Galleria L'Uomo e l'arte - Milano

The King

April–May 1972

Milan, L'Uomo e l'arte Gallery

curated by Alain Jouffroy

In 1972, the Galleria L'Uomo e l'Arte in Milan presented I King, a solo exhibition by Aldo Mondino dedicated to the series of works of the same name that the Turin-based artist had begun two years earlier, in 1970.

I King arose from an intuition that was both ironic and autobiographical: starting with a puppet bearing a striking resemblance to the artist himself, Mondino depicted it arranged as if on the face of a clock, in a sequence of positions that transformed his own body into a measure of time and of painting. A series in which the encounter with painting also becomes an encounter with himself, with his own image and identity.

The exhibition at the Galleria L'Uomo e l'Arte holds particular significance in Mondino’s biographical and artistic journey: it represents, in fact, a sort of summary of this creative period, presented to the Milanese public before his return to Paris, where the artist would move to devote himself entirely to painting for the entire following decade. The King series remains one of the most original and recognisable in Mondino’s oeuvre, bearing witness to a creative exploration that skilfully combined self-deprecating humour with a profound reflection on the role of the artist.