Angelo Stagnaro (1940-2018) was born in Casarze Ligure, a community on Italy's Mediterranean coast, south of Genoa (Genua), He would live there all his life.
He had a job as welder at the Riva Trigoso shipyard in Sestri Levante and in creating the metal sculptures for his art environment this experience came in handy.
A private museum and an art environment
The picture above shows him with one of his large collection of singlehandedly created sculptures, which he displayed in the garden around his house, a site named Il Parco dell Bombosculture
The house is a private museum, named Gemma Parmo(after Stagnaro's mother). Opened in 1982, it has an exposition of the many minerals Stagnaro collected from younghood on in various areas in Italy. Although a non-professional, Stagnaro earned a very good reputation as an expert on minerals. He wrote and lectured about the subject.
Initially Stagnaro wanted to use his garden to situate an extension of the museum, but this plan could not be realized, and so he used the garden for his bomboscultures.
Made from all kinds of recycled materials, sheet metal, iron elements, and especially empty gas bottles (bombola in Italian), these creations are modeled after and show the characteristics of legendary or historical personalities, such as Ariel, the fairy of the woods, Diana, the goddess or Gano, the warrior, all together some 200 creations.
Morgana
Stagnaro passed away in July 2018. Most of his sculptures have since been lost.
Documentation * Article on theCostruttori di Babele website
* The website Trigoso (in Italian, authored by ACLI, the Italian Christian Workers Organisation) has an evaluative account and a description of some twenty sculptures Stagnaro made.
* Article by Pavel Konečný, Il mondo riciclato di Angelo Stagnaro, in: web-magazine Cafe Boheme, February 2013
* On the website of Francesco Galli a series of photographs (2012)
* Article by Gabriele Mina, El Parque de "bomboesculturas". Para Angelo Stagnaro, in: web-magazine Bric-à-Brac, nr 2 (July 2019), p. 82-88
* Article by Giada Carraro on website Bric-a-Brac Italia
Videos
* Video by Francesco Galli (6'01", January 2013, YouTube)
* Video (March 2019) in a series by Costruttori di Babele (YouTube 9'22")
first published September 2010, last revised June 2019
Angelo Stagnaro
Il Parco dell Bombosculture
(jo Museo Mineralogico "Parmo Gemma")
Via Annuti 31
Casarza Ligure, Liguria, Italy
situation of the site is unclear after Stagnaro died
picture via museo gallerie d'arte moderna Italia (website not available anymore)
Ezechiele Leandro (1905-1981) transformed his house in San Cesario di Lecce, Italy, into a museum where he exposed his paintings and small sculptures. The garden outside, named the Sanctuary of Patience, became a sculpture garden with a vast collection of large sculptures.
Life and works
Leandro was born in Lequile, Italy. An abandoned baby, he was united with his father at the age of eleven. As a young man, in his mid twenties, he had artistic aspirations, focused upon making sculptures, but I did not come along any information saying that he followed lessons at an art school.
He married in 1933 and in the same year, to earn a living, he went to Africa, where he had a job as a miner. During his stay in Africa he became acquainted with the local way of transforming and coloring indigenous materials into art works.
After a stay of some years in Africa, he lived for some time in Germany and then was enlisted in the Italian army.
After World War II Leandro had various jobs, but finally he became operator of a bicycle shop in the community of San Cesario di Lecce. Here he bought a plot of land along the Via Gerundolo where he built the house that in later years would become the museum.
In 1957 at the age of 52 Leandro began making paintings, which earned him some reputation. He also was active in writing prose and poetry.
In the 1960s, when he was in his late fifties, Leandro began decorating the garden, embellishing its walls and making a large number of sculptures by applying concrete to iron frames and decorating the surface with mosaics made from pieces of glass, pottery and recycled material, that he collected when cycling around in the community.
undated picture by unknown photographer as published on pugliain.net July 2016
Some neighbours vehemently opposed the realization of the sculpture garden and asked the local authorities to remove it, an action without any result, although Leandro had to fortify the wall around the garden to protect his creation from unfriendly treatment by his fellow citizens.
In October 1975 the Sanctuary was officially opened. The house became a museum, that could be visited by the public.
Ezechiele Leandro died in 1981. His wife had passed away in 1970; the couple had a number of children, who became the heirs.
undated picture by unknown photographer, as published on ilecce.it (July 2016) (site not available anymore)
The site still exists, but is in decay
Currently the sculpture garden still exists. Until around 2013 actions to interest the authorities in taking measures to save the site failed and the sculptures, unprotected to the influences of the weather, were left to their fate. The Museo could not be visited anymore.
However, in 2013 a local group of friends of Leandro's oeuvre organised a petition, asking relevant Italian authorities to take better care of the site.
Expositions 2014 and 2016
Probably as a result of the activities of this group of friends, the city of Cesario di Lecce commissioned a retrospective exhibition featuring Leandro and his creations (February 28 - March 16, 2014 in the local Palazzo Ducal).
Curators Lorenzo Madaro and Luigi Negro hoped to rejoin the artist with his fellow citizens and strengthen a relationship that too often was misunderstood and difficult.
In the summer of 2016 another retrospective was organized under the auspices of local and regional authorities and organizations in the field of art, including the provincial museum Sigismondo Castromediano (Lesse), the Rizomi Art Brut Gallery (Turin) and the Osservatorio Outsider Art (Palermo). A first step towards saving the art environment (2014)
April 2014 the superintendent of the artistic heritage in Puglia announced a ban on the removal of art works from Leandro's Santuario without formal permission of the relevant Italian authorities, which can be seen as a first step towards saving the site for the future.
Documentation
* Wikiwand
* Facebook
* Newspaper article in the Nuovo Quotidiano di Puglia about the retrospective exhibition in 2016
* Lorenzo Madaro, "Ezechiele Leandro e il santuario dell'arte 'sostenibile'", in: Rivista dell'Osservatorio Outsider Art, no 5 (October 2012)
* Helen Marsala, "Ezechiele Leandro e il Santuario della Pazienza. Storia di une vocazione, tra il margine e l'abbandono" (Ezechiele Leandro and the Sanctuary of Patience. The story of a vocation, between margin and abandonment), website Artribune, 2 November 2013
* Article on websiteCostruttori di Babele
Videos
* Clip from a TV broadcast in the 1970's (13.57, uploaded November 2010, YouTube)
* Video by Leccecronaca (2013, YouTube, 0.31), a impression of the overgrown site
first published September 2010, last revised August 2020
header of the museum's web page announcing the expo
From September 2010 until January 2011 the Gallen-Kallela Museum, Espoo, Finland, had an exposition about outsider art, which was organized because in 2010 it was 175 years ago the Kalevala,the famous Finnish epic of folk poetry, was first published.
The exposition looked at the way contemporary Finnish outsider and folk artists interpret the Kalevala,
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) was a Finnish painter who as no other has reproduced the stories of the poems of the Kalevala into paintings, in this way making a great contribution to the development of Finnish national identity. The house where he lived, in the Helsinki area, is now the Gallen-Kallela Museum.
The Finnish self-taught artists who produce ITE-art (ITE = itse tehty elämä, self made life), unlike Gallen-Kallela didn't focus upon representing the stories of the Kalevala as such. The relation is, that in general their creations depart from the mood that is characteristic of the epic. So the theme of the exhibition is that the poems act as a mindscape.
The exhibition was curated by Tuula Karjalainen, and the catalog was edited by Minna Haveri and Ulla Piela (Kalevala Society).
first published September 2010, last revised May 2014 ITE - Kalevalainen mielenmaisemal Gallen-Kallela Museum Gallen-Kallelan tie 27, 02600 Espoo Finland
this picture and the next one show the Arnhem bus station
as it was exposed in the dr Guislain museum in Gent (it currently is exposed in Dolhuys Museum, Haarlem)
Willem van Genk (1927-2005) generally is seen as one of the most important outsider artists in the Netherlands. Since the 1990s he has become better known and currently his paintings and drawings can be found in the collections of a lot of outsider and folk art museums.
Van Genk did not make his visual art in order to become famous by public exhibitions. He was reluctant to sell his artwork. For him, making these drawings, paintings, constructions, structures and collections, was meant to create his own world, a creation he had to do as a way to retain hold on his life.
A problematic life
Born in 1927 in the community of Voorburg, near the Hague, Netherlands, Willem van Genk was autistic, which probably was not recognized in the time he grew up. When he was at the age of five his mother died and he was educated by his father and nine sisters. At the age of ten he was sent to a boarding school.
During the 1940/45 war, at a young age, he was interrogated by the German military police about the whereabouts of his father, who took part in the resistance. This happening and the black leather coats of the Gestapo-men deeply impressed the young man and during all his life van Genk had an enormous fascination for black coats. He gathered up a large collection of such clothing.
Willem van Genk had some jobs, such as working in an advertising agency. Although he made nice drawings, he couldn't adapt to the routine of the office. In the parental home he also couldn't hold himself. He went to live in a pension and from 1947 on he was employed in a sheltered workshop for people with disabilities, where he had to perform simple tasks such as putting dish-washing brushes together.
In 1958 van Genk applied for admission to the art academy in the Hague and its director Joop Beljon, who had recognized van Genk's talent, admitted him. But van Genk was not able to participate in the programs, also because the director of the sheltered workshop wouldn't allow him enough time to attend these, so he ultimately would remain an autodidact. Beljon, incidentally, was the one who arranged that van Genk in 1964 got an exhibition (in the canteen of a printing plant in Hilversum)
In the early 1970s van Genk was declared incapacitated to work. After his sister had died, van Genk in 1972 inherited the apartment. He lived there on his own, but now he was able to work undisturbed and gradually the rooms got filled with collages on the wall, paintings and drawings, his collection of black coats, installations and thousands of books.
In 1976 van Genk had another solo exhibition, which was opened by Nico van der Endt, at that time and for many years to come the owner of an art gallery named Gallery Hamer in Amsterdam, with whom he not only got a business relationship but also a friendship. Although van Genk did not like to sell his artwork, ultimately he just agreed that a number of museums in the field of outsider art could buy his visual art (On Wikipedia an overview is available of these museums)..
In his paintings and drawings van Genk created his own world. He was especially interested in means of transport, like trains, buses and airplanes, and in nodes of transport, like stations. From discarded material he also constructed various models of buses and other transport facilities.
Van Genk has traveled Europe. With a travel company he visited Paris, Rome, Madrid, Copenhagen and Prague. However, he never visited Moscow, London and Tokyo, but getting acquainted with these cities by studying travel guides and maps, he was able to depict scenes of these urban settings.
Arnhem bus station
In 1988 van Genk stopped painting and began making ensembles that combine various creations and constructions from discarded material, such as used packaging cardboard. One of the larger ensembles was the installation which depicts the Arnhem bus station.
detail (Willem van Genk Foundation, published on FB))
This ensemble, about two meter wide, included some thirty trolley buses and a variety of masts and wires. In the field of art environments it can be considered as an installation consisting of miniature constructions and scenes. Arranged in the living room, it could be seen by eventual visitors of the apartment.
van Genk sitting in front of the bus station
picture by unknown photographer, published January 2020
on the FB account of the Outsider Art Museum (Amsterdam)
Van Genk also made another, more detailed series of trolley buses, but this one he kept secret. All together he probably has created some 79 trolley buses.
His health deteriorated
In the 1990s van Genk's health deteriorated in such a way that he had to be hospitalized various times. Ultimately he could not live at his own anymore and he had to stay in nursing homes until his death in 2005.
His house was vacated in 1998. The paintings and drawings, the books and the collection of coats were saved. Although a number of the trolley buses were scattered, a large part of the Arnhem bus station ended up in the collection of Dutch outsider art association de Stadshof.
Exposition of the Arnhem Bus Station
For a number of years the installation was exposed in the Guislain museum, Gent, Belgium.
Currently, from January 2016 on the Arnhem Bus Station is exposed in the Museum van de Geest (Museum of the Mind) in Haarlem, Netherlands.
This installation includes more items, and is therefore not identical to the arrangement in the house of van Genk. In 2019 the bus station was part of the large exhibition dedicated to the life and work of van Genk in the Outsider Art Museum in Amsterdam.
Documentation\ * Phil Beard, Willem Van Genk: Master of Bus, Tram and Trolley, article in weblogNotes on the arts and visual culture, November 15, 2018 * Albert Mobilio, "In Transit: Willem van Genk’s Cardboard Trolleys", in: Hyperallergic, September 13, 2014
* Ans van Berkum, article on Willem van Genk in Raw Vision, nr 36 (1998) and another one with an analysis of his Collage of Hate also in Raw Vision nr 102 (2019)
* Nico van der Endt, Willem van Genk, een kroniek/a chronicle. Eindhoven (Ed. Lecturis), 2014.
-124 p. ill
* Website of the Dutch outsider art collection de Stadshof
texts in Dutch: * Extensive and well documented article in Wikipedia
* Dick Walda, Koning der stations. Amsterdam (De Schalm), 1997 (ISBN 90-71230-05-8)
* Ans van Berkum, Willem van Genk bouwt zijn universum. Arnhem (Lannoo), 2010. -144 p.
* Eva von Stockhausen, "De mantelzorg van Willem van Genk" (van Genk's raincoats), in: Out of Art, 2014-2 (December 2014); translation into English in the English section of the magazine.
Current expositions
* The first exposition of van Genk in the USA "Mind traffic" took place from September 5th until December 1st 2014 in the Folk Art Museum in New York
* The Museum van de geest, dept Outsider Art, in Amsterdam, Netherlands had an overview exposition (September 19, 2019 - March 15, 2020).
Video
* Video about van Genk's life and work (2021, YouTube, 20'05") by Theo Faber (in English)
first published September 2010, last revised July 2024
Willem van Genk Arnhem bus station
originally located in his home in the Hague, Netherlands currently exposed in the Dolhuys Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands
first two pictures courtesy of prof Amedeo la Greca, president of the "Centro di Promozione Culturale per ilCilento"
The picture above shows Guerino Galzerano in front of one of his buildings, a castle-like structure. Decorating constructions with pebbles was his specialty. He would use thousands and thousands of these little stones which abundantly could be found in the local rivers.
Life and works
Guerino Galzerano (1922-2002) was born in a small village near the Italian community of Castelnuovo Cilento, south of the cities of Napoli (Naples) and Salerno. His father died when Guerino still was a young boy and he would attend school only for a limited number of years.
During World War II, conscripted in the Italian army, he witnessed the horrors of the battle field, which may have traumatized him. After the war, when a friend of him was assassinated, he became a suspect because -as the story goes- he didn't weep at the funeral. He was sentenced and put in (psychiatric) custody for a number of years.
this picture shows the front of Galzerano's house
In 1956 Galzerano married Teresa and settled in Castelnuovo Cilento. To earn his living he went to Germany as a guest worker.
It so happened that in 1970 some dramatic events took place: rumors (true or not) about a love affair of Teresa made Guerino return to Italy and threaten the involved man and his mother. Once more he was convicted and put in jail.
When in 1977 he was a free man again, he settled in the house in Castelnuovo Cilento (Teresa had meanwhile left for Germany). Living there a simple life, alone, with few means, he began decorating the house in his characteristic way, using these little stones from the river.
this picture and the next two courtesy of Cristina Calicelli
This way of decorating may have to do with Galzerano's preference for old, classic forms of buildings, he may have seen while travelling around in rural Italy, as he probably has been doing.
He not only decorated the exterior of the house, the interior has been transformed by constructing alcoves, which, like the walls, have been abundantly decorated with pebbles.
In the garden various decorated structures came into being.
To all appearances the local authorities had no problems with Galzerano's decorative and architectural activities.
One activity however caused some commotion among the inhabitants: in 1982 he made his own tombstone with somewhat quirky texts.
this picture courtesy of prof. Amedeo la Greca
Decorations at the foot of the old castle Castelnuovo Cilento.
After decorating the house, he made a creation in the garden at the foot of the medieval castle in Castelnuovo Cilento. In the same style as the house, again working with pebbles, he decorated the space with a series of sculptures in the shape of a kind of totems.
This creation is currently in decay.
A large castle
He then built a large castle on a site in the small village of Santa Caterine, outside Castelnuovo Cilento, again using pebbles as material.
The castle has a large entrance arch, all kinds of niches and is equipped with stone tables and chairs.
The texts on the tombstone
Guerino Galzerano died in 2002.
The texts on above depicted tombstone read:
above
My name is
Galzerano Guerino
born in Chiusa dei Cerri
community of Castelnuovo Cilento
on 2 5 1922 and deceased ... ..
the son of Giuseppe and of Maria Nilate.
here are my mortal remains.
here human law ends and begins Gods law.
left:
In front of this grave of
Galzerano Guerino
please be well-mannered
friends and relatives
do not place flowers or candles
thank you all in every way
right:
reminder
where I was
you are
where I am
you will be
Galzerano's house became a vacation home
After his death, a great-nephew inherited the house in Castelnuovo Cilento, who transformed it into a holiday home. This while retaining the striking decorations.
* Wikipedia
* Christina Calicelli, "Castelli Immaginari: Guerino Galzerano, Umberto Bonini, Enrico Capra", in: Costruttori di Babele, Gabriele Mina, (red), Milano (Elèuthera), 2011. I gratefully acknowledge that most of the factual information in above (revised) post, comes from this article.
* A comparable article by Cristina Calicelli in Bric-à-Brac, 2012, 2.
* I also saw a referral to Luci Isabella, Guerino Galzerano, La vita e l'opera dell'artista, illustrata da una raccolta fotografica
Video
* Video (15,42, YouTube, January 2020) by Cilentano.it. This video has scenes of the old castle and the creations at its foot made by Galzerano
first published September 2010, last revised April 2024
Guerino Galzerano Decorated structures Castelnuovo Cilento, Salerno, Campania, Italy the house where Galzerano lived, is on the Via Roma
