AGOSTINO BONALUMI (1935 – 2013)
ARTISTS
Agostino Bonalumi was born in Vimercate, near Milan. Trained in technical and mechanical drawing, he was largely self-taught as a painter. In 1958 he began exhibiting with Enrico Castellani and Piero Manzoni at Galleria Pater in Milan, launching a career closely tied to the development of Italian avant-garde art. Throughout the 1960s he showed in Milan, Rome, Lausanne, and New York, and was invited to major international events such as the Venice Biennale (1966, 1970), the São Paulo Biennale (1967), and the Paris Biennale (1968).
A key figure of the “New European School,” Bonalumi became known for his extroflexed canvases, in which shaped structures behind the canvas create sculptural, rhythmic surfaces. He collaborated for many years with Galleria del Naviglio and was supported early on by Arturo Schwarz, who organized an important solo show in 1965. Bonalumi also created several large environmental installations, including Ambiente Blu (1967), Grande Nero (1968), and later works for the Palazzo Reale in Milan (1979) and the Guggenheim Foundation in Venice (2002). His work was featured in major retrospectives, such as the 1980 survey at Palazzo Te in Mantua and the 2003 exhibition at the Institut Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt.
In addition to his visual practice, Bonalumi designed sets and costumes for ballet and opera productions in Verona and Rome during the 1970s, extending his exploration of space into the performing arts.