BOLZANO.- Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare is exhibiting Charlotte Posenenske’s first show in Italy, curated by Vincenzo de Bellis. An internationally acclaimed artist and a figure central to the German minimalist movement, Charlotte Posenenske (1930-1985) worked mainly with sculpture, and received numerous accolades in Germany and from the international scene up until her decision, in 1968, to dedicate her life to sociology.
From B to E and More is Posenenske’s first retrospective in Italy, and it traces the evolution of this artist, who died prematurely, by concentrating on a series of works that were created in the span of a decade.
In her early works on paper, present in the exhibition in a selection of 17 items, the artist already focused on the exploration of abstract space. International recognition arrived with the conception and exhibition of six new sculptural series, between the end of 1966 and the beginning of 1968: Reliefs Serie A, B and C (Reliefs Series A, B and C), Vierkantrohre Serie D and DW (Square Tubes Series D and DW) and Drehflügel Serie E (Revolving Vanes Series E). Each body of work consists of multiple, carefully designed, mass-produced elements, fabricated according to the artist’s drawings. The elements range in shape, size and complexity, but are unified by their geometric format and the fact that they can be produced industrially at a very low cost.
“The things I make are variable, as simple as possible, reproducible,” said the artist when summarising her vision in a 1968 statement published on Art International.
These modular sculptures, whose components can be combined or moved in various ways by who displays or owns them, to make different volumetric configurations, invite the viewer to enjoy an aesthetic experience that is both visual and spatial.
From B to E and More presents these five sculptural series in ad hoc combinations, created specifically to suit the space in the Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare.
In her brief artistic career, Posenenske exhibited widely alongside illustrious peers such as Hanne Darboven, Donald Judd, Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt, with whom she shared an interest in seriality and the formal rigour of geometrical forms.
At the same time, her work is distinguished by its radically open-ended nature. Embracing concepts of repetition and industrial fabrication, Posenenske developed a form of minimalism that, unlike her American contemporaries, addressed the socioeconomic and political concerns of 1968 in order to redesign the status quo of the art market and reject established (high and low) cultural hierarchies.
In a period, like the one we are currently experiencing, in these years of pandemic and social protests driven by an ever-increasing apprehension of economic polarisation, Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare is exhibiting Charlotte Posenenske: From B to E and More with the aim of confronting the dynamics that govern the world’s economic structures and especially those of the contemporary art system. It does this through the work of an artist who focused on these issues over fifty years ago, indicating that, despite the progress of our civilisation, cyclically we face the same concerns, even if they are generated by events of a profoundly different nature.
