Abstract:
Born on 1937 at Barcellona di Pozzo, Sicily, Emilio Isgrò lives and works in Milan. Conceptual artist and painter-­ but also poet, writer, dramaturge and director-­ Emilio Isgrò is considered one of the most internationally renowned and prestigious names of the Italian art scene of the XX and XXI century, together with Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana. Isgrò work can be considered among the most revolutionary and original within the so called Vanguardias of the year 60s. The Artist is the undisputed author of the ‘Cancellation (erasure technique)’ – the act of striking out the words of a printed book – something he began to explore in the early 1960s; Emilio Isgrò has made the ‘cancellation’ his poetic, although erasing is not to be considered as a metaphor in his practice, but as a actual action. He works on texts of real ‘covers’, transforming and renewing the meaning, without annihilating or destroying the value of the word or the image. As a pioneer of the ‘erasure’ of texts, encyclopedias, manuscripts, books, maps and even movie films, Emilio Isgrò has made his technique the essence of his research. He looks towards a sort of reverse reading and re-­interpretation of the language which, through various manipulations, goes from being verbal to being visual. As the Artist himself says: ”Erasures is not a simple negation, but instead it is the statement of new meanings: it is the transformation of a negative sign into a positive gesture”.