Name Roberto Mangu | Role Artist | |
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Roberto Mangu / Exposition Italie - Brescia 2012
Roberto Mangú, also known as Roberto Mangu Quesada, and Roberto Mangou, is a contemporary artist, best known as a painter, who is also noted for his sculptures, installations, etchings and work as an architect. Born in 1948 and raised in France, from Italian and Spanish descent, Mangú self-defines as European.
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Biography
After a sculpture apprenticeship between 1963 and 1966 in the workshop of Mario Luisetti, Roberto Mangú studies at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts where he earnt a degree in architecture.
During his first period, between 1981 and 1986, he works in Paris where he paints monumental paintings: Aldébaran, Bételgeuse, Dolce Vita, which are shown at the Georges Lavrov art gallery and published in the Artforum review in 1983.
Between 1987 and 1995, Roberto Mangú lives in Milan where he notably paints a series of standing men (Hommes Debout / Uomini in piedi) that are shown among other places by Philippe Daverio and at the Musée Cantini in Marseilles. The paintings Corpus Mundi, San Francisco, or Le Bateau Ivre (inspired by Rimbaud's poem) are representative of this Milanese period.
Even though he worked as an architect at this period — Roberto Mangú built a villa in Asnières near Paris which gathered him great international praise — he self defines as a painter.
In 1995, Roberto Mangú moved to Spain where he resided in Sevilla then in Madrid. This is where Mintak was born in the shadow of a picture on San Francesco (a theme formerly painted by Zurbaran). Mangú defines Mintak as born from what he calls "the Jaguar spirit", and which is for him the figure of life and permanence.
Between 2001 and 2004, Roberto Mangú moved to a place near Toulouse where his art is once more deeply renewed. Inspired by the landscapes and a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, he develops new series including houses drawn in recess or pathways that seem to burst the painting (Camino de Santiago, Via Natura, Les Blés à la Cadiscié)
After living in Bruxelles, Roberto Mangú returned to France where he worked on new colours: the orange of his Permanenza period (shown in the works: Le Visage d'une Eve, La Suite du Temps, Salvador) then the calmer blue of his Mar Adentro period. He also developed the series of the previous period (his Maisons become Codex, Mintak haunts new series like Ombra dell'Inizio or Rivage).
Roberto Mangú has also had dozens of personal exhibitions of his paintings in galleries in France, Spain, Belgium and Italy.
Formal Aspects
Because of the vitality shown in his earlier paintings notably "Virée sur la côte" or "Taureau mécanique", his extraordinary knowledge and skillful use of colours especially intense reds (cf Lola), his work is sometimes mistakenly cited as belonging to one of the following movements: neo-expressionism, or Transavantgarde. Some have also wrongly likened his work to that of the nouveaux fauves.
As Alessandra Troncana remarks in the Corriere della Serra Mangú's work is far too original and personal to be so easily classified. Over time, he has shifted to darker colours and used a variety of techniques, working notably sometimes in negative: the object is drawn by taking off (rather than adding) colour through painting large surfaces in white on a coloured background (the "Pan y Vino" series). Later Mangú returned to colour, especially with the intense orange of his Permanenza period before coming back to calmer blues in his Mar Adentro period.
Themes
There are recurring themes in the work of Mangú. In Le Cœur émeraude de Roberto Mangú, Alain Santacreu sees in this the expression of "an ancestral pictorial tradition, primordial, rooted in the religiousity of origins."
Philippe Daverio wrote: "tu per me rappresenti una Spagna pittorica che non ha nulla a che vedere con i libri di storia dell’arte e ancor meno con i musei di Madrid. Ciò che mi ha colpito, la prima volta che ho visto i tuoi quadri, è lo spirito feroce, ribelle e indomabile che li animava. Ciò che mi ha convinto della loro autenticità, era quanto essi corrispondessero al tuo aspetto medesimo. Tu non hai ricominciato a dipingere. Tu hai sempre dipinto. E persisti nel dipingere a modo tuo, con tanto vigore. La tua visione fisica e corporale, la tua visione metafisica, è come le tue radici lontane nelle vie di Parigi, quelle dei gitani".
In the 1980-90s, these themes include standing men, monoliths, saints, which all seem to converge in his large masterpiece, a dark picture of a "Saint George" In the 2000-10s, according to Gwen Garnier-Duguy in Le Sens de l'Épopée, three central themes run through Roberto Mangú's paintings: Mintak, seen as an Aleph by Santacreu, Permanenza and La Refloraison du Monde