Giovanni Anselmo

Estimate

45,000 - 65,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Giovanni Anselmo
Un Giro Più del Ferro
titled
iron, engraving and transparent varnish
122 by 122cm.
48 by 48in.
Executed in 1969.

Provenance

Sergio Ermini, Brescia
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Exhibited

Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Giovanni Anselmo, 1985, illustrated p. 37
Lyon, Musée d'Art Contemporain, Giovanni Anselmo, 1989, no. 37, illustrated
Paris, Galerie Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert, Arte Povera 1965-1972, 1995
Nice, Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Giovanni Anselmo, 1996

Literature

Musée de Grenoble, Giovanni Anselmo, Grenoble 1980, pp. 62-63
Exhibition Catalogue, Santiago de Compostela, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Giovanni Anselmo, 1995, pp. 190-191, illustrated
Gloria Moure, Giovanni Anselmo, Barcelona 1996, p. 186, pl. 82, no. 36, illustrated

Catalogue Note

In the present work Anselmo's engagement with the theme of temporality is eloquently expressed. A square sheet of iron holds a circular shining polished disc inscribed with the title Un Giro Più del Ferro. The iron has been left to the natural temporal processes of oxidisation and erosion, the surface marked with textures which have slowly evolved. As the iron around the polished disc deteriorates, this symbol of infinity should remain, turning endless revolutions in time. Anselmo has highlighted the continuous transformations we encounter as our lives progress: the juxtaposition of decomposing and everlasting material is a metaphor for the reversibility between such opposing polarities as the stable and the ephemeral, the resistant and the fragile, and the past and the future. Just as Anselmo considers the transience of material, the viewer must confront his place within the enduring cycle of life and his own inevitable mortality.