“Form, colour, dimensions are meaningless: the only problem for the artist is that of conquering the fullest freedom: barrieres are a challenge, the physical ones to the scientist just as the mental ones to the artist. Dadamaino has gone beyond the ‘issue of painting’: there are other dimensions that inspire her work: her paintings fly the flag of a new world, they introduce a new significance: they are not satisfied with ‘saying things in another way’: they say new things.“
_Piero Manzoni, Padua, May 20, 1961
Dadamaino (Eduarda Maino, Milan, 1930 – Milan, 2004) had an artistic career influenced by different movements and art tendencies that emerged in Europe in the late forties. Her approach to spatialism is evident in her work and the influence of other groups such as ZERO in Germany, Equipo 57 in Spain or Azimuth in Italy, in which she actively participated. Soon, she would end up creating her own line of artistic research while developing a growing interest in social activism and especially in the Italian feminist movement in which, since 1968, she would be involved in numerous protests.
From 1958 she expanded the notion of spatialism that Fontana had initiated, turning the emptiness of those Concetto spaziale into Volumes. Dadamaino’s Volume series consists of imperfectly cut canvases that generate a volumetric spatiality that is very characteristic of her work. The artist draws on a scientific sensibility and a taste for mathematical reality allowing her to develop analytical reflections and structural models that permeate her research. Her Volumeseries eventually lead her to a line of work centered on optical vibration.
Dadamaino: 1930 – 2004. Dal movimiento alla proteste mute takes it’s title from an answer takes its title from an answer given by the Italian artist in 1980 during an interview with Francesco Vincitorio: “Mi limito, ancora una volta, a delle proteste mute“. The title, in a way, reflects about the changing and mutable character of the artist’s career, the many lines of research she opened during her career and the vital change that can be sensed from her early works, much more related to color, movement and the search for The Light, to her latest production, much more silent, elegant and conceptual. It also highlights his dedication to political and feminist activism. Thus, the exhibition aims to show the vision of a multifaceted artist, activist and thinker.
Her work has been exhibited in important institutions throughout the world such as: Tate Modern, London, UK; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Le Consortium, Dijon, France; XLIV Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy; Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France; Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France; Musée Virgilien, Virgil, Italy; Bochum Museum, Bochum, Germany; Sydney Art Museum, Sydney, Australia; Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan, Italy; Palazzo delle Sposizioni, Rome, Italy; Institute of Contemporary Art, London, UK; Loggia dei Lanari, Perugia, Italy; Siftung für Konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen, Germany; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France; New Vision Center, London, UK, among many others. His work is part of important collections including: Tate Modern, London, UK; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Venice, Italy; Foundation of Concrete Art, Reutlingen, Germany, among others.
