Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio

Gallizio Family Estate, Alba
Private Collection, Turin 

Turin, Galleria Martano, Astrazione, November 2007
Bologna, Arte Fiera; Turin, Galleria Martano; Copenhagen, Galerie Birch, Pierre Alechinsky, Pinot Gallizio, 2006

Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the paper tone tends more towards cream and the orange yellow tending more towards light yellow. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Upon close inspection there is one professional restored tear of approximately 14 cm. situated at the extreme right edge 32,5 cm from the lower edge. There is one small restored tear of 7 cm. at the extreme right edge 1 cm. from the top edge and one very minor tear in the upper right corner. There is a soft crease at the extreme upper edge 141,5 cm from the left edge. And there are two small tears along the extreme upper edge 121,5 cm. from the left edge and 70 cm. from the left edge. All tears are professionally restored.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Quote:
'Never in the history of painting has one seen such murmuring about an absolutely unknown painting that suddenly emerged from an entirely foreign world into pictorial commerce and, in a single blow, obtained the consecration of the Drouin Gallery' Guy Debord on Industrial Painting in his letter to Pinot Gallizio on 30 January 1958

Quote:
'.....your dullness has come to such a point that it has destroyed the last possibility of rebirth left to you: war. This was always your last resort, since destruction requires renovation: today your cowardice, your fear has exploded in your hands. You are indefatigable fabricators of Boredom. Your progress will sterilize the last of your sensibilities, and nothing, if not your civilization....'

Pinot – Gallizio; "Manifesto of Industrial Painting: For a unitary applied art", Alba, August 1959

After growing dissatisfied with the rational industrialist course of his newly formed International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus in Switzerland , Asger Jorn was looking for a more subjective and experimental approach to dealing with the rapidly expanding industrialization of the world. The IMIB was a movements meant to revive the original Bauhaus spirit in the post-war era, and should be "the answer to the question where and how to find a justified place for artists in the machine age". He put artistic research on a par with 'human science', and strongly believed in collaboration between artists and scientists.

He found his answer in Alba, in the Italian Alps, where he started collaborating with the Italian artist; Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, who was also a chemist, pharmacist, archaeologist and the Alderman for the city. 

Pinot Gallizio was the kind of Renaissance man Jorn was looking for, and they set up the 'Laboratorio Sperimentale', together with Pinot-Gallizio's son, where they started to produce paintings by the meter.

Making use of his knowledge as a chemist, he experimented with oil paints mixed with synthetic resins and specific solvents, which were applied with specially constructed 'paint machines'.

His first exhibition was at the Notizie Gallery in Turin in 1958, where Pinot-Gallizio coined the term 'Pittura Industriale', Industrial Paintings. The works were meant to undermine the individual artistic stand, be endlessly spontaneous and randomly creative. They could be used to embellish restaurants and other public spaces, or hang along highways. In a later show, at the gallery Otto van de Loo in Munich, paintings were sold by the meter, for 40-70 German Marks. Some were as long as 74 meters. The paintings were meant to be a shock to a world, which, in the eyes of the artists, was growing more and more indifferent to the authentic experience of life.

After Guy Debord became part of the group and the Internationale Situationnist was formed, Pinot Gallizio was invited to show at the Drouin Gallery in Paris in 1959. It was here that he made his most extensive 'Pittura Industriale'; a 134 meter long work covering all of the walls of the gallery, enclosing the space like a cave painting and creating a "cavern of anti-matter". In that same year Pinot Gallizio was to write his 'Manifesto delle pittura industriale', a declaration in which the machine would be mastered "for the single, useless, anti-economic and artistic gesture through with a new society – anti-economic, poetic, magical and artistic - will come in existence". The manifest was first published in Notizie Arti Figurative No. 9 (1959). Shortly thereafter, it was translated into French and published in Internationale Situationniste no. 3 (1959).
(source; In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni, exhibition catalogue, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL/ Tinguely Museum Basel, CH, 2006 and Simon Ford, The Situationist International; a user's guide, UK, 2005)