Eliseo Mattiacci (Cagli, 1940-Fossombrone, 2019).
Eliseo Mattiacci moved to Rome in 1964. In 1967 La Tartaruga gallery opened Mattiacci's first solo exhibition, featuring “Tubo” (Tube), a 150 meters, yellow-coloured, nickel-plated iron tube that “changes the perception of the environment and encourages the public to modify it.” In those years, contemporary artists experienced the limit of conventional institutional spaces together with a strong need of unconventional contexts to express their languages, which drove to a greater freedom in action and forms of expression. In this scenario, the Roman gallery L’Attico-garage by Fabio Sargentini marked a turning point: Mattiacci in 1969 entered the gallery with a compressor that crushes a path made of pozzolana ash.
During the 1967 Paris Biennial, Pino Pascali introduced Mattiacci to the international gallerist and art dealer Alexandre Jolas; shortly after Mattiacci’s work was exhibited for the first time abroad, in the Jolas galleries of Paris and New York.
In 1972 The International Art Exhibition of Venice Biennale dedicated a solo show to the artist’s works.
During the Eighties, Mattiacci’s research focused on the use of metals – defined as «living» materials by him – with whom he realised large-scale works inspired by his interests in cosmic-astronomical themes. Key-works of these researches are “Alta tensione astronomica” (Astronomical High Voltage) – installed at Kunstforum Monaco – and “Carro Solare del Montefeltro” (Montefeltro Solar Chariot), both realised in 1984. The latter, along with other big scale artworks in metal, was set up in his solo show at the Venice Biennale in 1988.
In 1993, Prada Milano Arte - the institution that two years later would become Fondazione Prada) opened its visual art program with a solo show of Mattiacci.
Along the years, the research of the artist strengthened around the relation with the specific site, both natural (as a quarry) and human-designed (as an archaeological site) environment; also, his work focused on visible and invisible physical energies - such as gravity force and the attraction generated by large magnets - fueled by a constant, ideal tension to remove weight from the heavy matter. The exhibition held at the archeological site of the Trajan’s Markets in Rome in 2001 has exemplified his established narrative.
Among the awards Mattiacci received, the first prize at the 1995 Fujisankei Hokone Open Air Museum Biennial in Tokyo and in 2008 the “Antonio Feltrinelli '' sculpture award by the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. In 2013 the book “Eliseo Mattiacci” curated by Germano Celant was published by Skira, Milano, still of reference on the work and the life of the artist.
In 2016 the MART Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto held a wide retrospective show, followed in 2018 by the most extensive exhibition ever held on the work of Mattiacci, set up at the Forte di Belvedere, Florence.
In 2022, Ridinghouse, London, published the book "Eliseo Mattiacci. Sculpture in Action", edited by Lara Conte in collaboration with Studio Eliseo Mattiacci; the editorial project was supported by the Italian Council Program (2021) run by the Italian Ministry of Culture.