The exhibition Mappe di colore opens with artworks by Sandi Renko, an artist of Slovenian origin who was born in Trieste in 1949. His artistic research is here exemplified by a series of recent works which, despite having been all realised in 2022, well summarise and illustrate the ideas that have always been at the centre of Renko’s production.
Renko matured as an artist in the Trieste of the Sixties, where he studied at the Istituto statale d’arte Umberto Nordio, taught by some of the the main representative personalities of local art, including Marcello Mascherini, Marcello Siard, Ugo Carà, Enzo Cogno and Miela Reina. Thanks to the fervent expositive and artistic activity of the Libreria Feltrinelli of Trieste, and especially to the artistic circle in Padova that he joined at the beginning of the Seventies, Renko soon discovered the latest research and experimentations by Bruno Munari, Enzo Mari, Getulio Alviani and the Gruppo N, moving closer to arte programmata and Kinetic art. Therefore, the study of visual perception and optical illusion has always represented the main focus of Renko’s artworks, which cannot be completely understood without also considering the artist's years of experience in the design industry.
Thus, art and design have incessantly been the two faces, inextricably connected, of the life and career of the artist: a feature that can be especially found in the exceptional design precision with which Renko faces the creative process of each of his works. Starting from different axonometric images and geometric shapes, the artist develops his ideas for the composition on a computer to create a digital preview and to verify the chromatic effects before the final realisation. No choice is accidental in Renko’s art but is rather the result of studied and rational decisions. In his works, we can sometimes notice a kind of repetitiveness, with geometric modules constantly repeating and recalling each other, but Renko’s originality is to be found precisely in this tireless formal research.
On the ground floor of the Ospedale dei Battuti, a series of paintings on canneté cardboard and corrugated cardboard welcome the visitor into the exhibition space, divided into two rooms. The series is entitled Pivotali and consists of five square cardboard panels, on which the colour is applied with a spray gun in thin vertical lines next to each other and painted on the sides of the cardboard’s waves. The picture is designed starting from chromatic combinations that gradually create continuous visual changes: the intersection of the graphic motif, with the effects that occur because of the canneté’s support, engenders combinations which vary depending on the point of view. They are geometric and abstract compositions, built from a cube shape which, deconstructed, expands itself on the surface given by the support and spreads repeatedly, causing constant permeations. The chromatic choices are never accidental, and the colour is applied on the canneté according to the optical illusion that the artist wants to achieve, inserting inside a single artwork multiple images which alternately appear when moving from left to right. The five compositions are strongly connected to each other: here, the artist plays with complementary colours, blue and orange, as well as green and red. Then there is black, which neutralises the previous contrasts and links the five paintings of this cycle.
With their constant chromatic and optical variations, these paintings guide the visitor towards the area of the apse, where some antique fresco fragments are still visible and thus placed next to Renko’s works. Each one of the five cardboards, replicated in different and less regular forms, makes part of the central sculpture, the real focus of the exhibition. It is a kinetic structure, in which every compositional element, realised on canneté, is tied to the Pivotali (pivots) on the wall: in this joint system, each one of the five paintings is alluded to inside of the structure, creating a game of composition and decomposition. Again, we can notice the same colours, paired by complementarity, with black serving as a trait-d’union at the basis. The installation’s movement is given by the rotating base on which it is placed. Through the intersection and permeation of the two two-dimensional panels, painted on both sides, the relationship among the colours becomes more complex: in this way, a sophisticated optical illusion is created, in constant flux and in communication with the viewer. In this case, the visual effect delivered by the specific chromatic and compositional choices is not only produced by the motion and movement of the viewer around the sculpture: the sculpture is also literally turning. The title choice finds its resolution and explanation precisely in this aspect. Movement is a novelty in Renko’s career and, in this case, the idea that inspired the structure is the pivot, the linchpin, though recalled in its adjective form, as it is common of the author.
A completely different outcome can be observed with the installation entitled Cruciale, conceived by Sandi Renko for the Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Battuti, a unique and very evocative space. Inside, the visitor is taken by surprise by the presence of a monumental and orthogonal grid, which creates a large cube laid down on the floor. The structure consists of a series of spruce pillars, on which Texteline cloths in blue, red and yellow - the three primary colours - are arranged. These cloths, partially transparent, are intertwined between the wood beams and put on top of each other to once again create cubes, the geometric shapes that are always central in Renko’s production. This installation defines with precision the space in which it is inserted, establishing a dialogue where the irrational dimension connected to the sacredness of the church meets the rationality of Renko’s structure, proving how even artistic research directed towards what is abstract and the geometry of colours can produce emotional vibrations. Cruciale, which presents a vague assonance with the term cross (‘croce’, in Italian), has this exact meaning: it concerns the research for the crux, the centre, the ultimate meaning, no longer conceived in religious terms, but rather rational and abstract ones.
