Renato Barilli Remembers Eliseo Mattiacci, Pioneer of Spatial Art

Renato Barilli, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, pays tribute to the late Italian artist Eliseo Mattiacci, who died in 2019. Barilli first encountered Mattiacci's work at the 1967 Foligno exhibition 'Lo spazio dell'immagine', where Mattiacci stood out for his curved, industrial tubing that broke from the geometric minimalism of peers like Dan Flavin. Barilli positions Mattiacci as heir to Lucio Fontana and Fausto Melotti, but with a macroscopic, giant scale. Mattiacci's practice included performances, such as driving a tractor to asphalt a floor at Fabio Sargentini's underground space in the late 1960s. He also created outdoor sculptures, including a railway-like beam at the Santa Sofia sculpture park in Forlì, and 'carro del sole' works with concave mirrors to capture solar and cosmic energy. Barilli curated a Mattiacci exhibition for the Premio Marche in Ancona, later moved to the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris around 2000, directed by Paolo Fabbri. The last encounter was a few months before Mattiacci's death, when his works were displayed at the Fortezza del Belvedere in Florence.