Mario Ceroli, 1970's Large Italian Pop Art Mario Ceroli Arte Povera Sculpture Collage in Wood, 1970

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Mario Ceroli (Italian, 1938-)
Untitled
c. 1970
Wood collage on paper
Cut wood attached to paper, depicting multiple figures facing … Read more Mario Ceroli (Italian, 1938-)
Untitled
c. 1970
Wood collage on paper
Cut wood attached to paper, depicting multiple figures facing each other.
Hand signed and numbered to lower right 'Ceroli prova d'artista'. This work is an artist's proof. (not sure of edition)
Dimensions: Framed 35.5 x 47.5. sheet 27.25 x 39.5
Provenance: Basel Art Fair, 1976 CDS Gallery, New York (bears label verso)
Exhibited: Emilio Cerolli, 1976, Sala Funacion Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela, An International Scene, 20 September - 20 December 2003, CDS Gallery, New York

Mario Ceroli, born 1938 in Castel Frentano, Province of Chieti, Italy
Mario Ceroli is an Italian sculptor. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Mississippi. Ceroli is one of the most influential artists of the Italian post-war period. Ceroli moved to Rome at the age of ten where he later graduated from 'Accademia delle Belle Arti'. At the Art Institute he worked under the guidance of Leoncillo Leonardi, Pericle Fazzini and Ettore Colla, where he experimented with the use of ceramic. In 1958, he first exhibited these works at the Premium Spoleto. In the same year Ceroli held his first solo exhibition at Galleria San Sebastianello of Rome. During 1959 he began to experiment with new materials, particularly with raw wood, such as Russian pinewood. He used these materials to create silhouetted shapes in his furniture and objects that related simplistically to the surrounding space. In the 1960's Ceroli took part in exhibitions related to the "Arte de Povera" group. He had also been involved as screenplay director collaborating with "II Teatro Stabile" in Turin and with "La Scala" In Milan. He was part of the generation of Italian post war artists that included Aligliero Boetti, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Pino Pascali, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mimmo Rotella, Emilio Vedova. One of Ceroli's major works was his 'Mobili nella Valle' series, inspired directly by the Giorgio De Chirico 1927 painting of the same name. One of his sculptures is on the Luigi Einaudi campus of the University of Turin, and another one is at the Vatican Museums. In the early 1970s, he had a relationship with the Italian television and film actress Daria Nicolodi. Art Institute. Ceroli's work is sculpture, painting, drawing, creation of objects, environments and scenography. Ceroli is a multifaceted, versatile artist.
His sculpture is construction rather than moulding, the forms are tangible concepts and never abstractions, they are almost always simple, objective, concrete ideas. In the use of bronze, the resulting idea is of a series of stratifications, of consequential planes, which do not give the work that character of plastic uniformity, even within the context of a harmonious and syntonic work. Not just a sculptor of materials, Ceroli seems more interested in creating spaces, environments, majestic scenography: in 1965 he began working on Cassa Sistina , a space that contains all objects: everything is transportable, marketable. Irony and mystification of reality make it an exceptional work of art. Cassa Sistina earned him the Gollin Prize. 1966 was a decisive year: Ceroli exhibited at the La Tartaruga Gallery in Rome, among his various works, The Last Supper created a year earlier, and today preserved at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome. From September 1966 to June 1967 Ceroli moved to the United States and in April held a solo exhibition at the Bonino Gallery in New York, where he exhibited Farfalle . Another great masterpiece of those years is China, from 1966, one of the first works in the history of immersive and all-encompassing art, which gave the viewer the impression of almost being part of it.
Spectacularity, plastic spaces, majestic works: in 1969 Ceroli created Io, piramide di ice: a pyramid of ice bricks at the top of which hangs a steel sphere containing burning coal. The 1980s marked the search for the theme of "everything in the round", of spherical materiality, with works that represent a constant dialogue with the environment: La Porta (1981) , Il Cenacolo (1981) , Uomo Vitruviano (1987) date back to these years ), House of Neptune (1988), Mistral (1992), Applause (1992).
The 2000s saw Ceroli engaged in a continuous mix of natural elements, wood and ash, wood, ash and gold foil.
Works such as The Naked Truth, Guerriero Frentano are from 2007 : human figures carved in wood and sprinkled with ash, symbolizing the human being who merges with nature. 2007 is also the year that sees the creation of the majestic work Paolo e Francesca, with the reappearance of the theme of the staircase: human figures stand out on a staircase, with piles of colorful colors at their feet. In the 1960s, he was already considered one of the great masters of Italian Pop Art and Arte Povera. Ceroli’s production features natural and humble materials, particularly untreated wood, but also fabric, plastic or aluminium. His creations, which are sometimes polychrome and serialized, represent common objects, such as numbers, letters of the alphabet, human figures, and allusions to Leonardo da Vinci and other masters of the Italian Renaissance. In the 1970s and 1980s he experimented with polychrome marble, glass, powder and bronze, revisiting artworks from the Renaissance to the present day. Ceroli’s interest in these various disciplines led him to transcend the boundaries of the mere work of art, and to explore how it interacts with other fields, such as architecture or theatre. Today Mario Ceroli lives in Rome with his family. See less