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Artists

Giovanni Anselmo

b. Borgofranco d'Ivrea, Italy, 1934
d. Turin, Italy, 2023

Italian artist Giovanni Anselmo made artworks that provocatively investigated universal fields of magnetism and energy. He was associated with Arte Povera, a movement that developed around the Northern Italian city of Turin in the 1960s as a loose association of artists interested, in part, in the aesthetic promise of humble materials. For Anselmo this often meant wringing creative results from items like vegetables, water, stone, electricity, and everyday household objects. His 1968 sculpture Direzione (Direction), in Glenstone’s collection, pairs implausible artifacts—including a compass, one glass, and a long cloth—into an energetic composition that concretizes a single, directed motion.

–From the Glenstone Field Guide