Macchine inutili. Gianni Colombo e Bruno Munari

Curated by Marco Scotini
In collaboration with Filippo Percassi

Magazzino is pleased to present the double solo show "Macchine Inutili" by two historical masters of the second half of the Italian 20th Century such as Bruno Munari and Gianni Colombo, united by many factors despite coming from very different generations.

The works on display, including Negativo Positivo by Munari and Spazio Elastico by Colombo, aim to resume the threads of an open dialogue between the two artists: a dialogue that began already in 1960 with the first exhibition of Gruppo T (of which Colombo was a member), Miriorama 1, in which Munari was recognized as an immediate precedent (together with Fontana, Tinguely, Manzoni and Baj) and which would then continue in 1962 when Munari himself included the Group in the milestone exhibition Arte Programmata at the Olivetti shop in Milan and much desired by Munari himself, who had recognized in the Gruppo T a new generation of artists carrying an innovative message, that of art in movement.

Emancipating themselves from the narrow confines of painting, sculpture and architecture, the works of Colombo and Munari find common ground in the idea of perceptive instability: the viewer's perception is modified and the space is participated, becoming a fundamental element of the work.

If on the one hand, Munari's Negativo Positivo series leaves the viewer free to choose what to see and what to put in the foreground and what in the background, Colombo's Spazio Elastico series, on the other hand, by disorienting the visitor, makes him an active part of the works, thanks also to the movements of the rubber bands seen through Wood's light. In both cases, however, it is clear how the two artists were moved by the same intent: the study of space and its ability to be manipulated and become a work of art itself.

Bruno Munari and Gianni Colombo are two innovators and pioneers, united by the common objective of going beyond the conventional functions of space, materials, objects: advocates of a new language that still today keeps all its contemporaneity intact.

According to the curator Marco Scotini: “The aim of the Roman presentation at Magazzino is to propose a sort of close and imaginary dialogue between the two artists but to reveal the common ground that hides behind the small and tenacious utopias of both.”