
Tanti-pom
1969
Tanti-pom presents a playful yet rigorous interrogation of the still life tradition through the unconventional assembly of painted boards, shaped wood, and mirror fragments. Pozzati constructs a shallow relief composition in which scallop-edged forms, some finished in matte white paint and others left as bare warm-toned wood, overlap and jostle against one another atop a rectangular ground. At the center of this arrangement sits a small, vividly rendered pumpkin, its orange and yellow tones and painted white seeds a deliberate intrusion of illusionistic representation into an otherwise resolutely object-based work. Fragments of aged mirror occupy the upper portion of the composition, reflecting the viewer and the surrounding space back into the picture plane, collapsing the distance between the artwork and its environment. The work belongs to a critical moment in Pozzati's practice when the Bologna-born artist, associated with the Pop Art currents circulating through Italian culture in the 1960s, was actively questioning the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and the everyday object. The assembled boards recall the fragmented shapes of tableware, serving dishes, or decorative motifs, referencing domestic still life conventions while simultaneously dismantling them through three-dimensional construction. The inclusion of mirrors extends this inquiry into questions of representation and reality, as the reflective surfaces refuse to hold a fixed image and instead shift with the viewer's movement and the conditions of display. Measuring 89 by 98.5 by 12 centimeters, the work occupies a distinctive space between painting and relief sculpture, housed within a straightforward pine frame that adds a further layer of self-aware quotation, situating the assembled construction within the conventional format of a hung picture. The lone printed or painted pumpkin, rendered with the flat graphic clarity of commercial imagery, carries Pozzati's characteristic wit, anchoring an otherwise abstract arrangement with a legible, even humorous, focal point. For the collector, Tanti-pom represents a sophisticated and historically grounded example of Italian conceptual and Pop tendencies at their most inventive, offering a work that rewards sustained looking through its layered material decisions, its quiet humor, and its sustained engagement with the conventions of pictorial representation.
- Medium
- Painting and mirrors on assembled boards
🔨 Auction Lot
Martini Studio d'Arte: Modern And Contemporary Art
June 10, 2026
Estimate: €5,000 to €7,000
Lot 181
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