Aldo Mondino. Regole per l’inganno is on display on three of BUILDING’s exhibition floors. The retrospective retraces the ground-breaking stages in the work of Aldo Mondino (Turin, 1938 – 2005), stressing the originality of his ironic and transgressive research that constantly challenged the aesthetic dogmas that prevailed since the 1960s. Mondino’s research has had the power to affect the language of art, becoming a point of reference for the younger generations of artists, as demonstrated by the work of Maurizio Cattelan. In an imaginary interview (but not so imaginary) with Mondino, he has him say, “I was once convinced that today’s society was on the verge of the abyss and that I should be the last of its witnesses”.
The itinerary begins on the ground floor, starting with the emblematic work Torre di torrone (1968). Here architectural artifice takes the form of a construction made of nougat boxes. The experience of the 1960s is retraced through a series of conceptual works such as Palloncini (1965-1972), which entails paintings that seem to float upwards, in an optical illusion motivated by the movement of a balloon that seems to carry the painting with it. Every form of rule is overturned using the image as a tool of provocation, where the loss of the aura and a regression of signs allows the work to regain a new importance. Then there are the Cadute and Bilance where Mondino transforms painting into a physical experience by using pigment like a raw material. Together with Mon Dine, a large portrait where his own image blends with that of the American artist Jim Dine, the ground floor ends with the surprising marshmallow pool (soft little cylinders of sugar) composed of a flavoured mosaic to immerse oneself in Mondino’s unreachable “waters”.
On the first floor, the exhibition centres on what are perhaps the most popular aspects of Mondino’s art, namely those relating to the Orient, the result of extensive research that began in the early 1980s. On display are, among others, the work The Byzantine World (1999), made of 12,000 chocolates, and some important works from the series Tappeti stesi (1990-1992) made of heraclite, an industrial material used in the building industry, where the overlapping antique carpets become the occasion for fresh experimentation.
The investigation into materials which underpins the visual deceptions which characterized Mondino’s work is accompanied by his plastic or sculptural research, which is sometimes neglected. A touch of the exotic is represented by Scultura un corno with a series of stacked elephants covered in chocolate, one of Mondino’s favorite materials.
Focusing on the artist’s ongoing relationship with the history of art, the second floor of the exhibition is entirely dedicated to tributes, presenting a transversal journey through genres, styles and myths.
Aldo Mondino was born in Turin. In 1959 he moved to Paris, where he trained at William Heyter’s atelier, the Ecole du Louvre, and attended the mosaic course at the Academy of Fine Arts with Severini and Licata. In 1960, he returned to Italy and began exhibiting at Galleria L’Immagine in Turin (1961) and at the Galleria Alfa in Venice (1962). Then he met Gian Enzo Sperone, director of the Galleria Il Punto. He also had major solo exhibitions at the Galleria Stein in Turin, Studio Marconi in Milan, Galleria La Salita in Rome, and Galleria Paludetto in Turin. His main exhibitions include his two participations in the Venice Biennale, in 1976 and 1993, his solo exhibitions at the Museum fur Moderne Kunst – Palais Lichtenstein in Vienna (1991), the Suthanamet Topkapi Museum in Istanbul (1992, 1996), the Museo Ebraico in Bologna (1995), and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna in Trento (2000).
