This was the first solo exhibition in the UK by legendary artist Giovanni Anselmo. It featured seminal pieces from the time he was associated with the Italian avant-garde movement Arte Povera (1960s – 1970s), and more recent works including a new installation commissioned by Ikon.

Anselmo explores the ‘wonderful’ quality of nature and the elements, often exploiting natural forces and the potential energy of unrefined materials. He offers the audience poetic interpretations of abstract and universal concepts such as time, energy, gravity and light; bringing materials together in combinations that strikingly demonstrate these phenomena.

One of Anselmo’s best known works, Senza titolo, 1968, involves the crushing of a lettuce between a large standing block of granite and a smaller stone, secured by a wire. If the lettuce is allowed to dry out, the wire will lose tension and the stone will fall.

Anselmo also works with drawings, photography and projections. In the case of Invisibile, the humming machinery of the slide projector foils the lightness of the spelt-out title. The word is only legible when the viewer intersects the projection, and thus the ‘invisible’ becomes ‘visible’.

This exhibition was organised in collaboration with Kurhaus Museum, Kleve and was supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, the Italian Cultural Institute and the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation..