Plinio Martelli - Untitle

The photo is sold with a frame, measuring 73x53.

Plinio Martelli (1945-2016) breathed art since he was a child: his father and grandfather were painters. The first, a neighbor to Menzio, Quaglino and Fico; the second to Carrà, Bonzagni and Malerba. From his early years, after attending the Albertina Academy under the guidance of Paulucci and Calandri, he took part in numerous group exhibitions, including the historic Fluxus event of 1967 at the Il Punto gallery and, the following year, the Marcello Rumma 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 whom he began a long-lasting collaboration. His work immediately turned toward a search for the transformation of artistic language through the use of unusual materials, fused into evocative and suggestive sculptures. His important exhibitions in the 1970s at LP220 gallery stand out, as does his experimentation in cinema that earned him an invitation to the Venice Biennale in 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 probing the existential dimension of his subjects.

Pioneer in rediscovering tattooing as a form of artistic and narrative expression, he later explored the world of erotica in its most intimate and sometimes extreme folds. Always fascinated by the idea of the “Illustrated and Engraved Body,” he reconstructs Set Photographs 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 ostensibly Fetishistic that recalls the sensuality of erotic images from the past.

The body of the “Model” is exalted by the Tattoo “as a metaphor of Painting,” at the same time constrained and chained by the shadows and lights of the sets and by the objects that compose the “Portrait,” all transforming into a mysterious and sensual alchemical world, uniting a representation of the image of Diverse Aesthetics, paradoxical with irreverent 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, Palma de Mallorca, Brussels. His works are part of the collections of several museums, including the Museo di Arte Moderna in Turin.
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