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Lot Essay
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
'To those who ask me about my work, I can only respond in my own way. I'm no auctioneer (let me emphasize that), I do what most pleases and moves me in imagination (let me emphasize that). I make my work as well as could be done. Phidias and Praxiteles, Donatello and Michaelangelo, Bernini and Canova, are my witnesses. I'm not bringing these names up as examples, but because I have found them exemplary.' (Luciano Fabro quoted in Flash Art, no. 24, May 1971).
This cut-out pane of glass in the shape of the map of Italy bandaged together with sinister looking wire is one of Luciano Fabro's celebrated Italie (Italies) - his iconic and continuous series exploring the idea and image of Italy through a variety of media and material. Developing out of Fabro's experiments with tautology as a visual technique for conveying a direct experience of the world, Fabro's Italie formed the literal crystallisation of the artist's belief in the inherent symbiotic relationship between, idea, form and material. For Fabro, as a sculptor, the shape and form an object takes is wholly dependent upon the material from which it is made and the experience and interaction that that material has within space and time. In his Italie Fabro developed these purely sculptural notions about form into the realm of thought, idea and conceptual art through the use of the familiar image of the Italian peninsula. Visually demonstrating that Italy is both an image and an idea in the mind of the viewer, Fabro sought in these sculptural portraits of the country to expose the artifice of such received ideas while also re-exploring through different materials the true nature of the concept collectively known as 'Italy'.
Writing about his Italie, Fabro explained that his intention was to show that 'form is contemporaneous, (that) it shares the time of its creator. Iconography comes at his back; it is the impulse which pushes the creator and it is the impulse which the creator thrusts back. However much it seems the contrary, my 'Italies' are bound to iconography with a very slender thread, which is the case because the image of 'Italy' is an image that is inferred, a graphic image. This is the reason for choosing a refraction of the form which could tend towards the infinite. Italy exists as an image which prompts someone's recognition, as an image for someone who in some way feels connected to it and has something to do with the symbol which is its moral reduction; the reduction of ideas to a graphic form. But for me form remains a transmigration of matter. The form is like a pause inside the transformation. In order to be more specific, in this ideological and symbolic negation I have in each case given them titles which are amusing rather than conceptual.' (Luciano Fabro, 'Italia', quoted in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1981).
Cosa Nostra ('Our Business'), is an amusing and tangential title that explores a specific and alternate image of Italy, one associated with the mafia. It is one of three Italie that inadvertently derived from Fabro's attempt to make a glass Italy, the later Italia di cristallo. 'Between 1968 and 1971' Fabro explained, 'I tried to cut out a shape of Italy in glass: a tautology of form superimposed on the tautology of a dazzling material mediated by an operative technique that shifted the axis of interest onto itself. A chain reaction. While it was being processed the glass Italy was destroyed several times. I was left with three outlines in various states of mutilation, which I decided to furnish with titles and materials as far removed as possible from their original destination. With each of these three pieces of glass I made a pâté de sculpture. Three assemblages in which parts in the various versions of Italy might coexist but were blunted and by that time reduced to a state of mere reference to an incidentally interrupted technique' (Luciano Fabro, 'Letture parallele' 1972, reproduced in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, SFMoMA, San Francisco, 1992, p. 112).
The three Italie that Fabro made in this way were the iron and lead packaged Latin Lover of 1972, the split-into-two It-Alia (1971) and the tied up Cosa Nostra also of 1971. Each one of these works referred to a conventional and somewhat clichéd image of Italy as home of the Latin lover, segregated by a north-south divide and as a country riven by the evil of the Mafia. Cosa Nostra consists of a complete glass Italy whose 'toe' has seemingly been cut off and bound to its heel. Fabro said he tied the work up 'tightly using Mafiosi wire'. In this way through a unique language of simple material and metaphor Fabro presents the image of a wounded Italy mutilated like a kidnap victim and bound inextricably to the evils of the Mafia. It is evidently a work that Fabro was particularly close to and proud of for when it too broke in 1972 he immediately had it re-made remarking that 'I hope I wasn't being too sentimental.' (Luciano Fabro : 'Vademecum' in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1981-82) Born out of accident but re-made according to Fabro's improvised discovery of a new form, in this second and final version, the 'toe', was of course, more appropriately, deliberately snapped and then bound to the 'heel' of the Italian 'boot'.
As in Italia di cristallo the outline of Cosa Nostra has been made by manually crunching the glass into shape. The resultant form of the work, the form of Italy, is therefore seen as inextricably intertwined with the nature of the material from which it is made. Such manual cutting also lends the work a sharp and brittle edge that eloquently evokes the unique material quality of glass and reflects Fabro's deep interest in material as a record of experience and interaction.
'In all cases' Fabro has said, 'the use of material has been determined by human experience of which it is an especially able reporter (elasticity, luminosity, transparency, reflection, refraction...) My practical problem is not then that of rendering an otherwise amorphous material aesthetic, but rather that of rendering as clearly as possible the natural dialogue with the material. I would like to show the viewer how to read the experience, the things themselves. Just as a bent piece of iron expresses the force that was exerted on it, just like a thrown stone gives a centre to the borders of a puddle, a finger indicates the direction of a gaze; in the same manner, we move in space by means of solicitations of impressions.' (Luciano Fabro cited in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p. 12.)
In Cosa Nostra, with its glass representation of Italy and its aggressively bound string of thick wire mesh, it is the violent contrast in material that expresses the central theme of the work. Establishing a dialogue in contrasts the combination of glass and wire conveys an emotive understanding of the notion of a vague and fragile Italy caught, wounded and bound by the heavy force of violence and oppression. In doing so, Cosa Nostra, like Fabro's famous and controversial upside-down Italy, suspended by wire of 1968 Italia rovesciata inadvertently enters into the realm of politics. Though largely the product of purely sculptural considerations about the outline of Italy being a graphic recording the true inherent but also mysterious nature of what it is to be Italian, the Italie also reveal of the way this outline has been subordinated to the purely political purpose of binding a people together with a sense of nationalism. This aspect of the Italie was most acutely brought home to Fabro when his poster showing the upside-down Italy Italia rovesciata, was banned by the authorities who in 1968 considered it too inciteful and revolutionary an image to be shown on Italian streets. Executed in the aftermath of this controversy, Cosa Nostra is an Italie made in the full knowledge of the work's emotive and political resonance.
'To those who ask me about my work, I can only respond in my own way. I'm no auctioneer (let me emphasize that), I do what most pleases and moves me in imagination (let me emphasize that). I make my work as well as could be done. Phidias and Praxiteles, Donatello and Michaelangelo, Bernini and Canova, are my witnesses. I'm not bringing these names up as examples, but because I have found them exemplary.' (Luciano Fabro quoted in Flash Art, no. 24, May 1971).
This cut-out pane of glass in the shape of the map of Italy bandaged together with sinister looking wire is one of Luciano Fabro's celebrated Italie (Italies) - his iconic and continuous series exploring the idea and image of Italy through a variety of media and material. Developing out of Fabro's experiments with tautology as a visual technique for conveying a direct experience of the world, Fabro's Italie formed the literal crystallisation of the artist's belief in the inherent symbiotic relationship between, idea, form and material. For Fabro, as a sculptor, the shape and form an object takes is wholly dependent upon the material from which it is made and the experience and interaction that that material has within space and time. In his Italie Fabro developed these purely sculptural notions about form into the realm of thought, idea and conceptual art through the use of the familiar image of the Italian peninsula. Visually demonstrating that Italy is both an image and an idea in the mind of the viewer, Fabro sought in these sculptural portraits of the country to expose the artifice of such received ideas while also re-exploring through different materials the true nature of the concept collectively known as 'Italy'.
Writing about his Italie, Fabro explained that his intention was to show that 'form is contemporaneous, (that) it shares the time of its creator. Iconography comes at his back; it is the impulse which pushes the creator and it is the impulse which the creator thrusts back. However much it seems the contrary, my 'Italies' are bound to iconography with a very slender thread, which is the case because the image of 'Italy' is an image that is inferred, a graphic image. This is the reason for choosing a refraction of the form which could tend towards the infinite. Italy exists as an image which prompts someone's recognition, as an image for someone who in some way feels connected to it and has something to do with the symbol which is its moral reduction; the reduction of ideas to a graphic form. But for me form remains a transmigration of matter. The form is like a pause inside the transformation. In order to be more specific, in this ideological and symbolic negation I have in each case given them titles which are amusing rather than conceptual.' (Luciano Fabro, 'Italia', quoted in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1981).
Cosa Nostra ('Our Business'), is an amusing and tangential title that explores a specific and alternate image of Italy, one associated with the mafia. It is one of three Italie that inadvertently derived from Fabro's attempt to make a glass Italy, the later Italia di cristallo. 'Between 1968 and 1971' Fabro explained, 'I tried to cut out a shape of Italy in glass: a tautology of form superimposed on the tautology of a dazzling material mediated by an operative technique that shifted the axis of interest onto itself. A chain reaction. While it was being processed the glass Italy was destroyed several times. I was left with three outlines in various states of mutilation, which I decided to furnish with titles and materials as far removed as possible from their original destination. With each of these three pieces of glass I made a pâté de sculpture. Three assemblages in which parts in the various versions of Italy might coexist but were blunted and by that time reduced to a state of mere reference to an incidentally interrupted technique' (Luciano Fabro, 'Letture parallele' 1972, reproduced in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, SFMoMA, San Francisco, 1992, p. 112).
The three Italie that Fabro made in this way were the iron and lead packaged Latin Lover of 1972, the split-into-two It-Alia (1971) and the tied up Cosa Nostra also of 1971. Each one of these works referred to a conventional and somewhat clichéd image of Italy as home of the Latin lover, segregated by a north-south divide and as a country riven by the evil of the Mafia. Cosa Nostra consists of a complete glass Italy whose 'toe' has seemingly been cut off and bound to its heel. Fabro said he tied the work up 'tightly using Mafiosi wire'. In this way through a unique language of simple material and metaphor Fabro presents the image of a wounded Italy mutilated like a kidnap victim and bound inextricably to the evils of the Mafia. It is evidently a work that Fabro was particularly close to and proud of for when it too broke in 1972 he immediately had it re-made remarking that 'I hope I wasn't being too sentimental.' (Luciano Fabro : 'Vademecum' in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1981-82) Born out of accident but re-made according to Fabro's improvised discovery of a new form, in this second and final version, the 'toe', was of course, more appropriately, deliberately snapped and then bound to the 'heel' of the Italian 'boot'.
As in Italia di cristallo the outline of Cosa Nostra has been made by manually crunching the glass into shape. The resultant form of the work, the form of Italy, is therefore seen as inextricably intertwined with the nature of the material from which it is made. Such manual cutting also lends the work a sharp and brittle edge that eloquently evokes the unique material quality of glass and reflects Fabro's deep interest in material as a record of experience and interaction.
'In all cases' Fabro has said, 'the use of material has been determined by human experience of which it is an especially able reporter (elasticity, luminosity, transparency, reflection, refraction...) My practical problem is not then that of rendering an otherwise amorphous material aesthetic, but rather that of rendering as clearly as possible the natural dialogue with the material. I would like to show the viewer how to read the experience, the things themselves. Just as a bent piece of iron expresses the force that was exerted on it, just like a thrown stone gives a centre to the borders of a puddle, a finger indicates the direction of a gaze; in the same manner, we move in space by means of solicitations of impressions.' (Luciano Fabro cited in exh. cat., Luciano Fabro, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p. 12.)
In Cosa Nostra, with its glass representation of Italy and its aggressively bound string of thick wire mesh, it is the violent contrast in material that expresses the central theme of the work. Establishing a dialogue in contrasts the combination of glass and wire conveys an emotive understanding of the notion of a vague and fragile Italy caught, wounded and bound by the heavy force of violence and oppression. In doing so, Cosa Nostra, like Fabro's famous and controversial upside-down Italy, suspended by wire of 1968 Italia rovesciata inadvertently enters into the realm of politics. Though largely the product of purely sculptural considerations about the outline of Italy being a graphic recording the true inherent but also mysterious nature of what it is to be Italian, the Italie also reveal of the way this outline has been subordinated to the purely political purpose of binding a people together with a sense of nationalism. This aspect of the Italie was most acutely brought home to Fabro when his poster showing the upside-down Italy Italia rovesciata, was banned by the authorities who in 1968 considered it too inciteful and revolutionary an image to be shown on Italian streets. Executed in the aftermath of this controversy, Cosa Nostra is an Italie made in the full knowledge of the work's emotive and political resonance.