Salvo Mangione

Salvo Mangione - Primavera

Biografía del Artista: Born in Leonforte, in the province of Enna, in 1947, Salvo (Salvatore Mangione) spent his childhood in Sicily, before his family emigrated to Turin in 1956. Here he expressed a precocious interest in art and at just 16 he participated in the 121st Esposizione della Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti, with a drawing after Leonardo. At the end of the 60s, Salvo began his involvement with American conceptual artists Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry, and Sol Lewitt. Following this, his work began to display key characteristics that would later become essential to his research, engaging with the search for Self, narcissistic self-satisfaction, and the relationship with the past and the history of culture. These themes were evident in the 1970s, with his 12 Autoritratti series, which consisted of Salvo creating photomontages where he applied his face to images taken from newspapers. Simultaneously, Salvo produced marble tombstones on which he engraved words or phrases, such as Idiota and Respirare il padre. It is, however, important to note, that despite those works belong being created within the context of Arte Povera, their monumental and archaizing connotations move beyond the movement, revealing a unique viewpoint, foreshadowing what we are to see in his future works. The 1970s proved to be a decisive decade for Salvo, characterised by his return to painting using traditional techniques and his solo exhibition Salvo at the John Weber Gallery in New York in 1973. In 1974, further solo exhibitions celebrated his work, including Painting and Sculpture Today, 1974, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art; and Projekt 74. Kunst bleibt Kunst. Aspekte Internationaler Kunst am Anfang der 70er Jahare organized by the Cologne Kunsthalle. From 1976 he worked on a series of simplistic landscapes composed with bright colours, depicting architectural ruins and visions of classic columns. These works are particularly notable due to Salvo’s masterful rendering of natural light, with each piece presenting a convincing specificity of dawn, daylight, dusk, or darkness. These landscapes became his best-known works and between 1982 and 1983 he gained extensive notoriety in Europe, with retrospective exhibitions held in Gand, Lucerne and Lyons. As well as being invited to participate in high-profile exhibitions such as documenta 5 in 1972, and Venice Biennale in 1976 and 1984. Following this success, he exhibited regularly in Italy (Milan, Genova and Rome) and abroad (New York, Stuttgart, Monaco and Cologne). Today, Salvo’s works can be found in prestigious collections across the globe, including MoMA, New York, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin and Museo del Novecento, Milan. Salvo died in 2015, in Turin, with his final work as an artist being posthumous; his 1970 gravestone work stating ‘Salvo è vivo’ was turned to reveal ‘Salvo è morto’.

 

The silkscreen is a reproduction of Salvo's painting 'Primavera', 1998, 150 x 200 cm, featured in the exhibition catalogues: 'Salvo. Opere scelte', published by the Nuova Gissi gallery in 1998 (cover), and 'Salvo. Opere 1974–2004', published by Mazzoleni in 2004 (pp. 44–45). It was printed in 2004 by Servideo di Dicanosa Paola & C., based in Turin. The screen-printing process faithfully captures the essence of Salvo's original work, reflecting the artist's unique style.