Toni Costa (Padua 1935 - 2013) has been among the co-founders in 1959 of the N Group of Padua, nucleus of Italian programmed kinetic, which also belong Alberto Biasi, Manfredo Massironi, Edoardo Landi and Ennio Chiggio.
In a programmatic text which will be drawn up in 1961, these artists call themselves "experimental designs", free from programs or artistic trends and united in the search for a new definition of art that incorporates painting, sculpture, architecture and industrial product. The activities of the group and of the individual members are closely linked: there are numerous works collectively, in the denial of individual personality. In 1960 Costa participating in the first exhibition of the Group N set up in Padua under the title "No one is asked to intervene," which provocatively it asked to the audience to not intervene in the event. The collaboration with the group born kinetic-visual works, which are the result of collective experimentation, and a range of activities at the Gallery En of Padova, where in the same year his first solo was made.
In this period the series begins with the logical cycle "Dynamic visual" belong to the research on the representation of light, space and time. From the beginning, his research-oriented constructivism with an optical system with mixed kinetics.
In 1961 with N he participated in the exhibition "Art Abstrait Constructif International" set up in the Denise René Gallery in Paris and at the Biennale in Zagreb. The following year with N in several exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, including "Art Program": an exhibition held in Milan at Olivetti. In 1966 he participated in the "Aspects of contemporary Italian art" exhibition at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. As a result, besides being present in several collective, takes some personal: the Waddell Gallery of New York and at the Galleria Barozzi Venice in 1969, and Lorenzelli Gallery in Milan in 1973.
His works have been exhibited in exhibitions Programmed and Kinetic Art section at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 1983, and the Art Gallery of Niccoli Parma in 2001. Costa is living in Padua.
On March 18, 2011: the fiftieth anniversary of the historic event in which the Group N showed the world: "Arte č pane… pane č arte". On that occasion, Luigi Barzini jr., in a famous article published in the Corriere della Sera, June 18, 1961 entitled "Arte e salame" he wondered: to what the art will extent? Piero Manzoni, two months later, tributes to the Padua group with his "Achrome" of breads and kaolin, recently auctioned at Christie's in hundreds of thousands of euro.
The artists of the Group N (Alberto Biasi, Ennio Chiggio, Toni Costa, Edoardo Landi, Manfredo Massironi) were the undisputed protagonists of Programmed and Kinetic art.
On 2012 the exibition “Programmare l’arte. Olivetti e le Neoavanguardie cinetiche” at Olivetti shop in Piazza San Marco Venice from 30/08 to 14/10.
|
