Fernando Melani Biography
Fernando Milani was born in San Piero di Agliana in 1907 and studied at the Cicognini boarding school in Prato and at the Pistoia gymnasium until 1923, when he failed the fourth year of secondary school exams. He attempted to gain admission to the grammar school privately in 1924, but was unsuccessful. In 1933 he moved to Novara to work for the Night Surveillance Institute and then returned to Pistoia. In June 1945, after a period of work at his father's brickyard, Milani began to dedicate himself to art. He joined the Italian Communist Party, wore a blue overall similar to that of the workers as a uniform and gave up part of the family home in exchange for an annuity. The remaining spaces of the house were transformed into a home-studio without a kitchen.
Milani frequented A. Cappellini's plein air sessions and took part in the first group exhibitions in his city in 1950 and 1951, exhibiting abstract works. In 1953 he published at his own expense the pamphlet "In front of painting" in defense of abstraction. Starting in 1959, Milani studied the potential of metals with an attitude aimed at grasping the secret resonances of matter and focusing attention on the cognitive value of his works, defined as "experiences". In 1972 he held a solo show in Milan and took part in the fifth edition of Documenta in Kassel. Milani also produced suspended works and imaginary devices, such as the Simple Machine for Seeing Alternating Motion.
In the 1970s, Milani's artistic path became more conceptual. In 1978 he exhibited objects in their naked presence, such as the Bag of Extinguished Matches, and employed bicycle frames to create bizarre characters. He concluded his artistic journey with a work on worm-eaten wood from 1985, of which he highlighted the fibers eroded by nature and which he donated to his friend A. Vezzosi as evidence of a work born from the same material of which it is composed.
