(Fabriano 1929–2008 Trevi)
Cementarmato n. 5, 1960, signed, titled and dated G. Uncini / Agosto 1960 on the reverse, concrete and iron, 150 x 100 cm

Photo certificate:
Archivio Uncini, Bergamo, archive no. 60–007

Provenance:
Galleria Fumagalli, Bergamo
VAF Stiftung Collection, Frankfurt am Main
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Milan, Cementarmati, Ferrocemento, Mattoni, Ombre, Galleria Tega,14 September-30 October 1991, exh. cat. p. 19 with ill.
Perugia, Trilogia 8. Uncini, Cotani, Pepe, Rocca Paolina, 21 February - 15 March 1998, exh. cat. p. 10 with ill.
Pistoia, Giuseppe uncini. L’immaginaria misura, Palazzo Fabroni, 6 May - 9 July 2000, exh. cat. p. 16 with ill.
Mannheim, Giuseppe Uncini, Raum aus Fläche und Struktur, Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, 20 October 2001 – 6 January 2002, exh. cat. p. 110 with ill.

Literature:
Bruno Corà, Giuseppe Uncini. Catalogo ragionato. Silvana editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, Milan 2007, p. 216, no. 60–007 with ill.

The archive was informed that the work is numbered 32 on the reverse while it was originally archived and published as numbered 5.

“Giuseppe Uncini created his art in a stretch of time that approximately extends from the late 1950s to the early 2000s, thus spanning a period between the end of modernity and the beginning of post-modernity. His artistic narrative, however, is one entirely shaped by modernity, both for his choice of materials – cement and iron – and for the way he arranges forms and abstract volumes. [...] Reinforced concrete, no doubt, is a specifically modern material. Just as ancient civilizations are divided into those of the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, so it would be possible to argue that modern civilization belongs to the Cement or reinforced Concrete Age. Without cement and reinforced concrete there could have been no modernity.
Hence, the work of most modern architects – such as Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies Van der Rohe – is tightly linked to this material, which was used even before the 19th century by August Perret, whose studio was Le Corbusier’s training ground.
[...] Uncini, then, is a modern artist who works who works in a modern spirit while also caring about tradition: for it is in tradition that he finds his inspiration and roots.” .
Di Pietrantonio in „Giuseppe Uncini - Il cemento disegnato / concrete design“ p. 22

“My concrete is more beautiful than stone. I work and chisel it. By combining it with gravel made of granite or sandstones from the Vosges as an aggregate [...]
I turn it into a material that surpasses the most precious veneers [...]
Concrete is a stone that is being born, while natural stone is a dying stone.”
August Perret, 1944