Remo Bianco

Remo Bianchi, known in art as Remo Bianco (Milan, 1922), in 1937, after practicing various professions to support himself, enrolled in evening drawing courses at the Accademia di Brera. There, in 1939, he was noticed by Filippo De Pisis, who was to become his teacher. During World War II, he was enlisted in 1941 as a machine-gun pointer on a destroyer and, following the sinking of the ship, he was rescued by the British and interned in Tunis. After a brief stay in Sassuolo, he returned to Milan in 1944 where he resumed drawing school and contacts with De Pisis. Between 1945 and 1950, he made mainly figurative oil paintings influenced by Rouault’s Postimpressionism and the early works of Cézanne, as well as Picasso’s research. On the edge of the 1940s, he also experimented with his first three-dimensional works and his first plaster Impronte.

In the early 1950s, he was close to Lucio Fontana’s Spatialism research, including materials such as stones and fragments of glass in his works, while, at the same time, producing works, which he called Nucleari, with a strong material impact. Around 1951 circa dates the meeting, fundamental to his life, with the Milanese entrepreneur Virgilio Gianni, whom he met through De Pisis at Villa Fiorita in Brugherio. Gianni, close to Carlo Cardazzo’s milieu, would become his patron, as well as collector and friend. In January 1952, he exhibited for the first time in a group show – Autoritratti di Artisti Contemporanei – at Carlo Cardazzo’s Galleria del Naviglio. In the October of the same year his first solo exhibition was held at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice with a presentation by Virgilio Guidi. On June 27th, 1953, he presented his 3D works for the first time at Galleria Montenapoleone 6A in Milan, with a presentation by Lucio Fontana in the catalog.
In February 1954, he exhibited a group of 3Ds at the Naviglio, with an introduction in the catalog by Salvatore Quasimodo, and in July at the Cavallino, with a writing by Virgilio Guidi. According to one of his diary note, just as he was on his way to Venice for the exhibition, his first plaster prints were created. In 1955, thanks to a scholarship offered to him by a group of Milanese industrialists and collectors, including Virgilio Gianni, he left for New York where he stayed a few months, also visiting Chicago and Florida. There he saw, for the first time,  an exhibition of Burri’s work and became acquainted with the work of Donati, Marca-Relli, Kline, and the Action Painting of Jackson Pollock, whose influence would later prove fundamental in the development of the Collages. In June 1955, he exhibited 3D works at the Village Art Center. His return to Milan was marked by the loss of his master de Pisis, who died in 1956. In the same year, he wrote the Manifesto dell’Arte Improntale, to which the production of the Impronte of palster and rubber objects, and the Sacchettini – Testimonianze – works in which he intervenes by taking everyday objects, often related to the world of childhood – is connected. After his return from the United States, he also began the Collages series. In 1957, he inaugurated the successful cycle of Tableau Doré, non-figurative works resulting from the development of the Collages technique in which he intervenes with gold leaf.

Between 1959 and 1960, he began to study the physical and aesthetic properties of Sephadex (a chemical gel that has the property of dividing substances according to their specific weight), the results of which would be displayed in the 1969 exhibition at the Moderna Musset in Stockholm. At the end of the year, he also held an exhibition of Tableau Doré at the Venice Casino with a presentation by Agnoldomenico Pica. In 1964, he published the First Manifesto dell’Arte Chimica and exhibited Impronte Viventi at the Cavallino. In 1963, he exhibited in Trento at Ines Fedrizzi’s Galleria Argentario; he participated in the San Marino Biennial and the Mediterranean Art Biennial in Alexandria, Egypt. 1965 is an eventful year. He first visits Bourges, then meets Mark Tobey in Basel and holds an Impronteexhibition at the Flaviana Gallery in Locarno, in which, in addition to the plaster Impronte and the Sacchettini – Testimonianze, he proposes again the Sculture Viventi. In Carrara, he drafts the Manifesto della Sovrastruttura and begins the cycle of the Appropriazioni, which includes the Sculture Neve, the Sculture Calde, the manipulations with gold squares of photos from newspapers, and the Bandiere. He thus begins to make use of the “module” of gilded squares “as a kind of personal, heraldic mark or abbreviation, superimposing it on existing reproductions by other artists, magazines, or illustrations.”

Between 1969 and 1970, he began the cycle of Arte Elementare. In 1970, a large Tableau Doré is exhibited in the Sala Volpi at the Venice Film Biennale. Starting in the same year and throughout the 1970s, he devoted himself to the Gioia di Vivere cycle. In the first half of the 1970s, his art also encroaches on performance and works that require the active participation of the public. This is the case of Idee per una scala, an autobiographical installation presented at the Naviglio Gallery (1972) and the show Sadico Mistico Elementare, which he wrote and performed at the Angelicum Theater in Milan (1972).

From the second half of the 1960s, connections with Paris were strengthened, particularly with critic Pierre Restany and the Raymond Cazenave and Lara Vincy galleries. In the latter gallery, the Quadri Parlanti (1976), Gioia di Vivere (1979) and Bandiere (1979) are presented. In 1977, the exhibition La realtà “improntale” was held at the International Arts gallery in Rome, presented by Miklos Varga and in which a selection of works from his entire production were exhibited. In 1978, he participated in the exhibition Metafisica del Quotidano in Bologna; the following year, he participated in the Opera dei Celebranti. Discorso sul Museo, in Ancona. In 1983, the Museo delle Albere in Trento, directed by Gabriella Belli, dedicated him an anthological exhibition. In 1984, he presented the exhibition Saint – Rémy du Blanc alias Remo Bianco at the Lara Vincy Gallery dedicated to Sculture Neve. From 1987, his health condition worsened. One of his last exhibitions, Drapeaux. Bandiere, is likewise held at the Lara Vincy Gallery in the spring of 1987. He passed away in Milan on February 23, 1988.