Gilberto Zorio was born in 1944 in Andomo Micca. After studying at the Accademia Albertiana in Turin, he was one of the main exponents of Arte Povera, which is part of the more general tendency to procedural art, an art that lays bare its elements and procedures, reveals itself in its making and replaces the traditional representation with the direct presentation of materials. Energy is the constant that runs through the entire work of Gilberto Zorio. The star, a recurring cosmic figure in the work of Gilberto Zorio, appears in 1972 for the first time in a work in which an animal skin becomes a self-portrait of the same artist (the star is instead of eyes). Incandescent wire (1970), javelin (1971), laser beam (1975) are the energy carriers that build the star shape from time to time. Vases, basins and crucibles, such as glass and lead stills, constitute alchemical processes of transformation. Since 1967 Zorio has participated in the main exhibitions of Arte Povera and countless are his exhibitions, personal and collective, in public and private spaces. Among other things: in 1976 he had a solo show at the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne, then exhibited in numerous museums such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1979), the Galleria Civica in Modena and the Kunstverein in Stuttgart (1985), the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1986), the Philadelphia Tyler School of Art (1988), the Fundacao de Serralves in Porto (1990), the Valencian Institute of Modern Art in Valencia (1991), the Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Pecci in Prato (1992), Documenta in Kassel (1992), the Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea in Trento (1996), the Dia Center for the Arts in New York (2001).

Gilberto Zorio - Poor Art

Art Poor is the name that Germano Celant attributed, in the mid-1960s, to the production of a group of artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Mario Merz, Giulio Paolini, Jannis Kounellis, Gilberto Zorio, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and others, to whom later piero Gilardi also joined. It distinguishes, these artists, the use of techniques and unconventional supports, such as earth, iron, rags, industrial waste, etc., materials precisely poor gives the name of Poor Art . Materials that are in common use and therefore, in the intentions of the authors, a trace to the original structures of language, a reduction to the minimum terms, an impoverishment the pictorial sign to the point of going back to its archetype. Peculiarity of these artists is also the frequent use of the installation or that of the use of live animals. Celebri remains Pistoletto's "Virgin of rags" and Kounellis' "Untitled (12 horses)"

Gilberto Zorio - Contributi

We note that in the works of Gilberto Zorio appears very often the representation of the "star".  It has always been considered that this was linked to Zorio's political past in the Revolutionary Left. But in practice this is not the case since one of his statements reads: we always dream of what is far away, like the stars, but can we ever reach them? But the star is made of energy since it turns mass into energy. Just like our body that transforms mass (what we ingest) into energy that serves not only to move but also to think and create. The star with its intrinsic energy therefore assumes the role of engine of the universe and therefore of our actions.

Tags: Gilberto Zorio - Zorio - star