Gianni Colombo

A pioneering figure in kinetic and programmed art, Gianni Colombo anticipated many of the themes in today's contemporary art. This book covers key moments in Colombo's artistic course, spanning from 1959, the year he co-founded Gruppo T and first exhibited his work at the Galleria Azimut, to 1980, when he realized his first London environment at Hayward Gallery. Colombo's practice aimed at overcoming the traditional notion of art as an object to contemplate, in order to create work that requires the active involvement of the viewer. From his tactile pieces and works in motion of the late 1950s, to his immersive light installations of the 1960, into his mature large-scale environments, he conceived art as the place for an experience which belongs to both the body and the mind. His investigation of space is led by this idea of changing the spectator's conventional relationship with reality, both physically and psychically, encompassing also a broad dialogue with technology and architecture.