Early collaborations

Late 1970s - Early 1990s

#Openness #ArtisticCollaboration #Activism

#Openness

#ArtisticCollaboration

#Activism

In 1979, at a group exhibition at Palazzo Prinetti/ Prinetti Palace in Merate, he meets Giacomo Nicola Manenti, a young artist active in the Brianza area. From this moment, his artistic research and pratice open up to a dialogue with artists and art spaces with whom he will formulate collective and independent art projects on shared themes.

Nine Paths – Between the Sign of Man and Sign of Nature is an early art project conceived in 1982 together with Manenti, Beppe Carrino, and other artists active in the northern area of Milan. A site specific project, throughout the whole area of Villa Borromeo d'Adda, in support of the Municipality of Arcore for the recovery of the property, for which the artist formulated the Segno Agreste/ Rustic Sign cycle, a work part of his Actions series.

Nine Paths Project, Villa Borromeo d’Adda Park, from left: Mariangelo Cazzaniga and Giacomo Nicola Manenti.

Segno Agreste I / Rustic Sign I, 1982, performance, site specific installation, cardboard, liquid asphalt. Actions series.

“Which art?... [..] An art, therefore, that weaves mutual relationships, recovering collective ritual, restoring dignity to common needs and daily emerging questions. [..] The nine paths between the sign of nature and the sign of man are works that go beyond [..] to place themselves in a transitional area [..] a conception of art and life: recalling an original function in which man interrogates incessantly.”

Nine Paths, 1982, the curatorial text, an excerpt (open).

Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, he further expands collaborations with art spaces and groups.

He collaborates, in particular, with the h:Orarte space in Lissone, founded by Max Marra and Mario De Leo, the Belluno Group, composed of Beppino Feletti, Donato Maria Bortolot, Flavio Da Rold, Gabriele Sossella, Giorgio Vazza, Giovanna Torresin, Giuliano Della Libera (Lhupo), and Roberto Da Re Giustiniani, and the Biella Group.

During this period, he also formed a friendship with artist Antonio Scaccabarozzi (1936-2008), based on dialogue and studio visits at his home-studio in Montevecchia (LC). Antonio will later occasionally collaborate with Gruppo Koiné / Koiné Group.

Opening of Independent Exhibition “A”, 1990, Spazio h:Orarte.

Archival photography. From left: Daniele Arosio, Francesco Mariani, Max Marra (sitting), Mariangelo Cazzaniga, Mario De Leo.

Mariangelo Cazzaniga and Professor Pier Franco Bertazzini. Spazio h:Orarte.

Independent Exhibition “A” , 1991, Spazio h:Orarte.

“The resonance of that debate, which public institutions have allowed to fade, seems instead to resurface in the work of some young artists active precisely in the Lissonese area. [..] It is to them that the project of Independent Exhibition A is owed, an exhibition event born in absolute autonomy from official occasions - deaf to the sound of research - as an experience of reflection, clarification, and discussion of a personal work [..]. The result is a composite panorama, of extraordinary expressive richness, dense with different and differently directed potentialities, but united by an identical ethical tension, which induces to operate in the field of art as a primary expressive need, as impulse and moral commitment, as a categorical imperative [..].”

Critical text of Isa Ghianda e Graziano Alfredo Vergani, an excerpt, Independent Exhibition “A”, 1990-91, Spazio h:Orarte. (open)

Throughout the 1980s, the interest in public action extends into the socio-cultural and political realms.

In 1980, in his hometown Lissone, he is among the founders, along with Giambattista Buongiorno (Titta), Claudio Santambrogio, and Carabelli (Ciccia), of La Scossa, a cultural association active in the local youth scene. Within La Scossa, in 1981, he is one of the curators, along with Enrico Mason, of an early artistic intervention aimed at raising awareness about the environmental value of the Monte Barro Park.

In 1985, along with members of La Scossa, he runs for a position on the Municipal Council of Lissone and is elected as municipal councilor. He achieves results in the areas of environmental protection and the right to education, but resigns two years later due to disagreement with the prevailing state of political deadlock.