Eliseo Mattiacci (November 13, 1940 - August 25, 2019) was an Italian sculptor.

Biography

Born in

Cagli Cagli is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Pesaro e Urbino, Marche, central Italy. It is c. south of Urbino. The Burano flows near the town. History Cagli occupies the site of an ancient village on the Via Flaminia, which seems to have ...

, Mattiacci moved to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

in 1964. In 1967 La Tartaruga gallery opened Mattiacci's first solo exhibition, featuring “Tubo” (Tube), a 150 meters, yellow-coloured, nickel-plated iron tube designed to change the perception of the environment and encourage the public to modify it. In 1969 he staged a performative action at Galleria L’Attico by entering the gallery with a compressor that crushes a path made of pozzolana ash. In 1967 Mattiacci started exhibiting with

Alexander Iolas Alexander Iolas (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Ιόλας) (March 26, 1908 – June 8, 1987) was an Egyptian-born Greek-American art gallerist and significant collector of classical and modern art works, who advanced the careers of René Magritte, ...

in Paris and New York. In 1972 he was invited to the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

. During the 1980s, Mattiacci’s research focused on the use of metal with whom he realised large-scale works inspired by his interests in cosmic-astronomical themes. One of his pieces, “Carro Solare del Montefeltro” (Montefeltro Solar Chariot), from 1984, was exhibited at the 41st edition of the Venice Biennale in 1988. In 1993,

Fondazione Prada Fondazione Prada, co-chaired by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli since 1995, is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture. From 1993 to 2010, the Fondazione has organised 24 solo shows at its exhibition spaces in Milan, concei ...

inaugurated its exhibition space in Milan with an exhibition of Mattiacci's work. Mattiacci was the recipient of the 1995 Fujisankei Hokone Open Air Museum Biennial Prize in Tokyo and the Antonio Feltrinelli Sculpture Award in Rome in 2008. In 2013

Germano Celant Germano Celant (11 September 1940 – 29 April 2020) was an Italian art historian, critic, and curator who coined the term "Arte Povera" (poor art) in the 1967 ''Flash Art'' piece "Appunti Per Una Guerriglia" ("Notes on a guerrilla war"), which w ...

edited a comprehensive monograph on his work published by

Skira The festival of the Skira () or Skirophoria () in the calendar of ancient Athens, closely associated with the Thesmophoria, marked the dissolution of the old year in May/June. Description At Athens, the last month of the year was '' Skiropho ...

. In 2016 the MART (Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto) and Forte di Belvedere in Florence held a broad retrospective exhibition of his work.

References

1940 births 2019 deaths Italian male sculptors 20th-century Italian sculptors 20th-century Italian male artists 21st-century Italian sculptors 21st-century Italian male artists Italian contemporary artists {{Italy-artist-stub