Nuvolo - and Post-War Materiality 1950-1965

Nuvolo (født Giorgio Ascani, 1926–2008)

This publication is dedicated to Nuvolo, an artist who embraced alternative uses for painting materials, textiles and silkscreen processes.

In 1950 he moved to Alberto Burri’s studio in Rome and participated in the cultural ferment of the age, meeting Ettore Colla and the Gruppo Origine as well as the artists and intellectuals involved with the magazine Arti Visive. Working within a two-dimensional, rectangular format typically associated with easel painting, Nuvolo introduced new techniques that relied on tension and textural variation, using a range of materials like commonplace textiles and deerskin. He also made an ambitious series of works called serotipie using a silkscreen technique that enabled him to create intricate drawings which could be repeated endlessly.
This book features an insightful essay by Germano Celant, a chronology of Nuvolo’s artistic explorations contextualized within the non-figurative trends that unfolded in Italy, Europe and the US at that time, historical documentation, texts by and about the artist, and a large selection of Nuvolo’s works (1952–1965), some previously unpublished.
The first monograph in English on a critical period of Nuvolo’s artistic output,
accompanied by a large number of color illustrations as well as archival
documents and historical texts.