Turi Simeti

Turi Simeti, born in Alcamo, Sicily, in 1929, is one of the best-known representatives of the Italian Zero movement from the group around Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni. He was one of the 30 or so artists that Lucio Fontana – who broke new ground in the 1950s with his Concetti spaziali (spatial concepts) and turned the picture into a relief – presented in his studio in 1965 as a ‘zero avant-garde’. These artists turned away from traditional painting and conventional materials and conquered space and light with their art.

The ‘oval’ shape characteristic of Simeti was created as soon as the early 1960s. From the first orderly relief pictures, initially in a geometric sequence, the basic module of the oval soon became independent and moved into the space of the above frame covered with canvas. The picture becomes a relief and enters into a relationship with the space. His monochrome works show minimalist and clear forms. The interplay of light and shadow on the surface, which can have very different characteristics depending on the intensity and angle of incidence of the light, develops a poetic effect and touches the viewer in a special way.