Plinio Martelli - Untitle

Full-frame photo with frame measuring 73x53

Plinio Martelli (1945-2016) breathed art from childhood: his father and grandfather were painters. The first, close to Menzio, Quaglino and Fico; the second to Carrà, Bonzagni and Malerba. From his beginnings, after attending the Albertina Academy under the guidance of Paulucci and Calandri, he participated in numerous collective exhibitions, including the historic Fluxus event of 1967 at the Il Punto gallery and, the following year, in Marcello Rumma’s show, curated by Germano Celant, “Arte Povera + Azioni Povere,” in Amalfi, before staging his first solo show in 1969 at the prestigious Christian Stein gallery with which he began a collaboration destined to endure over time. His work immediately oriented toward research into the transformation of artistic language through the use of unusual materials, fused into evocative and suggestive sculptures. His important exhibitions of the Seventies at the LP220 gallery were as significant as his experimentation in the cinematic field, which earned him an invitation to the Venice Biennale of 1978.

A versatile artist, Martelli ventured into photography as a metaphor for painting, building a highly recognizable personal style thanks to a use of light aimed at investigating the existential dimension of his subjects.

A pioneer in the rediscovery of tattooing as a form of artistic and narrative expression, he later explored the world of erotism in its most intimate and sometimes extreme folds. Always fascinated by the idea of the “Illustrated and Engraved Body,” he reconstructs Photo Sets that evoke a classical, Gothic, noir, erotic atmosphere, with a Trash taste, irony and provocation.

A “Mise en Scene” through images with evocative flavor, in which the construction approaches the idea of the “Portrait in the Studio” with evident references to Classical and Mannerist Painting and to an iconography ideally Fetishist that recalls the sensuality of erotic images of the past.

The body of the “Model” is exalted by the Tattoo “as a metaphor for Painting,” at the same time constrained and chained by the shadows and lights of the sets and by the objects that compose the “Portrait,” everything turning into a mysterious and sensual alchemical world, all uniting a representation of the image of Diverse Aesthetics, paradoxical with a provocative and precious irony.

His work has been exhibited worldwide in private galleries and public museums: Turin, Milan, Bologna, Bolzano, Paris, Cologne, Sydney, London, New York, Barcelona, Majorca, Brussels. His works are part of the collections of several museums, including the Museo di Arte Moderna of Turin.