The project for FIAC Hors Les Murs, presented by Thomas Brambilla Gallery, is based on an outdoor site specific installation by the American artist, John Torreano (b. 1941) consisting in a wood oversized diamond (3 meters' diameter), with several "rosette gems" of various colors inserted.
The sculpture is part of the series of site specific outdoor installations conceived by Torreano and currently preserved in various museums and institutions, such as "Mega Gem" at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and "Ghost Gem" at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas. Torreano developed this instantly recognizable sculptural language and, along with others artists such as Lynda Benglis, Ron Gorchov and Elisabeth Murray, he challenged the rationalist and dogmatic intransigency of the Minimalism characterized by straight lines and cubes and monochromatic canvas. The Post-Minimalist artist refused to accept limitations, whether political or aesthetic, and questioned the preciousness of Art, overcoming the classical boundaries thanks to a wide variety of unconventional materials and forms. The result of Torreano's practice is a decorative work pushed to the extreme, so as not to be accidental, but rather clearly intended.
The oversized outdoor installation by Torreano, specifically conceived for FIAC Hors Les Murs, becomes the symbol of the rediscovery of that group of Post-Minimalist artists from the Seventies that have been underestimated for so long.
John Torreano (b. 1941, Michigan) is an American Post-Minimalist artist, best known for utilizing faceted gems in a variety of mediums and methods in order to create "movement oriented perception" in his works. "Mega Gem" is a wood oversized diamond with acrylic rosette and its part of the series of site specific outdoor installations currently preserved in various museums and institutions around the world.
Torreano developed this instantly recognizable sculptural language and, along with others Post-Minimalist artists such as Lynda Benglis, Ron Gorchov and Elisabeth Murray, he challenged the rationalist and dogmatic intransigency of the Minimalism characterized by straight lines and cubes and monochromatic canvas. The artist plays with the idea of the preciousness of Art, in which he created the form associated with something valuable in materials that were more ordinary.
Torreano grew up in a large Catholic family and this has influenced his artistic practice; he always uses of jewels serving as a metaphor for vigil lights. Other religious influences appear in his pieces as well while in recent years his paintings have used gems to create space-like constellations. Throughout his career, Torreano has investigated the properties of real and fake gemstones in the differing contexts of lighting, placement and materials.
