Unlimited | U22
VIP Preview (by invitation only): Monday 15 – 17 June
Public Days: 18 – 21 June
Mazzoleni is delighted to present Struttura modulare bianca, 1970, by Agostino Bonalumi at Art Basel Unlimited 2026, in collaboration with Archivio Bonalumi.
Conceived in 1970 for the artist’s solo room at the 35th Venice Biennale, the monumental work was created during a period of intense interest in environmental art, following the landmark exhibition Lo spazio dell’immagine (Foligno, 1967), where Bonalumi exhibited alongside artists such as Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani, Luciano Fabro, Pino Pascali, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Paolo Scheggi. This participation marked a turning point in the artist’s practice and his idea of the viewer’s role within the space.
I dreamed, through art, of capturing the mysteries of the shadows of nature and then bringing them home and contemplating them.
At the 1970 Venice Biennale, Struttura modulare bianca was installed as an environmental work articulated between ground and suspension, comprising 29 fiberglass and nitro modules, each 80x100x70 cm, and marking a fundamental milestone in Bonalumi’s spatial and conceptual research. Rather than being conceived as a passive element, the work emerges as an autonomous organism capable of expanding into space.
The choice of white serves as a conceptual device, eliminating colour as an expressive element, and focusing the attention on the dialectic between fullness and void, light and shadow, presence and suspension. The modularity produces a surprising visual complexity, allowing the work to be experienced and activated through the viewer’s movement, which becomes part of the spatial device and sets its geomorphic vibration in motion.
Following its first presentation, the work was exhibited in different configurations, including in Lodi (1972), at the 12th Middelheim Biennale in Antwerp (1973), and more recently at Palazzo Reale in Milan (2018) and at Mazzoleni in Turin (2023).
Giovanni and Anna Pia Mazzoleni first encountered Bonalumi’s work in 1970, on the occasion of a solo exhibition at Galleria La Bussola in Turin. At the time, they were young collectors and began acquiring his works for their personal collection.
The opportunity to collaborate with the artist first arose in the early 2000s, when the gallery and the artist began a fruitful partnership that developed into a close friendship. This relationship continues to this day: Mazzoleni represents the artist’s estate, while the family oversees the Bonalumi archive.
