Leonforte, 1947 – Turin, 2015

Salvo, pseudonym of Salvatore Mangione, was born in Leonforte, in the province of Enna, in 1947. In 1956, he moved with his family to Turin, which became his adopted city and where he frequented artists working in the sphere of Arte Povera. Here he matured his conceptual research, also thanks to his relationships with the American conceptual artists Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry and Sol LeWitt.

Since the end of the 1960s, themes such as the search for the self, the relationship with the past and the revisiting of art history are fundamental to his poetics.

In 1973, he returned to painting, which he had already practised in his early years of training, a choice that was considered unconventional at the beginning of the 1970s and that he continued to practise until his death as a personal quest in constant dialogue with the past.

The recovery of traditional techniques, the citation of the antique are mixed with memories of his numerous travels. Executed in brilliant colours, the subjects are landscapes captured both by day and night, classical ruins, vegetation, mountains and urban scenery.

His works have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions in institutions such as: Museum Folkwang, Essen and Mannheimer Kunstverein, 1977; Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, 1983; Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam and Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, 1988; Villa delle Rose, Bologna, 1998; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, 2002; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, 2007; Museo d’Arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, 2017 and MACRO, Rome, 2021.