Carla Accardi

Private collection, Turin

Galerie Di Meo, Paris

Private collection, Monaco (acquired from the above in 1991)

Rome, Galleria San Marco, Accardi, 16 - 30 June 1955

Paris, Galerie Stadler, Accardi, Delahaye, Dova, Claire Falkenstein, Gillet, Guiette, Hosiasson, Jenkins, Jeanne Laganne, Serpan, Tapies, Tobey, 1955

Germano Celant, Carla Accardi, Milan 1999, no. 1955 17, p. 28, illustrated in colours ; p. 253, illustrated

A central figure of postwar Italian abstraction, Carla Accardi established herself from the late 1940s as one of the leading artists of the Forma 1 group. A founding member and the only woman representing this movement founded in Rome in 1947, she explored a liberation of visual artistic language combined with a strong Marxist commitment within a post-fascist political context. She distinguished herself through a pioneering investigation of the sign, introducing as early as the beginning of the 1950s notions of calligraphy and bichromy, and developing a singular vocabulary in which the sign becomes both the structure and the language of the painting.

Created in 1955, Labirinto negativo stands as a rare and major example of her black-and-white compositions, among the first to adopt such chromatic reduction. Here, Accardi develops a system of calligraphic signs that acquire meaning only through their relationship to one another, within a dynamic and evolving structure. As Palma Bucarelli noted: “The sign is not something defined in itself; it is not conceived as a single, autonomous entity, but only within a context from which it cannot be isolated (...). What the painting actually presents is a visual rhythm...” (Palma Bucarelli, Carla Accardi, 1983). This conception of the sign as a relational, autonomous, and structural element echoes the artist’s own words, for whom the sign “acquires a magical and intelligent meaning, imbued with rigorous necessity, but also with unpredictable play” (Germano Celant, Interview with Carla Accardi, March 1998).

This evolution takes place within a broader context of the internationalization of the Italian art scene, nourished by the discovery of American Action Painting and by the growing dialogue between contemporary artists from both countries. From the late 1940s onward, reproductions and articles devoted to Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline circulated throughout Europe, while institutional exchanges multiplied: exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Peggy Guggenheim’s initiatives in Venice, and the opening of galleries dedicated to Italian art in Manhattan. The famous photographs of Pollock painting on the floor had a profound impact on Italian artists, redefining the act of painting as an intuitive and physical gesture. In this context, Accardi developed from 1953 onwards her “white on black” works executed horizontally, directly on the ground: “It was a year of crisis, I was very discouraged and I thought I could no longer do anything in painting. And, in isolation, I began painting directly on the floor, making marks. But I used white on black (...). I made these works directly on the ground, and for years I painted this way because I could not conceive of this kind of mark in relation to easel painting…”.

Far from being a simple transposition of American practices, this choice represents a true artistic stance for Accardi: painting on the ground becomes not only a way of engaging the body differently, but also a means of rethinking the pictorial surface as an open space, where the sign unfolds freely, liberated from the constraints of the easel. This approach encourages the emergence of an autonomous language in which repetition, variation, and the relationships between signs take precedence. “When I made these black-and-white paintings, I usually began with a drawing (...) from which a universe of signs, structures, and assemblages emerged” (Hans Ulrich Obrist, Flash Art, 2008).

In Labirinto negativo, the interweaving of black and white generates a rhythmic architecture in which signs are constantly transformed, producing a vibrant equilibrium. The work, both organic and constructed, unfolds a fluid energy that evokes both textile patterns and complex symbolic structures, establishing Accardi as one of the great inventors of a rigorous and deeply innovative abstract language.