‘Immagine e forma’, ‘Arte Nucleare’, ‘Il Gesto’ (a complete run) + ‘Eristica’

Item Details

Milano, Movimento Pittura Nucleare / E.P.I., 1954 - 1959, soft cover

First, very fine

Jorn, Asger - Enrico Baj (redattore)

Immagine e forma. Bollettino d'informazione del Mouvement International pour un Bauhaus Imaginiste, N. 1.

Milano: E.P.I. – editorial periodici italiani, 1954.

Tall quarto, un paginated (12 pages). Printed wrappers (1-inch repaired tear to top of front wrapper)

- First edition and the first publication of the Mouvement International pour un Bauhaus Imaginiste. The translation into Italian is the work of Sergio Dangelo, and was done based on Jorn’s original manuscript. A French version would be published in 1958 in Pour la Forme.

Summary: La pittura e la scultura, temi del passato? – Gli architetti sostenitori del l’arte pubblicitaria e di propaganda – a proposito della valita attuale del concetto funzionalista -Forme naturalistiche e scientifiche – qualche legge elementare nell’evolzuione della tecnica umana -analisis e sitesi nel processo di fomazione – le tre definizione dell’arte – argomenti e proposito del Movimento Internazionale Per Un Bauhaus Immaginista contro un Bauhaus immaginario e sua ragione attuale.

Loosely laid in the announcement of the exhibition ‘Il Gesto’ organized by the Movimento Nucleare in collaboration with revue Phases. Milano Galleria Schettini form June 18 – July 18, 1955.

Asger Jorn read of Max Bill’s plans for the new Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm (HfG), a school modeled after the Bauhaus, in the British Architects’ Yearbook 1953, where Bill had placed a promotional article to attract prospective students and teachers. Excited by the possibility of participating in a new democratic pedagogical experiment and in pursuing his interest in fusing art and architecture, he wrote to Bill, inquiring about the role of art at Ulm and expressing his desire to secure a teaching position.

Bill’s answer was negative:

“In Ulm, we consider art as the foundation of all the things we make here. But by ‘art’ we do not understand any kind of ‘self-expression,’ but just art. We do not agree with most of what the COBRA group or similar groups do, because these experiments have, in our opinion, already been done and superseded a long time ago. In Ulm, we will deal with much more extreme, new, and generally more current questions of design”,

whereupon Jorn wrote in a letter to Enrico Baj:

"[A] Swiss architect, Max Bill, has undertaken to restructure the Bauhaus where Klee and Kandinsky taught. He wishes to make an academy without painting, without research into the imagination, fantasy, signs, symbols – all he wants is technical instruction. In the name of experimental artists I intend to create an International Movement For An Imaginist Bauhaus."

 

 

Dangelo, Sergio (a cura di)

Arte Nucleare

Milano: Movimento Pittura Nucleare, 1954.

Tall quarto, un paginated (8 pages), illustrated in black and white = one color plate. Illustrated wrappers after

- First edition. One of 1100 numbered copies. Published on the occasio of the exhibition of ‘nuclear painters’ in the Sala degli Specchi di Ca’ Giustiani. Text by Beniaminno Dal Fabbro: "Aforismi nucleari" + poem ‘Una Rosa’ by Diego Valeri + List of the 56 exhibited works. Illustrations by Enrico Baj, Joe C. Colombo, Max G. Rusca, Pino Serpi, Giuseppe Allosia, Leonardo Mariani and Mario Colucci.

 

‘Movimento Arte Nucleare’ e (a cura del) della rivista Phases

Il Gesto. Rassegna Internazionale delle Forme Libere. Nos. 1 - 4. [All published].

Milano: E.P.I. – editorial periodici italiani, 1955 – 1959.

 

No. 1:

Tall quarto, un paginated (20 pages) illustrated throughout in black and white. Illustrated wrappers. Front wrapper after Max Ernst.

Loosely laid in 2 original lithographs on yellow transparent stock by Lucio Fontana and Joe Colombo.

Text contributions by Beniamino Dal Fabro, Edouard Jaguer: ‘Matiere + Mouvement = Feu’; Roberto Sanesi: ‘Scheda al nuclearismo’; Dangelo: L’Estate; Tsutomu Izima: La Calligrafia Giapponese e Il Gruppo Bokuzin-Kai. Text illustrations by Asger Jorn, Matta, Shiryu Morita, Baj, Enrique Zanartu, Yuichi Inoui, Corneille + illustrations by Duncan, Mathias Goeritz, Jacques Herold, Matta, K.O. Gotz, Robert Miller, Pierre Alechinsky, Lucio Fontana, Enrico Baj, Adja Yunkers, Marcel Jean and others.

The first issue served as an exhibition catalogue of a show at the Schettini Gallery in Milan, and also constituted the second issue of the Information Bulletin of Asger Jorn’s Imagist Bauhaus.

 

No. 2: Enrico Baj + Sergio Dangelo (editors)

Tall quarto, un paginated (16 pages) illustrated throughout in black and white. Illustrated wrappers. Front wrapper after E.L.T. Mesens.

Text contributions by Pierre Restany ‘Moralité du Geste’; Eduard Jaguer: ‘Tombeau d’Icare; Philippe d’Arschot: ‘Peinture ou Peinture-Jeu’; Charles Estienne: C’est la vie’; Eduard Jaguer: ‘ Cosi some vi furono un tempo dei poeti maledetti’. Text illustrations by Pollock, Serge Vandercam, Analdo Pomodor, Reinhout d’Haese + illustrations by Sonderborg, Dubuffet, Enrico Baj, Luciano Fontana, Gianni Bertini, Brauner and others.

 

No. 3: Enrico Baj + Sergio Dangelo + Piero Manzoni (editors)

Tall quarto, un paginated (32 pages), illustrated throughout in black and white. Original front wrapper with circular perforations by Lucio Fontana (con prole di Antonino Tullier) + rear wrapper by Giuseppe Capogrossi. Centerfold with a double-page original lithograph by Arnoldo Pomodoro.

Text contributions by Gillo Dorfles: ‘Gesti Novi’; Edoardo Sanguinetti: ‘Passi, passagi’; Edouard Jaguer: ‘au bout du rève’; Nani Balestrini: ‘l’uovo vive d’incontri’; Sergio Dangelo: ‘Flasch al Magnetofono’; Luigi Bonifacio ‘Le cose….’ E.L.T. Mesens: ‘Ce soir’

Text illustrations by Bonifacio, Corneille, Jaques Brunius, Roel d’Haese, Piere Alechinsky and Appel + illustrations by Wilfredo Lam, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Mario Persico, J.J. Lebel, Gillo Dorfles, Piero Manzoni, Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Baj, Guido Biasi, Jean Dubuffet, Asger Jorn, C.F. Reutersvard and others.

added:

two uncut proof prints for the front and rear cover of this issue, measuring 35 x 32 cm, while the covers for this issue measure 32 x 22 cm: the front wrapper by Fontana here without circular perforations, while Caprogrossi’s woodcut with circular perforations.

 

No. 4: Enrico Baj (editor)

INTERPLANETARY ART / ARTE INTERPLANETARIA / INTERPLANETAERE KUNST / ART INTERPLANETAIRE.

Tall quarto, un paginated (20 pages), illustrated throughout in black and white. Printed wrappers.

Editorial:‘arte interplanetaria’ signed (in print) by Giovanni Anceschi, Sandro Bojini,

Noni Balestrini, Leo Paolozzi, Paolo Rodoelli, Luca, Lucio Del Pezzo, Giuseppe Alfano, Dino Grieco, Guido Biasi, Mario Persico, Sergio Fergola, Bruno Di Bello, Angelo Verga, Ettore Sordini, Antonio Recalcati, Enrico Baj and Farfa.

Text contributions by Raoul Hausmann: ‘geste sideral’; Edouard Jaguer: ‘Enrico Baj e la comica interplanetaria’; Mario Viscardini; Farfa: ’manifesto manifestante cartaci razzi’; Raul Hausmann: ’Manifest interplanetaire’

Text illustrations by Franceschini + illustrations by Baj: ‘Qualcosa di Nuovo da altri mondi’ (Something New from Other Worlds, 1959), ‘Ultracorpo in Svizzera’ (Body-snatcher in Switzerland, 1959) and ‘Ultracorpi all’assalto delle nostre donne’ (The Body-snatchers Violate our Women, 1959), furthermore illustrations after Farfa, Giovanni Anceschi, Lucio Fontna, Boccioni and Antonio Recalcati

‘Il Gesto’ was an international collaboration, which documented the work of a very wide group of artists, from virtually every European and Scandinavian nation as well as the USA, Canada, several Latin American countries and Japan.

 

LARA DEMORI concludes in her article ‘Organicize disintegration: from Nuclear Aesthetics to Interplanetary Art’

‘… it is important to acknowledge that the Movimento Arte Nucleare emerged not only as a questioning the so called “Miracolo economico” and its profound influence on both the social and cultural Italian context, but also resulted from a much broader landscape, in which a newborn space-age aesthetics fostered the birth of fantastic space travels. Nuclear artists initially embraced this phantasmagoric side of technological advancements, but later questioned its political consequences, a shift … that does not concern only a socio-political and cultural attitude towards contemporaneous events, but also the style employed, which merged North American influences – particularly Abstract Expressionism – with European phenomena, such as French Informel, Art Brut and Surrealism, yet avoiding any fawning adherence to a particular trend. Later in the decade, Interplanetary Art questioned the adoption of an America globalized model of mass-consumption. Artists rightfully saw the risk of the commercialization of the cultural industry…’

 

Gallizio, Giuseppe (editor) - AsgerJorn (segretario) - Piero Simondo (redattore) - Elena Verrone (direttore)

Eristica. Bolletino d'informazione del Movimento Internazionale per una Bauhaus Immaginista. Nr. 2.  – luglio 56

Alba: laboratorio sperimentale per un Bauhaus Immaginista, Juli 1956.

Tall quarto, 18 pages, illustrated in black and white + looselylaid in the colored frontispiece illustration (13,3 x 15,5 cm). Front wrapper being an original woodcut by Asger Jorn.

- First edition. Editorial: ‘Cosa noi vogliamo….’ Texts: AsgerJorn: "Forma e struttura" uno studio sull’introduzione del nuovo nel nostro tempo; Piero Simondo: "Per una teoria generale delle arti figurative”; Elena Verrone: ‘Funzioni architettoniche di destinazioni democratiche". 5 text illustrations by Asger Jorn + illustrations of ceramics by Matta Echaurren, Asger Jorn, Karel Appel and Corneille