Arrivare in tempo

Salvo (b. Salvatore Mangione, 1947–2015) is one of the most singular voices of Italian contemporary art. Working independently, without being a part of any particular artistic movement, he created a cogent and sophisticated body of work exploring art history, language, light, and color.

Born in Leonforte (Sicily), Salvo moved to Turin with his family in 1956. Here he developed a conceptual practice, and was part of the Arte Povera circle, as well as befriending artists such as Mario and Marisa Merz, Sol LeWitt, Robert Barry, Joseph Kosuth, and Alighiero Boetti with whom he shared a studio. In 1972 he participated in the groundbreaking documenta 5 curated by Harald Szeemann. In 1973, he returned to painting—which he had practiced in his early formative years—a choice that was at the time considered unconventional and old-fashioned. For the following four decades, the investigation of traditional art-historical subjects and languages such as the genres of landscape and of the still life were at the core of his mature oeuvre. His use of recurrent motifs and geometric forms, the way his art puts art history—from Paul Cezanne to Giorgio di Chirico—in dialogue with the representation of the everyday (cafes, cityscapes, ports), his ceaseless research into light, shade, color, and how to embody the passing of time give birth to a mesmerizing artistic vision where realism and mysticism merge.

Conceived to open up a critical reading of Salvo’s work to an international audience, this comprehensive publication includes new critical contributions by an international array of writers and art critics (Valérie Da Costa, Giorgio Di Domenico, Mario Garcia Torres, and Alison Gingeras), an extensive conversation by the curators of the Pinacoteca Agnelli Salvo exhibition Sarah Cosulich and Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, with Norma Mangione and Cristina Tuarivoli from Archivio Salvo, as well as a visual itinerary through the artist’s main themes and series.

Salvo’s solo exhibitions include institutions such as Museum Folkwang, Essen and Mannheimer Kunstverein, 1977; Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, 1983; Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, and Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, 1988; Villa delle Rose, Bologna, 1998; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, 2002; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, 2007; Museo d’Arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, 2017; and MACRO, Rome, 2021.

Published with Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, on the occasion of the exhibition Arrivare in tempo (Arriving on Time), November 1, 2024–May 25, 2025.