Luigi Mainolfi

Luigi Mainolfi was born in Rotondi, in the province of Avellino, in 1948; he currently lives and works in Turin. From the very beginning of his artistic career, Mainolfi drew on the craft dimension of artistic practice. His earliest works are plaster casts of himself. This was the first half of the 1970s, a period fully immersed in conceptual and behaviourist tendencies: every artistic act thus carried a cognitive value and a search for identity. Mainolfi’s more recent works employ terracotta — as they have for over a decade — attesting to the sculptor’s deep affinity for this material, which holds a symbolic value for him as well. Clay is indeed a metamorphic, protean substance, as is the artist’s poetic, imaginal and mythological universe. Mainolfi is a kind of aretalogue — a narrator of mythological tales in which each of us can find our own existential foundations. Particularly during the 1980s, the artist set out to recover this repertoire of mimetic stories, symbolic images, and ancient narratives, taking them as metaphors for the everyday imagination of each of us. In more recent times, up to the present day, this primordial warmth — following an informal phase — seems to have dissipated, and the artist now proposes more abstract compositions: almost museum display cases cataloguing ancient objects of unknown use, as if the awareness of the impossibility of erasing time in order to plunge back into origins had opened the way to more technical reflections on accumulation and the cold cataloguing of objects that, in our time, retain no use value beyond the merely cultural and informational.

Among the group exhibitions, we recall “Arte-Ambiente” of 1976, an installation in the city of Brescia. In 1977 he participated in two important shows: “Tendenze d’Arte Internazionale, Pari e Dispari” in Cavriago and the “Settimana Internazionale della Performance” at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna. It is at the beginning of the 1980s that Mainolfi reached full stylistic maturity and wide recognition. The exhibitions that contributed most to the artist’s success were two in 1980: “I Nuovi-nuovi” curated by R. Barilli at the Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna; and “Nuova immagine” curated by F. Caroli within the XVI Triennale di Milano. From 1981, the important survey “Le linee della ricerca artistica in Italia, 1960–1980” at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome deserves particular mention.

The year 1982 marks a peak of activity and recognition: the artist was invited to all the most important exhibitions of that year, including “Generazioni a confronto” at the Istituto di Storia dell’Arte in Rome, the Venice Biennale (to which he would be invited again in 1986 and 1990), Documenta 7 in Kassel, “Arte Italiana 1960–1982” in London, and “Una Generazione postmoderna” in Genoa. In 1983 Achille Bonito Oliva invited him to “Critica ad arte” at Palazzo Lanfranchi in Pisa. He then participated in the important documentary survey “L’Informale in Italia” at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna. In 1984 he took part in “Ouverture” at the Castello di Rivoli. In 1985 came “Anniottanta”, the trend-setting exhibition conceived by Barilli. In 1986 he was invited to the travelling group show “Aspetti dell’arte Italiana”, held in several European cities, and participated in the Quadriennale in Rome.

In 1988 he was featured in “Ubi Minor Ibi Maior” at the Galleria Arco di Rab in Rome, and in a group exhibition with major international sculptors at the Castello di Rivoli. Among his solo shows, notable are those held during the 1980s at the Galleria Arco d’Alibert in Rome and at Studio G7 in Bologna; in 1989 he exhibited in Turin at the Galleria Tucci Russo and at Cavellini in Brescia. In 1982 he was hosted by the prestigious Galleria Appel und Fertsch in Frankfurt, and in 1983 at the Storms Gallery in Munich. In 1985 he exhibited at Ca’ Vendramin Calergi in Venice, and in 1988 at Alfonso Artiaco in Pozzuoli. His most recent production at the time was presented in 1992 in Milan at the Galleria Gianferrari and at the Galleria De’ Foscherari in Bologna.

In 1990 he was awarded a solo room at the Venice Biennale, where he installed Sole Nero (1988–89). Throughout the 1990s he continued his research, introducing new forms such as Tamburo del Sole (1995–97), Gabbie (1997), and Vestiti e Colonne di Maggio (1999). Solo exhibitions during this decade include the show at the Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea in Rimini (1992), the retrospective Opere 1978–1994 at Villa delle Rose – GAM in Bologna (1994), solo presentations at the Hôtel de Galliffet in Paris and at the GAM in Turin (1995), and exhibitions at the Maschio Angioino and the Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes in Naples (1996–97).

In 2001 he was selected to represent Italy in a cultural exchange with Japan, creating permanent works at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sapporo. Further public commissions followed: Ballerine in marble at the Parco della Padula in Carrara (2002), Il sole del Buon vento in Benevento (2004), and Città e Sole in Rovereto (2006). In 2007 he won the Premio Michelangelo for sculpture, awarded by the city of Carrara.

In 2010 he illustrated Homer’s Odyssey for Einaudi. In 2011, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification, he created the large-scale installation Torino che guarda il mare at Palazzo Madama in Turin. In 2016 the University of Bologna awarded him the Premio Alinovi-Daolio. In 2018 he held the solo exhibition La nuit et la fête at the Galerie Italienne in Paris. In 2024 the Reggia di Venaria Reale dedicated the major solo exhibition Bestiario to his work, featuring over twenty sculptures distributed across the Corte d’Onore, the Gardens, and the Cappella di Sant’Uberto.

Discover the available works of Luigi Mainolfi at Stefanini Arte.