Luciano Fabro

A leading exponent of Arte Povera Fabro has always been interested in experimenting with new iconographic styles and materials with the aim of stimulating the public towards new perceptive involvements with space, with particular attention to artisan techniques such as, for example, when, between 1963 and 1965, Fabro produced some works in partly mirrored and partly transparent glass and others in light tubular metal which emphasise forms and materials as simple luminous and dynamic vehicles. Such everyday actions as measuring the diameter of a piece of material with a hole in it, or cleaning a floor and the successive covering of it with newspapers become works of art followed by a certificate of authentication. Then he sculpted the striking series I Piedi (The Feet) which he proposed in various forms using artisan techniques for working marble, bronze and fabrics. Towards the end of the Nineties the first theories and exhibitions on the concept of the image in its original state led to the production of public works with an civil, urban, natural and religious iconography. His assiduous reflection on forms continues in the work conceived for the Madre for which the artist has also produced a text, on exhibition in the room as a manifesto, which the public can use to interpret the work, without it being intended as a caption, but as yet another perceptive stimulus.