From the end of the 1980s up until today the work by Giuliano Dal Molin – born in Schio (Vicenza) in 1960 – has developed with grand coherence by way of changes in form, colour and the treatment of the surfaces. These changes seem to have come about by means of minimum shiftings which reveal the strength of a thought characterised by profound mediations and by deeply felt and pure convictions. Also on the occasion of this exhibition, Dal Molin has carried out a radical change starting out from an intimate need: that of filling a void, creating a space of the spirit.
For Lagorio Arte Contemporanea the artist has consequently ideated an exhibition with works that have not simply been produced ad hoc for the gallery’s walls but has instead created a system of installations whose character is profoundly tied to the reason of the equilibrium, pictorial quality and the light of the space conceived in a total way.
Two imposing interventions on the main walls of the rooms, 14 drawings, some hung works – all produced for this occasion – together with a polychrome installation made up of 17 elements’ narrate Dal Molin’s choices and the path he has followed during recent years: they talks about the desire which unites the needs of the work and those of space while expressing the solemn communion between feeling the environment and that of his works.
This is why access to the exhibition is indicated by the Porta (Door), a quite recent installation project which has been rethought in order to welcome the visiting public at the beginning course, marking the entrance both to the rooms of the gallery and to Giuliano Dal Molin’s poetic universe.
The “image” has neither been set aside nor removed but instead appears overwhelmed, faded, consumed by the eye and taken inwards.
In order to under stand the reasons for these modalities and choices, to comprehend the extent to which they are a rooted necessity, we must take a brief journey through his artistic investigations. The objective here will therefore be to enter the core of the “progression” which leads Dal Molin to develop the form also during the execution, following the internal will of the work itself. In this way, and by moving closer to the “state of consciousness” of the works, it will prove easier to grasp the changes and enter the planning and ideal world that has generated the experience of the exhibition.
Following his initial experiences during the second half of the 1980s, Dal Molin passed through various phases which can be considered crucial. One of these dates to 1989 when he began to use wood as a support and treated surfaces by introducing the ‘caress’ of light. In these works his approach to colour was to a certain degree atmospheric and appare to be influenced not so much by a real form of phycology as it was, rather, by a sort of subjectivity of his character: the colours almost came into conflict, to the point that the darkness and the light seemed to emerge the one from the other in such a way as to reciprocally corrode and absorb each other. The intensity of this effect was given by the use of powders as part of his materials. In fact, by way of this extremely fine and light sands the artist gave expression to the pictorial and tactile components of the surface, as well as to the chromatic situations within the work itself which was also animated by meshes and geometries using twines. Not only. Another aspect that emerged during this period was the need of the part of the work to relate to the space surrounding it by way of swelling and partial distancing from the base wall (11-16-10_1989).
(..) an original plastic language (…)
As the result of these needs, during the opening years of the 1990s Dal Molin produced a pictorial surface understood as field of diversification, both of light (23_91) and space (34-50_92). In fact, the work ceased being a ‘reality’ in its own right with respect to the context, instead created dynamics of reciprocal absorption between surfaces, volumes and chromatic impastos.
In the opaqueness of these three – dimensional paintings one also began to see a more autonomous sign: scratches and traces that ‘cut into’ the surface in a minimum but inevitabile way, accentuating the dimensional aspects (14-15_93).
From here Dal Molin soon also added to and broadened the colour spectrum, increasingly more integrating the sing as a moment and “event” both of and in the form (11A-12A-15A-37A_96). In this works with their intense tactile value the space was conceptualised as internal and external reality of the work. And the idea of form enjoyed further moments of maturation. Colour also came to be diversified and suspended in space. In this way the work definitively led to the actuation of that overwhelming of the image consumed by the eye and to that idea of (…) Sing on the surface which from geometrical figure becomes module, rhythm, in order to organically multiply itself and become infinitesimal text that implicates light by way of Painting. That sign leads the eye (and) decided the incidence ot the atmosphere on the surface.
Beside taking its cue and incentive from a profound analysis of some specific passages of the history of art, this path of maturation was also tied to the artist’s motives and work procedures. In fact, the work is not exhausted with the planning phase but continues its progression towards the achievement of its own internal will: there is neither interest for the theories of the colour nor for the idea that this coherence which is animated by “minimum upheavals” can accomplish the objective of a work “norm”. For Dal Molin, in fact, the objective is not the formula but the work which is making this maniacal attention clear does not show uncertainties but only those doubts that as part of his artistic career create new possibilities. In this sense, both internal and external space live in a state of fusion, to the point of arriving at a unique identity and at a challenge that generates the form.
(…) slight plastic movements (…)
Also today we find the attention and care in the plasticity – both light and powerful – which expands in the ambiance, almost covering it like an epidermis.
The two interventions for the large walls of the gallery are the result of the growth of this unmistakable ness and of this way of conceiving the work. Dal Molin looks fir the pictorial equilibriums and the nature of each of the rooms, analysing their structures, architecture and “humours”, given back these elements in the way of lines, forms and colours. In the room on the left the vertical scansion of the back wall thanks to the columns is the cue for an intervention in which the movement becomes sinuous, in which the slight wave of the white and red gives a new reading to the shattering of light, to its chiaroscuros and to its chromatic effects during the various times of the day.
In the room on the right, instead, the architecture is incorporated as being a necessary part of the surface which embodies the central column, absorbing it within the spatial reasoning of the work. In fact, this mediation by the artist moves in the direction of an all-embracing comprehension of the space as an ambiance charged with aesthetic tensions: the column, the sources of outdoor light, the “progress” of the walls and the mezzanine platform create a rhythm that Dal Molin interrupts, isolated and gives back to us by way of the equilibrium-cum-disequilibrium of each of its chosen parts.
In this room – acting as counterpoint to the large intervention – there is an installation of 17 sculptural elements, 14 drawings and column placed on the mezzanine platform. The column and the installation, although created a number of years ago, have been included in the exhibition due to the essential value they embody for the artist’s recent environmental and monumental choices. The sign traces, the alternation of the bodies, colours and their breakage with respect to a banalised spatiality have become decisive for a further “listening” of the work. For this reason, together with the work entitled Porta, they constitute a pivotal factor for Dal Molin’s research. In addition, and with specific reference to the other wall-hung works, this installation is also particularly interesting with regards to the question of the rhythms, volumetric alternation and chromatic analysis of these last works their incredibile pictorial and poetic presence.
The drawings
The 14 drawings on exhibit in the room, together with those found on the mezzanine platform, offer the possibility of a further reflection as we conclude this brief analysis. Not only do these works ‘narrate themselves’ as being autonomous forms of research, freed from whatever possible project value, but together with the small maquettes and the projects they give additional confirmation to the clarity that belongs to Dal Molin’s forms. The drawings offer a narration that captures every element as pure and absolute, to a greater degree freeing all of the lightness of the pictorial and chromatic matter, revealing the characteristic and consistency of the surfaces and the sign.
With his spareness, his curves, and his non-Euclidian geometries, his terse chromaticity with its forceful tactile value, also in his drawings Dal Molin creates that magic which we find in all his works. Leading him to decompose space, to take it apart, to fractionate it and then piece to reconstruct it with the infinite patience with which he satisfied his need to break away from the closed scheme of the form.