Luciano Fabro Biography
Luciano Fabro (1936 - 2007) decided to become an artist when he was 12 years old. In 1958, a growing interest in the avant-garde brought Fabro to that year's Venice Biennale, where he encountered the cut canvases of Lucio Fontana. Inspired by Fontana's introduction of space to what would otherwise be flat surfaces, Fabro moved to Milan to pursue an artistic career the following year. It was there that he was introduced to Piero Manzoni, with whom Fabro became closely associated, particularly in relation to the avant-garde movement of Arte Povera ("poor art"). This movement took a critical stance towards established institutions and consumerism by experimenting with unconventional style and raw or "poor" materials. Fabro, however, never fully accepted this characterization; he was in fact known for using expensive materials, such as gold, bronze and marble, as well as more humble ones. Throughout his nearly five-decade career, Fabro has consistently found ways to emphasize the past alongside the urgency of the new through the expression of time. Aware of the legacy of Italian ruins, Fabro has often drawn inspiration from classical sculpture to create new perspectives and spatial relationships. In probably his most famous series, 'Italia' (Italy), Fabro transfigured the shapes of the Italian peninsula into reliefs of all types of materials, including leather, metal and thread. For a well-known work in this series entitled Golden Italy, Fabro hung a gilded bronze map of his country upside down to represent a carcass. The work was created in 1971, part of an era of significant political and social unrest. Suspending his country over his head, Fabro boldly portrays Italy as backward and in disarray. In 2014, the first major posthumous retrospective of Fabro's work was held at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain. During his life he was the protagonist of numerous solo and group exhibitions, including those at the Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (1997); Center Pompidou, Paris, France (1996); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, United States (1992). Between 1972 and 1997 Fabro participated at least eight times in the Venice Biennale and three times in Documenta, Kassel, Germany.
