Claudio Girola

Claudio Mario Girola Iommi (1923, Rosario – October 1994, Viña del Mar) was an Argentine-Chilean visual artist, poet, and professor, known for his avant-garde sculptures, many of which are on display in Argentina and Chile. He is considered one of the driving forces behind the revival of Latin American visual art in the latter half of the 20th century.

He is also known for being a signatory of the Manifiesto de Cuatro Jóvenes (Manifesto of Four Young Artists) in 1942 which protested the annual National Art Exhibition of Buenos Aires (Salón Nacional de Buenos Aires) competition and its effects on art education in Argentina, as well as Argentine art education as a whole.

Early life and education Claudio Girola Iommi was born in 1923 in Rosario, Argentina, to Santiago Girola and Maria Iommi. His parents were Italian immigrants, his father from Milan and his mother from Ancona. He had two younger siblings, Enio Iommi (1926–2013), a prolific sculptor, and Nidia Girola Iommi (1929–?). His family relocated to Buenos Aires shortly after his birth. His maternal uncle, (1917–2001), was a notable poet, architect, and educator.

Girola began studying art with his brother Enio in their father's workshop, where they learned sculpting from their father. His work with Group MAC in Milan allowed him to gain exposure in Como.

In 1951, Girola briefly returned to Buenos Aires where he joined the Group of Modern Argentine Artists (Grupo de Artistas Modernos de la Argentina, GAMA) and participated in an exhibition of theirs at the Viau Gallery in Buenos Aires.

In 1965, Girola and his uncle Godofredo took part in the first Travesía de Amereida, an annual artistic expedition from Punta Arenas to Santa Cruz de la Sierra which consisted of designers, sculptors, poets, painters, and architects from Latin America and Europe. He was a contributor to the 1967 multi-authored poem about the expedition, Amereida. Following his return from this expedition, his works were featured in two high-profile exhibits at the Visual Arts Center of the Di Tella Institute: the Argentina in the World Exhibition in 1965, and the Beyond Geometry Exhibition in 1967.

Style Girola primarily created abstract works of sculpture and painting within the concrete art style. He originally started creating sculptures in the traditional Argentine figurative style before transitioning to an abstract planar style with oblique, horizontal, or curved forms that broke traditional mass into spatial planes. Instead of traditional solid mass, his sculptures became constructs of planes (vertical, horizontal, or oblique) interacting in space to suggest movement and tension. Claudio Girola Iommi died in Viña del Mar in October 1994. He was buried at at the Ciudad Abierta in Ritoque.

Works

Notable solo exhibitions Source: 1947: New Art Exhibition, Kraft Hall, Buenos Aires 1948: Concrete Art Exhibition, Müller Gallery, Buenos Aires 1949: Salto Bookstore Gallery, Milan 1949: Concrete Art Exhibition 1949-1950, Como 1952: Argentine Concrete Artists, Exhibition Hall, Ministry of Education, Santiago 1952: Concrete Art, Miramar Hotel, Viña del Mar 1953: Argentine Sculpture, Krayd Gallery, Buenos Aires 1953: Concrete Art, Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro 1953: Ten Great Masters, Paseo Defensa, San Telmo 1961: Claudio Girola, Sculptures, Retrospective 1945-1960, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago 1962: XXXI Venice Biennale, Venice 1963: From Concrete Art to the New Argentine Tendency 1944-1963, Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires 1964: Pascal Gallery, Paris 1965: Eight Sculptors, La Ruche Gallery, Buenos Aires 1965: Argentina in the World, Visual Arts Center of the Di Tella Institute, Buenos Aires 1967: Beyond Geometry, Visual Arts Center of the Di Tella Institute, Buenos Aires 1968: International Exhibition of Abstract Sculpture, Amsterdam Biennial, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1968: Drawings by Claudio Girola, Exhibition Hall of the School of Architecture of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Valparaíso 1970: Abstract Sculpture, Hebrew Society of Argentina, Buenos Aires 1970: Claudio Girola, Sculptures, Rubbers Gallery, Buenos Aires 1971: Claudio Girola, Sculptures, Central Art Gallery, Santiago 1971: XI Biënale Middelheim Antwerpen, Antwerp 1971: Fifty Years of Argentine Sculpture, National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires 1971: The Family, Carmen Waugh Gallery, Santiago 1974: Claudio Girola, Sculptures, Temperas and Inks, Carmen Waugh Gallery, Buenos Aires 1976: Avant-garde of the 1940s, Eduardo Sivori Museum of Plastic Arts, Buenos Aires 1977: Eleven Spaces, Ruth Bencazar Gallery, Buenos Aires 1978: Braque Prize Retrospective 1963-1969, Eduardo Sivori Museum of Plastic Arts, Buenos Aires 1985: Eleven Artists from Valparaíso, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago 1985: Contemporary Chilean Sculpture, Art Gallery of the University of Concepción, Concepción 1985: Abstraction in the 20th Century, Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires 1987: Argentine Sculpture, the Last 15 Years, Center for Modern Art, Buenos Aires 1987: Dispersa II, Carmen Waugh Gallery, Santiago 1990: Art in Latin America, London, Stockholm, Madrid 1991: Claudio Girola Sculpture and Journey 1940-1991, Providencia Sculpture Park, Santiago 1992: Chilean Pavilion at the Universal Exposition, Seville 1992: Sculptural Presence, Providencia Sculpture Park, Santiago 1992: Thirty Years of Sculpture, Praxis Gallery, Santiago 1992: Academic Artists of the Universities of Valparaíso, El Farol Hall, Valparaíso

Group exhibitions Source: 1946: Concrete Art-Invention Association Exhibition, Peuser Hall, Buenos Aires (with AACI) 1947: Concrete Art-Invention Association Exhibition, Van Riel Gallery, Buenos Aires (with AACI) 1952: Modern Artists of Argentina, Viau Gallery, Buenos Aires (with GAMA) 1953: Group of Modern Artists, Krayd Gallery, Buenos Aires (with GAMA) 1953: Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro (with GAMA) 1955: Viau Gallery, Buenos Aires (with GAMA) 1963: Carlos Pacheco and Claudio Girola, Nice Gallery, Buenos Aires (with Carlos Pacheco) 1963: Sculptures by Claudio Girola and Ennio Iommi, National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires (with Enio Iommi) 1981: Francisco Méndez-Claudio Girola, Sala de Arte Viña del Mar, Viña del Mar (with Francisco Méndez Labbé)

Posthumous exhibitions Source: 1995: 50 Years of the Concrete Art-Invention Association, Cultural Center of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires 1999: A Creative Horizon by Claudio Girola, El Farol Hall, Valparaíso 2001: Claudio Girola, Sculptor, National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago 2007: Art and Natural Resources: Mining, Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Chile, Santiago 2007: Claudio Girola: Invention and Journey 1923-1994, Telefónica Foundation, Santiago