From 25 May to 23 June 2018, the Galleria 10 A.M. ART will be hosting a show devoted to the work of Bruno Munari (1907-1998), one of the most significant artists on the twentieth century Italian art scene.

The show, curated by Luca Zaffarano, and titled Creatore di forme (The Creator of Forms) deals with the complexity of the experimental research of Munari; in particular it identifies as one of the central points of his work how a form can transform itself into another one.

Munari’s installations have the capacity to create mobile performances, changeable forms full of accidents and for this very reason able to transport the viewer into a spectacular and imaginative world.

This overview presents a series of historical works, such as a Macchina Aritmica, 1951; an example of the Concavo-Convesso pieces, not seen since the anthological show at Palazzo Reale in 1986; and a Macchina Inutile from 1956. These all lead us to closer contact with the multiform poetics of the “machine” as an essential, delicate, and diverting scenic apparatus.

In a wholly complementary manner, Munari also developed his research into the dynamism of forms in the field of perception. The artist carefully avoided showing a composition fixed in a certain moment and created, instead, dynamic, unstable, and complex paintings. In the show it will be possible to appreciate a prototype, a unique example, of Tetracono, 1965; some Negativo-positivo works on panel dating from the early 1950s; and the chromo-kinetic paintings made with polarising filters, seen here in the form of a Polariscop from the 1960s.

At times a change of form was obtained by overturning the function. This is the case of the Sculture da viaggio, of which there is a rare 1958 example in varnished foil on show, accompanied by the corresponding cardboard sculpture. These sculptures were conceived to be folded up like origami and placed in a suitcase. Once removed from their container and opened up, they take shape and instantly develop into a three-dimensional object. In addition to these works are a further three of the most successful of the series of acrylic works Colori nella Curva di Peano, 1975, which have a, theoretically infinite, variation of colours within the structure of a fractal curve.

The exhibition is rounded off by a series of important examples of the Xerografie Originali, made in the 1960s and which exploit the idea of moving patterns of various kinds while the photocopying machine is still scanning; in this way there were obtained deformed images, made unique by an unrepeatable creative act.

Critical awareness of Bruno Munari’s work has grown constantly. This is confirmed by the recent exhibitions in Italy, after the important show at the Estorick Collection in London in 2012, the travelling show planned for this year in Japan, and the recent acquisitions by such important museums as, for example, the Pompidou in Paris.

Luca Zaffarano has written, “His art is an open-source, one without secrets. The methods of his art research are clearly explained, and the projects and processes described in detail. His art is a creative challenge that is still valid and that pushes us towards receptiveness to and the sharing of planning and poetic stimuli. For Munari, artists have an important social function, and aesthetics are a necessary condition for a better understanding of our relationship with the world and with nature.”