TRACES: Giovanni Anselmo

Today is the occasion to bear in mind Giovanni Anselmo (5/8/1934-18/12/2023), a self-taught artist known for his sculptural installations created under the Arte Povera movement. He was born in Borgofranco d’Ivrea, Italy, and ended up splitting his professional time between Turin and Stromboli, Italy. This column is a tribute to artists, living or dead, who have left their mark in Contemporary Art. Through documents or interviews, starting with: moments and memories, we reveal out from the past-unknown sides of big personalities, who left their indelible traces in time and history…

By Dimitris Lempesis

A self-taught painter, Giovanni Anselmo decided to abandon traditional artistic languages very early on after creating a photograph titled “Mon ombre projetée vers l’infini” at the summit of Stromboli at sunrise on August 16, 1965. He stated, “Through the invisible shadow, my own self came into relation with light, with infinity.” By 1968 he joined the Italian art movement known as Arte Povera (or “impoverished art”), the most influential avant-garde movement of the 1960s. The name for this movement was coined by Germano Celant in 1967 to identify a handful of mainly Italian artists who opposed the popularity of abstract painting that had been dominating Europe. Along with Anselmo, artists like Alighiero Boetti and Pino Pascali joined together with a common conceptual idea: to create art opposed to Modernism and technology. The artists of the Arte Povera movement frequently juxtaposed unrelated objects in their works: Ordinary pre-industrial materials would be placed alongside modern, processed materials—the old next to the new. These creations were not always easily understood or explained, and often evoked social issues of the time. Anselmo contributed a great deal to the Arte Povera movement, focusing his art on abstract concepts. He often used his work to emphasize that things are not always what they seem, and that one should always question the world around them. Anselmo’s first solo exhibition was in 1968 at the Galleria Sperone in Milan, Italy. Since then, his works have been exhibited throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, and Australia. He participated in the Venice Biennales of 1978, 1980, and 1990, where he received the Leone d’Oro award. In “Senza titolo” (1967), a sheet of Plexiglas is slightly bent and held taut by a small, hooked iron rod. This work exemplifies Anselmo’s investigation and the use of simple means to create the conditions for initiating situations that contain tension.  The work is the physical energy that it contains and that exists without the need for stable connections, in a situation of slight precariousness. The temporal element is fundamental in “Neon nel cemento” (1967–69), described by the artist as “a disquieting work,” in that it contains its own death. Four neon tubes, connected to an electrical circuit, are embedded within concrete blocks that rest on the floor. The long and rather thin blocks allow the viewer to glimpse only the ends of the neon tubes, which emanate a blue light. According to Anselmo, the work was created “with the intention of illuminating impenetrable darkness.” It exists as long as the neon tubes give off light and, in accordance with the artist’s instructions, can be refabricated when the tubes cease to function. Needing to be re-made, the work is limited in time, but its conditions nonetheless exist, for it exists beyond its possible disappearance. Two iron beams separated by a sea sponge constitute “Respiro” (1969), a work that brings into proximity a natural, soft, elastic element and a heavy, compact, industrial product. The work is created by the energy that is liberated from the encounter between the two materials; variations in temperature produce minor alterations in the dimensions of the iron beams, which then modify the shape of the sponge. Extending the premises of his works from the late 1960s, in the 1980s, Anselmo created a series made from blocks or slabs of granite, sometimes placed in relationship with the so-called oltremare (ultramarine, “beyond the sea”) and suspended or held in balance by steel cables and slipknots. Although the positioning of the stone slab in these works implies weightlessness, it is precisely through gravity that the piece finds its equilibrium, its bonds inexorably tightening. Among the works in this series is “Verso oltremare” (1984), which consists of a large, triangular-shaped stone slab, positioned almost vertically and held in balance by a steel cable, so that the upper vertex inclines toward, but does not quite touch, a small rectangle of ultramarine blue painted on the wall. The ultramarine of the title is the name of the tone of the color used in the pictorial intervention—a color whose name refers to the origins of the mineral, formerly imported into Europe from distant lands, from “beyond the sea,” and used to produce the pigment. Like a search for an undefined elsewhere, mentally beyond the museum walls, the work conveys a constant state of longing. The idea of direction is an integral part of the artist’s investigations. Since the 1970s, Anselmo has used a magnetic compass needle as an expression of forces that indicate a possible movement. In Mentre la terra si orienta (1967–2007), the compass needle is inserted into a layer of dirt installed in the museum. The natural element inside the museum space exposes the reality of earth’s magnetic field, placing each viewer in direct confrontation with the overwhelming physical forces supporting the universe. Giovanni Anselmo engages in a continuous reflection on the order of things, the cycles of nature, gravity, and the energy fields that drive all movement. He explores the existential relationship between humans and nature within the cosmos. Anselmo visualizes energy in installations using materials placed in a delicate balance and strong tension between opposing forces. Granite, symbolizing hardness, allows him to convey concepts such as eternity or mass. He stages these notions to represent the physical law of gravity and, by extension, all the fundamental laws of nature. In the work titled “Direzione” Giovanni Anselmo incorporates a compass whose needle’s direction emphasizes the symmetry of the triangle. This piece brings forth an original dimension, that of the presence of the telluric axis, which refers to eternity. Giovanni Anselmo’s entire body of work serves as a metaphor for the fragile balance of life and art.