Luigi Nervo

Il bosco dei maghi (The Magicians’ Forest Solar Wind) is the light installation that Luigi Nervo presented for Luci d’artista, starting with the first edition in 1998. It consisted of twelve bas-reliefs representing the signs of the zodiac, in the usual zoomorphic iconography, painted in reflective orange paint and accompanied by fifty stylised trees outlined with neon lights. For the 2001 edition, Nervo added another bas-relief depicting the sun, and chose to call it Vento solare. The words that the artist uses to speak about the scientific concept he was fascinated by date back to this work. 

When, for conservation reasons, it was no longer possible to exhibit Il bosco dei maghi, the same bas-relief of the sun became the centrepiece of the new work created by Nervo, Vento solare, which takes the form of a sun shining its luminous neon rays on the profile of the bas-relief of the moon, added at this stage. 

Luigi Nervo (Turin, 1930-2006) debuted as a designer in the mid-1950s and taught sculpture at the Accademia Albertina from 1973 to 1998. He is best known for Machines/games such as the Dinosaur in Michelotti Park in Turin, which have been set up in various Italian cities. In 1984, he founded the Teatro d’automi and during the same period he built set designs for the Teatro Stabile in Turin and Trieste and for the Opera in Rome. After an exhibition at the G30 gallery in Paris, he exhibited in many galleries in Turin and set forth a method of manual skills in the Guida al gioco creativo (Guide to Creative Play), published in 1982. 

In 2021, Turin's GAM opened an exhibition dedicated to Luigi Nervo, conceived and organised by the GAM Education Department together with Circoscrizione 5 and Luci d'Artista. 

Silvia Maria Sara Cammarata