Giuseppe Uncini
(Fabriano, 1929 - Trevi, 2008)
Giuseppe Uncini moved to Rome in the early Fifties encouraged by the sculptor Edgardo Mannucci. After working in the capital form some years, in 1955 Uncini was selected to participate in the 7th Quadriennale di Roma. Between 1956 and 1958, he started the Terre and the Cementarmati series, experimenting with sand, ash, colored pigments, iron, concrete, and wire mesh. In 1961 Uncini has his first personal show at Galleria L’Attico in Rome, and one year later he founded Gruppo 1 with Biggi, Carrino, Frascà, Pace and Santoro, to get over Informale. Giulio Carlo Argan was one of the most relevant promoters of the group. Uncini continued his research on materials and in 1965 he starts realizing the Strutturespazio series (exposed at the XXXII Venice Biennale) through which he starts working with shadows and the way they interact with space. In 1968, Palma Bucarelli commissioned him the Porta aperta con ombra for the galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome. During the Seventies, the artist expanded his research on raw materials, started moving to a more architectonic approach that will lead him to the Dimore series, surfaces meant to recall houses, doors, windows, and their shadows. In 1984 he exposed again at the Venice Biennale in a dedicated room. Uncini died in his home-studio in 2008, in Trevi.
Among his solo and group exhibitions, we can mention: Quadriennale d’Arte, Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome, 1955-1965-1973-1986-1992-1999); Roma ‘60 - 5 Pittori, Angeli, Festa, Lo Savio, Schifano, Uncini, Galleria La Salita (Rome 1960); Venice Biennale (Venice 1966-1976-1978-1984-1995); Expò ‘67, Esposizione Universale (Montreal, 1967); Vitalità del negativo nell’arte italiana 1960/70, Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome, 1970); 1960/1977 Arte in Italia. Dall’opera al coinvolgimento. L’opera: simboli e immagini. La linea analitica, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna (Turin, 1977); Arte e critica 1980, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome, 1980); Arte Italiana 1960-1982, Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, 1982); La Collezione Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli. Cinquant’anni di storia dell’astrattismo nelle raccolte del Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Genova, Villa Croce Centro per la arti visive e Museo d’arte contemporanea (Genova, 1990); The Italian metamorphosis, 1943 - 1968, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, 1994); Minimalia, Da Giacomo Balla a..., PS1 Contemporary Art Center (New York, 1999); MACRO (Rome, 2003); Nicola Carrino Giuseppe Uncini. Costruire. Dal 1960, Studio Erica Fiorentini (Rome, 2006); Rome. Open painting, ZKM (Karlsruhe, 2008); Art in Europe 1945 – 1968, ZKM (Karlsruhe, 2017); Negative Space, ZKM (Karlsruhe 2019).
