Renato Mambor
(Rome, 1936 - Rome, 2014)
Grown up as an artist in Rome in the 50s, Renato Mambor takes part in the collective exhibition 13 Pittori at La Tartaruga Gallery in Rome in 1963, where he holds his first solo exhibition two years later. In his artworks the artist uses road signs, stamps and traced photographs to reproduce the icons of popular culture. The use of two-dimensional silhouettes excludes the depth and somatic traits of the figures, which emerges in the series of Uomini Statistici (1962), Uomini Timbro (1963) and Ricalchi (1965). In 1967 Renato Mambor takes part in his first international exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston as a proponent of the new generation of Italian art. Nonetheless, the interest in theatre distances Renato Mambor from painting and leads him to privilege the spatial research with structures such as L’evidenziatore: a mechanical tool used to "hook" objects and move them into the art world. The artwork and all the related documentation is presented at the Venice Biennial in 1993, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
Among his relevant exhibitions, we can mention: The Young Italians (Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 1967); Amore mio (Palazzo Ricci, Montepulciano, 1970); Renato Mambor (Galleria del Naviglio, Milan, 1972); La ricerca estetica 1960-1970 (Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 1973); Arte italiana degli anni Sessanta nelle collezioni della Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna (Rivoli Castle, Rivoli,1985); Pianofortissimo (Fondazione Mudima, Milan, 1987); Biennale di Venezia (Venice, 1993-2007-2011-2015); Ritratto di una città. Arte a Roma 1960 - 2001 (MACRO Museo d´Arte Contemporanea, Rome, 2011); Renato Mambor. Connessioni invisibili (Refettorio delle stelline, Milan, 2017); Mambor Trasformatore (San Servolo Island, Venice, 2017).
