Gino De Dominicis – 1975+27

Un omaggio a una delle figure chiave dell’arte contemporanea italiana del Novecento.

Comunicato stampa

“Beyond space, I was interested in engaging time.” With this motivation, Fabio Sargentini organized the exhibition 24 ore su 24 at Galleria L'Attico, located at Via del Paradiso 41, from Saturday, January 25 to Friday, January 31, 1975. It was a year of profound transformation for the country, in which the Christian Democratic government of Aldo Moro faced the rise of the Communist Party led by Enrico Berlinguer, against a backdrop marked by the so-called “strategy of tension.” Thirteen artists were invited to participate: Alighiero Boetti, Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Gino De Dominicis, Tano Festa, Mimmo Germanà, Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Luigi Ontani, Luca Maria Patella, Vettor Pisani, Emilio Prini, and Ilija Soskic.

Space related to time on a 1:1 scale. Each artist was required to create an ephemeral, performative intervention at a predetermined time. Gino De Dominicis chose to close the exhibition by presenting, from 10 p.m. to midnight on January 31, a work titled 1975+27, likely linking the year of the project with his own age at the time. The artist scattered ordinary drawing pins across the cement-tile floor of the gallery, arranging them to form the sentence: “NOI SIAMO LE PUNTINE” [WE ARE THE PINS].

Gino proclaimed immortality, and for this reason a seminal work—forgotten by memory—deserves to be seen again, like an apparition, by us ordinary mortals in a sacred space such as a church.

To celebrate this remembrance, a limited-edition poster has been produced, collecting brief testimonies from those who were present in 1975 (Achille Bonito Oliva, Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Michelle Coudray, Alvin Curran, Arianna di Rosa, Giuliano Perezzani, Fiorella Rizzo, Fabio Sargentini, Ilija Soskic).

Text and curation by Luca Lo Pinto