Salvatore Astore was born in 1957 in San Pancrazio Salentino, in the Province of Brindisi. He currently lives and works in Turin, a city where he moved to with his family at a young age. After studying art in secondary school, he later graduated from the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts.
Read MoreAstore has been active on the Italian and international scene since the 1980s. His preferred artistic languages are sculpture, painting, and drawing. His diverse body of works corresponds to different historical periods and existential phases and is characterised by a profound desire to experiment with techniques and materials related to the urban industrial context, as well as by a specific interest in the condition and destiny of humankind.
After the pictorial series 'Anatomie' (Anatomies), which comprises human and animal anatomies, in 1984 Astore began his production of medium and large-sized sculptures, initially made of welded and painted iron and successively of stainless steel. These works strongly relate to the artist's desire to create a vocabulary of new and authentic forms inscribed in the logic of organic structures. The Calotte (Skullcaps), the Containers, and the Suture e Forma (Sutures and Form), along with the paintings from the series 'Cervelli' (Brains), inaugurated an intense exhibition period focussed on the investigation of the plasticity of the form, intended as free from the self-reference of the figurative and centred on a renewed interest in the individual and his time. In 1987, the exhibition Immagine Eretta (Erected Image) at the Gondrand warehouses in Turin clarified the way these new 'organic minimalism' and 'modern anthropocentrism' are envisaged.
In the late 1980s, Astore started to exhibit in Milan at Valeria Belvedere gallery. Those were years of research for the artists belonging to generation following the one of Arte Povera. In 1991, Astore was invited to the exhibition Anni'90 (1990s), curated by Renato Barilli, Dede Auregli and Carlo Gentili, and hosted by the Galleria d'Arte Moderna of Bologna, the municipal museums of Rimini, and the former colony 'Le Navi' of Cattolica. In 1992, he took part in Avanguardie in Piemonte 1960–1990, curated by art historians Mirella Bandini and Marisa Vescovo; in 1996, he participated in the 12th Quadrennial in Rome.
In the mid-1990s, the encounter with the American artist Sol Lewitt – who Astore has always admired – influenced and reinforced the spirit of his artistic research. He exhibited in Rome at Valentina and Alessandra Bonomo gallery, and in Bari at Marilena Bonomo gallery. More recently, after a series of pictorial works, the sculpture came back at the 13th Biennial of Sculpture in Carrara in 2008; at the solo exhibition C'era una volta e una stanza (Once Upon a Time and a Room) at the 107 Foundation in Turin in 2010; and at the Frost Art Museum in Miami in 2011.
In 2018, the exhibition Anatomico Organico Industriale (Anatomic, Organic, Industrial) at the 107 Foundation reconnected the creative environment of the 1980s Turin, with a focus on the artistic research of Salvatore Astore, Sergio Ragalzi, and Luigi Stoisa. In the same year, Astore took part in the collective exhibition 100% Italia, Cent'anni di capolavori at Museo Ettore Fico in Turin.
In the most recent years, the long-lasting relationship with the Mazzoleni family has strengthened with a variety of projects curated by the gallery, including: Speciazione, a complex of iron sculptures installed in the garden of the Reggia di Venaria on the occasion of the ART SITE FEST (2019); and Anatomia Umana (2021), installed at the corner between Giardini c.so G.Ferraris and Via Cernaia in Turin.
Among the numerous critics and curators who have written about Astore's work there are: Mirella Bandini, Luca Beatrice, Maurizio Calvesi, Luciano Caramel, Martina Cognati, Enrico Crispolti, Paolo Fossati, Flaminio Gualdoni, Francesco Poli, Elena Pontiggia, Tommaso Trini, and Marisa Vescovo.
Nature and Culture have always been reference points for my artistic research, but instead of speaking about the religion of art I'd rather speak of the sacredness of art; I feel closer to a non-confessional religious context, definitely non-mystic, though dogmatic in the sense that I prefer building certainties for myself, rather than asking questions of myself.
– Salvatore Astore
Text courtesy Mazzoleni.
