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A Travel Sculpture by Bruno Munari: Movimento Arte Concreta

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Bruno Munari, about whom there is a very interesting article here relating to a 2002 exhibition at the Milan Dobe� Museum, was one of the four founders of MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta, an Italian abstract art movement that flourished from 1948-1958. Born in Milan in 1907, Munari enjoyed a long career of restless creativity. In the late 1920s and the 1930s Bruno Munari was a member of Marinetti's Futurist movement, from which he disassociated himself after WWII, because of Futurism's links with fascism. Bruno Munari was a pioneer of installation art, mobile and kinetic art, photocopy art and all kinds of inventive creations such as his useless machines and unreadable books. Among his most charming creations are his "sculture da viaggio" - portable sculptures cut out of card that can be folded for travel. One of these was included in the final publication of MAC/Espace, the 1958 volume of Documenti d'arte d'oggi. Beautifully simple, and simply beautiful. Bru

Concrete Art in Italy: Movimento Arte Concreta

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Concrete Art is a term applied to various abstract art movements. The term was coined by Theo van Doesburg in his 1930 Manifesto of Concrete Art. Van Doesburg's insistence that art should be formed from the "concrete" elements of form and colour without reference to the physical world was championed by the Swiss artist Max Bill, a former student of Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky at the Bauhaus. In the late 1940s and the 1950s two groups influenced by Bill flourished in France and Italy: Groupe Espace and MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta. The two groups exhibited in combination in Italy as Gruppo Espace. Poster for the 1954-1955 Gruppo Espace exhibition in Milan, and the verso with woodcuts by Enrico Bordoni (1904-1969) and Silvano Bozzolini (1911-1998) MAC was formed in 1948 by four Italian artists: Atanasio Soldati, Gillo Dorfles, Bruno Munari, and Gianni Monnet. It disbanded in 1958, following the premature death of Gianni Monnet at the age of 46.   Besides collecti