Peter Noser at Galleria Turchi - Montalcino, Italy - Brief Article

Peter Noser's objects display a thorough interaction with the art world, but not in the form of a cynical examination of its politics. Rather, in wall pieces that are trenchant yet appreciative, Noser allusively pays tribute to artists who are his friends, or to major figures in the field who are important to his thinking.

Noser has had many roles in the art world--as a gallery assistant in New York, gallery director in Italy, gallery owner in Zurich, founding curator of a kunsthalle in Switzerland, catalogue essayist, adviser to collectors and more. Nevertheless, he began as an artist, and this exhibition marks his return to the status of full-fledged sculptor.

In most of the pieces on view, a shallow wooden disk resembling an inverted pie plate sprouts a single, finely detailed appendage from a point on its circumference. Both elements are coated with intensely colored pigment. These reliefs bear symbolic or witty titles that include the word "world" plus a genitive phrase with a personal name or a description (here translated from the German or Italian originals). The offshoot forms may be abstract (a bristly shape in The World of the Unsuccessful Artist); they may be animals (a rooster in The World of the Macho) or art quotations (a blue sponge in Yves' World) or human figures (a rounded figure like a chess pawn in Annibale's World). Each element expresses a characteristic of the person or people to whom Noser refers. Several works consist of groupings of 2 to 15 disks, meant to imply more complex dialogues or relationships.

A highlight of the show was the pairing of Enrico's World and Alberto's World. The latter subject laureate is Giacometti, with whom Noser shares Swiss nationality. Enrico is the late Italian artist Enrico Mattioli, a friend of Noser's who made idiosyncratic figurative drawings. Enrico's World, in hazard-warning orange, is 37 inches in diameter with a slim, hooked projectile at the top that resembles a mix of question mark, exclamation point and upright lever. To its right was Alberto's World, 35 inches in diameter, in a rich blue. It is topped with a spindly man, though one that is thicker and smoother than Giacometti's signature figures. One "World" is garish, abstract and alludes to a close acquaintance of the artist's; the other is deep colored, representational and refers to a celebrated artist. In combination, these complementary works map the range of Noser's personal cosmos.

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