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Lot Essay
Superficia bianca no. 1 (White Surface no. 1) is a striking early example of Castellani's own unique brand of the Achrome. The series known as the Superfici were the artist's material response to his call, first voiced in the magazine Azimuth, which he had founded with Piero Manzoni in Milan in 1959, for an elemental art based solely on the concepts of space, light and time. 'For the artist', Castellani asserted, 'the need to find new modes of expression is animated by the need for the absolute. To meet this requirement, the only possible compositional criterion is that through the possession of an elementary entity - a line, an indefinitely repeatable rhythm and a monochrome surface - it is necessary to give the works themselves the concreteness of infinity that may undergo the conjugation of time, the only comprehensible dimension and the yardstick and the justification of our spiritual needs' (Castellani, 'Continuità e nuovo', in Azimuth no. 2, Milan, 1960).
The technique Castellani evolved in response to this call was essentially one of spacially distorting the surface of the painting by stretching it over a systematically prepared relief background of nails. These indented into the canvas and transformed its two dimensional surface into an arena of play between light and shade, and positive and negative depth. The geometric regularity of this patterning also added to the impression of the work as a holistic entirety, both a microcosm and a macrocosm, a model of our concept of both infinity and the void.
This sense of infinity was intrinsic to Castellani's use of monochrome surfaces which he asserted had to be as 'immaterial as possible'. Through this conjunction of the heavy materiality of the back and the 'immateriality' of the whole work - a two dimensional surface transformed into a three-dimensional object - would become a harmonious unit. Because, he explained, the surface is also 'a series of points in relief and points forming depressions, negative and positive poles, and a series of minimal operative interventions, (but)... constituted by a flat membrane, the physical characteristics of which - elasticity and spatial continuity - are not altered by the process of formation. The structures resulting from this operation (would be) matched by others that are both equal and opposite and thus cancel each other out in the organization of spatial totality. Reality, too, always has an obverse and a reverse that, by fitting together, deny each other in turn' (ibid.).
The technique Castellani evolved in response to this call was essentially one of spacially distorting the surface of the painting by stretching it over a systematically prepared relief background of nails. These indented into the canvas and transformed its two dimensional surface into an arena of play between light and shade, and positive and negative depth. The geometric regularity of this patterning also added to the impression of the work as a holistic entirety, both a microcosm and a macrocosm, a model of our concept of both infinity and the void.
This sense of infinity was intrinsic to Castellani's use of monochrome surfaces which he asserted had to be as 'immaterial as possible'. Through this conjunction of the heavy materiality of the back and the 'immateriality' of the whole work - a two dimensional surface transformed into a three-dimensional object - would become a harmonious unit. Because, he explained, the surface is also 'a series of points in relief and points forming depressions, negative and positive poles, and a series of minimal operative interventions, (but)... constituted by a flat membrane, the physical characteristics of which - elasticity and spatial continuity - are not altered by the process of formation. The structures resulting from this operation (would be) matched by others that are both equal and opposite and thus cancel each other out in the organization of spatial totality. Reality, too, always has an obverse and a reverse that, by fitting together, deny each other in turn' (ibid.).