Ermanno Leinardi and the Sardinian Neo Avant-garde: from the “Studio '58” to the Duchamp Gallery

The group was born in 58, but already since 57 there had been a foretaste of these new trends, continues Murtas, "on the occasion of the first biennial in Nuoro, when Mauro Manca had won with an abstract work, entitled" L'ombra of the sea on the hill ". A courageous work in an artistic context still dominated mainly by the figurative ".

“The Studio 58 group - adds Antonello Carboni - was created to contrast everything that represented tradition from a figurative point of view, that is, all those painters that Primo Pantoli defined as the rear guard”.

But who was this group composed of?

“They were all more or less well-known artists, such as Primo Pantoli, Tonino Casula, Gaetano Brundu, Rosanna Rossi, all united by a single spirit: that of aversion to tradition”.

A heterogeneous group, a large container in which, however, the artists did not blend very well. From a rib of the "Group 58", in fact, a second manifesto was born a few years later (in '61), that of "Democratic initiative for the cultural rebirth of Sardinia". Luigi Mazzarelli, Primo Pantoli, Mauro Staccioli and Gaetano Brundu join this new group, very close to the Communist Party.

They were intellectually very active realities, who discussed aesthetics, philosophy, politics, and were in close contact with the whole creative world of the time, as well as being well regarded by the academic world, nourishment for the evolution of a cultural discourse that involved multiple layers intellectuals, from poets, to musicians to writers.

In those days, Corrado Maltese, professor of Aesthetics who replaced Gillo Dorfles, arrived in Cagliari. "Maltese - remembers Murtas - had been curator of the cultural page of the Unit, and translator of a very important text on the psychology of art by john Dewey. Around Maltese there are several artists who already gravitated to the group of" Studio 58 ", and it is Maltese in this period that acts as the glue for the four artists who will later found the Transactional Group: Tonino Casula, Ugo Ugo (former director of the municipal gallery) Italo Utzeri and Ermanno Leinardi ”adds Carboni.

We are in 1964, the year before the proclamation of the Transactional Art Manifesto.

A great contribution to the group's aesthetic philosophy was given by Tonino Casula, through a practical application of the psychology of art.

“Chasuble who was practically blind - says Murtas - and once operated on he suddenly found himself in the position of one who learns to see, as an adult. Thus he begins to study visual perception, to discover Gestalt and perceptual Transaction and the question arises of how to translate this concept into art ”. Evidently overturning old aesthetic standards and pushing towards fields of wider sensory experimentation.

“Those were the years of optical and the Transactional group introduced a new perceptual reference. No one had ever dared to go so far in a Sardinian landscape in which the whole of the Neo Avant-garde had oscillated to the maximum between expressionist roots and the informal ”explains Murtas.

At that time Mario Ciusa Romagna wrote about the Unione Sarda, who was very surprised by these artists who, explains Murtas, “proposed a sort of dialectical painting, that is, a painting made of forms that conversed with each other”.

Similar groups are also born in Sassari: Mauro Manca is the catalyst for the birth of "Group A", which included, among others, Aldo Contini, Nino Dore, Antonio Atza, Gaetano Pinna, Zaza Calzia and then the Gruppo della Rosa composed by Igino Panzino, a young teacher from the Sassari art institute, Giovanna Secchi, Riccardo Campanelli, Paola Dessy and others.

The first major exhibition of the Sardinian neo-avant-garde was held in the seventies in Cagliari and matured from the union between the “Transactional Group” and the “Democratic Initiative Group”.

In the same period the Duchamp gallery by Angela Migliavacca opens in the capital, which for years gave great space to the works of the Neo avant-garde. Then the void. For this reason the Sardinian Neo avant-gardes are not well known to the general public. After the closure of Duchamp this group of artists had no space to show themselves to the public and continued to work in the shadows.

"We also need this type of debates to talk about art - says Maria Dolores Picciau, updating the discourse in our time - Unfortunately we no longer have our great historical figures of reference such as Corrado Maltese, Salvatore Naitza, Gillo Dorfles and Marco Magnani today a void has been created around our creatives, who have lost important references ”.

And he continues: "Before there were many university professors close to the artists: if there had not been people like Maltese, the Transactional movement would not have had the resonance it had".

Maria Dolores Picciau got to know Leinardi well and wrote a lot about him and the creatives of his group: “Thanks to Ermanno Leinardi I met Italo Utzeri, Zaza Calzia, Nino Dore, Gaetano Brundu. I recounted their period in the book “Tracce sull'acqua” taking a cue from an exhibition on watercolor, organized by Leinardi ”. An important fragment of Sardinian history that tells the aesthetic revolution of that period.

Ermanno Leinardi was not just an artist. He was also an organizer of events, meetings, travel exhibitions. “He wanted to bring Sardinian creatives together with other groups that were emerging in the Peninsula and abroad, to create debates: he made many trips to get in touch with contemporary art groups from the great European capitals” recalls his son Raul.

Today Maria Dolores Picciau, promoter and organizer of the traveling exhibition on Ermanno Leinardi, is the Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Cagliari and has a series of important projects for Sardinian art and especially relating to the second half of the twentieth century: "Fortunately we have an enlightened mayor which has just renovated an important historical building where a museum will be born. The idea is to enhance the movements of the second half of the 20th century up to the last decades ”.

On the same wavelength Silvia Oppo, director of the Diocesan Museum, has always been intent on creating debate and movement around Sardinian art in a space of excellence dedicated to the Sacred and to knowledge.