Artist/Maker:
Franco Assetto (1911 in Turin - 1991) was an Italian sculptor
and painter, who lived in the United States for much of his life.
His early work
anticipated Pop Art. At the Bread Show at the Galleria della Bussola,
Turin, in 1952 he presented the public with a number of Turin loaves
cast in bronze, eight years before Jasper Johns thought of casting
his two famous beer cans.
He was one of
a handful of artists who, like Fontana, Capogrossi, Burri and few
others, started again from zero acknowledging the informal experience
as the essential condition for the artistic quest in which Form
is given as the primary possibility to build the artists own existential
experience.
When experiments
with informalism reached saturation point he developed the Baroque
Autre.
He later became
interested in the artistic potential of water and designed a number
of public fountains. There is a museum of his work in Frontino,
Italy, where one of his fountains can be seen.
Other public
art includes the Via Crucis in Saint Basil's Catholic Church, Los
Angeles, and The Big Candy in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles.
