Exhibition Details

Nina Yashar unveils a new journey into the world of art in the spaces of Nilufar Depot. The exhibition, which is curated together with Luca Massimo Barbero, introduces the public for the first time to a unique series of sculptural works of great current relevance by Pietro Consagra (1920-2005). Nine Matacubi – object-sculptures created from 1985 onwards by Consagra, one of the most prestigious exponents of international abstractionism – will be shown in the large atrium of Nilufar Depot. The artist’s works are in the collections of the most important museums around the world, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, MoMA in New York, the National Gallery in Washington, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, and the Musée d’Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
The exhibition, which has been organised in collaboration with the Archivio Pietro Consagra, with a display installation by Ruggero Moncada di Paternò, illustrates a series of works “with rounded, sensual forms that unfold in a way that invites two or three people to sit down, creating a direct and immediate playful interaction with the viewer.” This is how Gabriella Di Milia, director of the Archivio Pietro Consagra, describes the series of Matacubi, and she also reveals the origin of their name: “The artist chose the term ‘matacubo’, which in the Sicilian dialect refers to very compact, often bulky objects, as the paradoxical title of bewitching works made of marble or painted iron, which can also be viewed an alternatives to benches," says Gabriella. Exhibiting these works on her own premises, Nina Yashar shares, “I’m happy to think that Pietro Consagra might have wished for his sculptures to be placed in domestic settings, and not just in institutional places and museums.”
The installation also gave the curators and Patricia Urquiola, Martino Gamper and Brigitte Niedermair an opportunity for a conversation, captured in a video produced by Olympìque.
A limited-edition catalogue will be presented at the exhibition, under the title Matacubi di Pietro Consagra, edited by Luca Massimo Barbero, in a dialogue with Gabriella Di Milia and Nina Yashar, and in collaboration with the Archivio Pietro Consagra. Published in English and Italian by Marsilio Editori, it will be available at the Nilufar Gallery and at Nilufar Depot, as well as in bookshops throughout Italy.