be presented to the public alongside other works from various collections and those from the Museum’s permanent collection. New site-specific installations conceived by Zorio for the third floor of the Castello will be exhibited for the first time. Different conditions of light and shadow orchestrated by the artist will present two sensuous scenarios of perception.

Zorio’s works are unending fields of physical and mental energy. Since 1966, he has directed his investigations towards physical processes such as chemical or physical reactions that make each work continually mutable. In this way, he has renewed the language of sculpture, freeing it from the fixity and heaviness with which it has been traditionally associated. Time is often an important component in his works – only the natural passage of hours and days makes their transformations fully tangible. Beccaria writes: “In line with the processuality that distinguishes Zorio’s practice, on the basis of which more than one work is made at the same time and already existing works can be reformulated, the exhibition offers the experience of a synchronic time, where past and present coexist, and of a changing space, in which the artist’s alchemical approach offers unexpected and compelling visions.” The poetics of Arte Povera emerged in the mid-1960s as a radical and revolutionary use of non-conventional materials to create installations of great vitality and to provoke authentic and intense experiences in viewers.

States Castello di Rivoli director, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, “This exhibition continues Castello di Rivoli’s commitment to Arte Povera and its importance in building the Museum’s identity. Gilberto Zorio is one of the artists who, since the inaugural exhibition Ouverture in 1984, has given new life to the Castello’s historical rooms, contributing to the making of a museum that is unique in the world.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a scholarly bilingual catalog (Italian/English), published by the Castello di Rivoli with Skira editore, Milan. It will include new texts by Marcella Beccaria, João Fernandes, Tommaso Trini, and a conversation between Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and the artist, as well as a rich anthology of essays about the artist’s work. The catalog will also include the widest selection of the artist’s writings ever published.