Art Of The Day Weekly
#438 - from 7 July 2016 to 7 September 2016
Emilio Isgrò, Manutian shadows, 2014, 155 x 50 x 63 cm, mixed media on book mounted on board. Private collection.
Isgrò the iconoclast
MILANO – For half a century he has been methodically erasing all words in the books that fall into his hands, from the Enciclopedia Treccani (the equivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica) to the complete works of Manzoni (the Italian Victor Hugo). Emilio Isgrò (born in 1937) turned this iconoclastic practice into a form of visual poetry. Also a novelist and a poet, he looks behind words and forms (like in photos of Mao, famous paintings by Hayez or Raffaelo, the public debt) to question the concepts of identity, authority and censure. Aside from the Palazzo Reale, the exhibition is also held in the Gallerie d’Italia and Casa del Manzoni.
• Emilio Isgrò at Palazzo Reale, from 29 June to 25 September 2016.