Among the most important artists from the postwar period, Fabro is known for his in-depth and innovative research into sculpture and space, as well as for his intense theoretical thinking and commitment as a teacher. Less is known about his parallel activity on paper, which he carried out from the early 1960s to his death in 2007.
The exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, curated by Ilaria Bernardi and Silvia Fabro, aims to delve deeper into the artist’s production on paper, presenting a group of works that exemplify the two principal ways Fabro understood drawing: on one hand, as a “study,” that is to say, closely linked to his sculptures and installations; on the other, as a “work in itself” specifically conceived for the paper support.
Although their genealogy differs, the “studies” and the “works in themselves” selected for this exhibition have a common denominator: a reflection on space, whether physical, anthropological, or natural, and on the relationship between inner and outer reality.
Some “studies” on display in the first room are: Untitled, 1962 (preliminary research on perception, later developed in the works presented in Fabro’s first solo show in 1965), as well as the study for Concetto spaziale, descrizione, 1967, and a study for Allestimento teatrale (conceived for the Teatro Stabile in Turin in 1967 and made in 1975).
Works conceived as “works in themselves,” mostly suggesting natural space, can be, instead, viewed in the second room. One of them: Tubo da mettere tra i fiori (1963), a site-specific installation made with a telescopic steel tube “hidden” within a large group of green plants.
Read HERE the description of the works on display and the full press release.
To coincide with Luciano Fabro: Drawing as Space, Paula Cooper Gallery will include an example from the artist’s celebrated Piedi series in a forthcoming group exhibition of sculpture at 521 W 21st Street.
Works by Fabro are part of the most important museum collection in the United States, such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art, Hessel/CCS Bard in Annandaleon Hudson (NY), The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and other major private collections. In particular, an important collection of his works is permanently shown at Magazzino Italian Art, in Cold Spring (NY)
