Enrico Castellani

Enrico Castellani – From rural province to artistic avant-garde

Enrico Castellani was born on 4 August 1930 in the small parish of Castelmassa in Northeast Italy. He left his sedate home and moved to Milan where he graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bera in 1952 before moving to Brussels to study art and architecture. He finally returned to Milan in 1957 and sought-out exchange with the leading representatives of the artistic avant-garde. This led to Enrico Castellani working with such greats as Vincenzo Agnetti, Agostino Bonalumi, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni, the last of which he formed a close friendship with. Beyond his country’s borders, he came into contact with the French painter and performance artist Yves Klein and was also invited to take part in the famous evening exhibitions of the German artists group ZERO in Düsseldorf in 1957 and 1958. These exhibitions were organised by the ZERO founders Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker, and in each case displayed the exhibition pieces for one evening only. This was enough time to attract much attention even in Italy, Castellani’s homeland. In 1958, Castellani joined the Italian group ‘Movimento Arte Nucleare’.

True art must be unique

In 1959, Enrico Castellani ventured to found his own gallery, ‘Galleria Azimut’ in Milan with his good friend Piero Manzoni; at the same time, the ambitious artists published their own critical journal, which they called ‘Azimuth’. Although the gallery and journal where rather short-lived products, their immanent philosophy, which centred on the uniqueness of each individual artwork, was enduring for Castellani and accompanied and shaped him throughout his entire artistic career. Even when ‘Galleria Azimut’ only survived until 1963, it was witness to Castellani’s first solo exhibition, held in 1960. The year before, the artist had begun his famous ‘Superficie Nera’, a series of monochrome pictures which he transformed into sculptural reliefs with the help of a nail gun. The resulting powerful interaction of light and shadow in particular found and impressed a large audience. 

Constant development and numerous exhibitions

Enrico Castellani remained true to his credo and avoided any imitation, even of his own works, and continued to develop further. He soon experimented with other materials, including aluminium. By then, he had also broken out of the traditional format, and in 1967 he created ‘Ambiente bianco’, the first room-filling installation. Interest in his work grew, and the artist took part in numerous international exhibitions. He was a guest and representative of Italy at the Venice Biennale in 1964, 1966, 1984 and 2003, and in 1968 exhibited at the fourth Documenta in Kassel. He moved his residence to Celleno near Viterbo in Italy in 1975, where he lived and worked until his death on 1 December 2017 – always in the search for new inspiration to carefully avoid any imitation.