Giancarlo Sangregorio
He was born in Milan in 1925. Autodidact, he
started with stone sculptures because he was
fascinated by the material of the Ossola
Valley’s, where he spent long periods of time.
At the end of his classical studies he decided
to attend sculpture courses at the Brera Academy
in Milan.
To that period belong his first important group
exhibitions in the main Italian cities.
From 1950 to 1958 he often went to Versilia
to spend some time there:
he worked the Alpi Apuane marble and he modeled
figures and ceramic items at the kilns in
Viareggio. He set out on long journeys abroad,
in particular to Paris in his own studio.
He intensified his informative journeys, in
which he took contact with artists and galleries
in different countries, he followed with
interest the proposals of the informal art, but
he didn’t share the typical mentality of his
contemporary artists , and unlike them, he never
accepted rules and trends just to satisfy the
critics expectations. His first individual
exhibition dates back to 1952 in Milan.
Since then his works can be found at the most
important international exhibitions. He
exhibited in France, ex–Yugoslavia, Israel,
Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, USA, Mexico,
Argentina and in the major Italian art cities.
His interest in the primitive art brought him
close to the Dogon tribe in Africa and in Mali
he came into contact with the primitive reality
of masks and learnt the way they were modeled.
After that experience he brought a Senufo
assistant to his studio in Sesto Calende.
After having become familiar with the earthly
world of Africa, he started a journey to
Oceania, which took him along the river Sepik
and brought him close to the works of the New
Guinea sculptors.
The works of Giancarlo Sangregorio
are preserved in private and public collections
in Italy and abroad; there are also several
monuments in many different European cities. He
worked by the Cunardo kilns and the Mazzotti
kilns in Albisola. Fervent supporter of the idea
that art is an event, and not a category, he has
always avoided sterile formalistic reflexivity
and repetitiveness.
His whole output does not follow a logic
consequentiality, anyway it expresses the sense
of going beyond; his aim is not only sculpting,
because to him breaking stones means going
beyond the stone, just like burning wood becomes
an animist act which gives back to wood its
secret life. The artist remains out of the
developing process, he makes it possible, but he
does not determine it.
 The
artist himself is the intermediary, the medium
between moment and reality. Also the works,
which are considered part of the parallel
repertoire, cannot be included in the definition
of traditional sculpture, and that challenges
its essential idea and possibility of existing.
The usual orientation criteria are uprooted;
every single choice of G. S. is an event that
opens more points of view, from the plastic
elements, made of foam rubber, to the rock
paintings, materialized among the rocks, from
the levitating stone experiment to the burned
coal and wood, to the glass, able to sublimate
matter and to free from weight, to the last
felts, preserving the animal life essence…. The
felts theme is linked to some close examinations
of the artist about the unity of the
Indo-European peoples origin, leading him to the
path of the “silk road” through Kirghizstan and
Uzbekistan, through Samarkand and Bukhara,
around the Seventies.
Significant is also the research Impronte (imprints),
exhibited at the Fondazione Mudima in Milan in
1994, with the publication of a book, introduced
by E. Baj and R. Sanesi; another recent
documentation is included in Geomantica (geomantic),
published in 2003, with poems by F. Marcellini.
A rare writing of the artist of 1979, “Dove sta
di casa la scultura”( Where does sculpture live)
summaries some topics of his philosophy.
Giancarlo Sangregorio lives and works in Sesto
Calende. |
