Salvo

Born in Leonforte, in the province of Enna, in 1947, Salvo spent his childhood in Sicily before moving to Turin in 1956. In 1962 he visited the Francis Bacon exhibition at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Turin, an encounter that left a profound and lasting impression. The following year he took part in the 121st Exhibition of the Società Promotrice di Belle Arti with a drawing after Leonardo. He went on to paint copies after Rembrandt and Van Gogh, after Fontana and after Chagall. In 1968 he travelled to Paris, and on his return to Turin he moved within the circle of Arte Povera artists and critics including Renato Barilli, Germano Celant and Achille Bonito Oliva. In 1969 he came into contact with American Conceptual artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt and Robert Barry.

In 1970 he presented a series of photomontage self-portraits at the Galleria Sperone in Turin, followed by La benedizione di Lucerna at the Galleria Acme in Brescia, and his first solo exhibition at the Galleria Françoise Lambert in Milan. Alongside his photographic works during these years and through to 1972, the artist produced inscriptions of words and phrases engraved on marble slabs — among them the work Salvo è vivo and the slab bearing forty names running from Aristotle to Salvo himself. In 1971 he created Tricolore, a surface on which the name Salvo is written in three colours and neon lettering, and produced novels in which the protagonist's name is replaced with his own. That same year brought solo exhibitions at the Galerie Paul Maenz in Cologne and the Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris — two dealers with whom he would maintain an enduring relationship in the years that followed — and in 1972 a show at John Weber in New York. He participated in Documenta 5 in Kassel and exhibited the photographic work Tesoro at the Galerie Art & Project in Amsterdam. This marked the close of his Conceptual period.

From 1973 the artist returned to traditional painting through the d'après, a practice he had already begun in 1970 with Self-Portrait as Raphael. He exhibited these works at the Galleria Toselli in Milan and participated in Projekt '74 in Cologne, showing San Martino e il povero (1973) at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. In 1974 he showed at Marconi in Milan and presented Trionfo di San Giorgio, after Carpaccio, at Toselli — a work subsequently sent to the 1975 Biennale. He painted the first of his Italie and Sicilie. Also in 1975, the Galleria Banco di Minini in Brescia presented Salvo, variazioni su Tricolore, 1971–73. From 1976 he began developing landscape compositions and participated in that year's Biennale, entering into a working relationship with the dealer Luciano Pistoi. Barilli curated a retrospective at Palazzo Galvani in Bologna; in 1977 further retrospectives followed at the Museum Folkwang in Essen and the Mannheimer Kunstverein in Mannheim. He completed Giganti fulminati da Giove, one of the largest works of his mythological period, and mounted an exhibition on the theme of the capriccio at the Galleria Stein in Turin, alongside three solo shows — at Françoise Lambert, at Minini and at Galleria Pero — and participation in group exhibitions at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Bologna and the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York.

In 1989 he published the treatise Della Pittura — Imitazione di Wittgenstein, comprising 238 paragraphs in which Salvo articulates his thought through the method of axiomatic proposition and rhetorical inquiry. In 1981 P. Sprovieri commissioned the frescoes for the Sala della Battaglia in the Palazzo Avogadro Spada in Bagnolo Mella (Brescia). He participated in the exhibition on Italian art between 1960 and 1980 at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni and at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, as well as in further solo presentations — Salvo, miraggi sistematici — at Menzio and Prön in Turin and at Maenz in Cologne. In 1983, exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne and the Musée de Villeurbanne in Lyon brought together his most significant works from 1973 onwards. He began exchanges with Elena Pontiggia and Leonardo Sciascia. In 1984 he participated in the XLI Venice Biennale; a journey through Turkey and Yugoslavia yielded a body of Orientalist works. He met Daniele Pascali, who became his dealer from 1987. Between 1985 and 1987 he exhibited at the Galleria dell'Oca in Rome, the Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa, Barbara Gladstone in New York and the Galleria del Milione in Milan. A major retrospective was held at the Rotonda della Besana in Milan in 1987, followed in 1988 by two exhibitions surveying his work from 1975 onwards — at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the Musée d'Art Contemporain in Nîmes. In 1985 he participated in the group exhibition Anni Ottanta at the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna in Bologna.

During these years he painted works inspired by the architecture of Pieter Saenredam — the Interni con funzioni straordinarie — presented in 1991 at the Galleria in Arco in Turin. In 1990 he showed at Maenz in Cologne and presented mythologies and landscapes at the Galleria M. Remolino in Turin. In 1992 the Galerie Kaess-Weiss in Stuttgart exhibited landscapes, railway stations and churches, while the Galleria Gastaldelli presented the thematic exhibition Mozart. In 1994 he embarked on a new pictorial cycle with the Primavere and Autunni series. Between 1996 and 1997 solo exhibitions opened in Turin, Milan, Florence, Santa Cruz de Tenerife at the Galería Leyendecker, and Cologne at the Galerie Buchmann. In 1998 a major retrospective curated by Renato Barilli, Danilo Eccher and Dede Auregli opened at the Villa delle Rose in Bologna, alongside Still Life at Giordano Raffaelli in Trento — a dealer and friend with whom he maintained a long-standing personal and professional bond.

He continued to participate in numerous group and solo exhibitions both in Italy and internationally. Towards the close of 2005, following a brief pause, his painting moved in a new direction: Salvo sought to turn away from the valleys that had been his preferred subject in recent years, redirecting his attention to plains and introducing a new perspectival approach into his landscapes. In the summer of 2006 he travelled to Iceland, devoting a series of paintings to the experience, subsequently exhibited in November by his friend Antonio Cardillo at his gallery in Varese. The year 2007 opened with preparations for the retrospective Salvo at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, on view from 22 March through July, curated by Pier Giovanni Castagnoli. Salvo spent considerable time in Costigliole d'Asti, between the Langhe and Monferrato, whose rolling hillside landscapes recur throughout his later work. In 2013 he began working with the Mehdi Chouakri gallery in Berlin, which presented a solo exhibition of his work in 2014. That same year, alongside his favoured subjects of landscape and still life, he revisited themes set aside for more than thirty years — among them a large-format Italia, a Sicilia and a Bar — presenting them in March 2015 on the occasion of his solo exhibition at the Galleria Mazzoli in Modena.

Salvo died on 12 September 2015 in Turin.

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2015–2024

In 2016 the Mehdi Chouakri gallery organised the exhibition Salvo è vivo — an homage, featuring works by Haris Epaminonda, Douglas Gordon & Morgan Tschiember, Jonathan Monk, Claudia & Julia Müller, Bernd Ribbeck and Francesco Vezzoli. That same year the Archivio Salvo was founded in Turin, organising an exhibition of works by Jonathan Monk dedicated to Salvo. In 2017 a joint exhibition of works by Salvo and Alighiero Boetti was held at the MASI in Lugano, curated by Bettina Della Casa; the following year, the exhibition L'Almanach at the Consortium in Dijon devoted an entire room to Salvo's work. Two further solo exhibitions followed: in 2019 at the Galleria Norma Mangione in Turin, and in 2020 at Gladstone Gallery in New York.

In 2020 Salvo was among the artists selected for the XVII Quadriennale d'Arte, Fuori. In 2021 the MACRO dedicated to him the exhibition Autoritratto come Salvo, bringing together approximately ninety works alongside four other artists: Jonathan Monk, Nicolas Party, Nicola Pecoraro and Ramona Ponzini. In 2023 Io sono Salvo was published — the first monograph on the artist, produced by the Archivio Salvo in collaboration with NERO Editions.

In November 2024 the Pinacoteca Agnelli presented an extensive retrospective devoted to Salvo, Arrivere in tempo, curated by Sarah Cosulich and Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti.

 Discover available works by Salvo at Stefanini Arte.