Mario Molinari

Concerto di parole (Concert of Words) consists of four blocks of geometric solids made of expanded polystyrene, painted in bright colours. Massive in appearance but light in fact, accompanied in some editions by festoons in the form of triangles and stylised little men, these solids are the meeting point of a quest that fuses rigour and fantasy. A firm believer in an art that is easy for everyone to understand, Mario Molinari adopted the immediate and familiar language of geometry and of primary and secondary colours, earning himself the nickname of “sculptor of colour”, as stated on the plaque that the City of Turin dedicated to him near his home-studio in via Saluzzo. Part totem, part oversized toy construction, the solids of Concerto di parole look, as Francesco Fanelli has written, to the second futurism and specifically to the work of Fortunato Depero. 

Mario Molinari (Coazze, Turin, 1930-2000) made his debut in the 1960s and, a pupil of Raffaele Ponte Corvo, with him and other artists such as Abacuc, Alessandri and Colombotto Rosso was one of the founders of the Turin neo-surrealist group Surfanta. He initially made copper sculptures with an anthropomorphic appearance before turning to experiments on plexiglass and wood and finally arriving at large, brightly coloured concrete installations, often intended for public spaces. Concerto di parole was in fact reconfigured in concrete in a permanent form in a green area facing the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital. 

After his debut in 1967 at the Gian Ferrari Gallery in Milan, Molinari exhibited in Italian and foreign galleries and in 2004 the Peano Foundation in Cuneo dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him. 

Silvia Maria Sara Cammarata