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About the Artist: Born in 1935 in Northern Italy, the artist Agostino Bonalumi was a self-taught painter who studied technical design and mechanics. He would go on to become one of the founding members of the Nuova Scuola Europea group in the early 1960s. In the years that followed, he played an increasingly important role in the development of a radical Italian artistic vernacular. Bonalumi exhibited works at the Venice Biennale in 1966 and again in 1970; by 1980, he’d had a major retrospective at the Palazzo Te in Mantua. Inspired by the works of Lucio Fontana, he often explored the plasticity of his canvases. Now, London’s Mazzoleni is bringing together a group of the artist’s metal sheet works, made using a “pleating” process with an enamel coating, in the exhibition “Shaped Metal.” 

Why We Like It: Bonalumi’s brightly painted shaped-metal works hang on the gallery walls, seeming something like paintings and something like sculptures—in fact, the artist often called his works “paintings-objects.” Characterized by strictly rectilinear structures, they are representative of the artist’s exploration of the expressive potential of different materials. 

According to the Gallery: “The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Archivio Bonalumi. This project inaugurates Mazzoleni’s new gallery space in 15 Old Bond Street as well as a series of shows titled “Focus On…” a format delving into a range of key aspects of the European postwar period…. These wall-mounted works represent the highest point of Bonalumi’s prolific career.”

See images for the exhibition below.

“Agostino Bonalumi: Shaped Metal” is on view at Mazzoleni London through April 29, 2022.