GIOVANNI LETO
Born in Monreale, Palermo, in 1946, Giovanni Leto left Sicily in 1964 to study at the Brera Academy in Milan. After returning to Palermo, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts while pursuing his research in abstract-informal art. In 1966, he held his first solo exhibition in Palermo to celebrate the opening of the Einaudi bookstore on Viale Libertà. He graduated from the Academy in 1968 and moved to Bagheria, where he became close to poet Ignazio Buttitta, formed a friendship with his son Pietro, and met the Futurist poet Giacomo Giardina. During this period, he developed the series Memorie al presente and Come segni di un diario, works that aligned with the experimental approach he had begun in the 1960s and reflected his growing interest in collage. By 1984, his artistic practice, increasingly characterized by the incorporation of unconventional materials into the pictorial field, aimed to define a new spatial dimension. He created the series L’eros del tatto, exhibited at the Ezio Pagano Gallery in Bagheria, and became immersed in the surrounding artistic scene. This period saw the emergence of key works such as Elementi in Superficie, Cornici dipinte e fasciate, and Corda, which marked significant developments in his spatial research. In 1985, Leto began creating his first Orizzonti, works composed mainly of tightly rolled and layered newspaper pages, forming dense horizontal stratifications. These object-like landscapes represented a decisive shift in his exploration of spatiality, emphasizing physicality and material presence. His work gained increasing recognition, with solo exhibitions presented by leading critics in the Italian contemporary art scene. Scholars such as Giuseppe Frazzetto, Giorgio Di Genova, Enrico Crispolti, Filiberto Menna, Pierre Restany, and Francesco Vincitorio were among the first to acknowledge his artistic significance. Throughout the late 1980s, Leto participated in numerous important exhibitions. Giorgio Di Genova invited him to Ricognizione anni 1980-85 at La Salerniana in Erice, while Giuseppe Frazzetto included him in Corde dell’arpa at the University of Catania and De la Séduction in Catania alongside Hsiao Chin and Michele Cossyro. Marcello Venturoli, who had highlighted Leto’s work in Flash Art as one of the most promising artists, curated a solo exhibition for him at the Hobelix Gallery in Messina. In 1986, the Guttuso Museum in Bagheria acquired his large-scale work Orizzonte delta for its collection. That same year, he participated in Arte e territorio in Abruzzo and was invited by Sergio Troisi to Siciliana - Rassegna d’Arte Contemporanea in Caltanissetta. His career continued to gain momentum: in 1988, he exhibited at Arte Fiera Bologna and participated in the Biennale del Sud in Naples, curated by Michele Bonuomo, Vitaliano Corbi, Giorgio Di Genova, Gillo Dorfles, Filiberto Menna, Pierre Restany, and Lea Vergine. The same year, the Municipality of Monreale organized an anthological exhibition, Geologia dell’Altrove, curated by Giorgio Di Genova. Leto also took part in the International Festival of Art in Baghdad in 1988, representing Italy alongside Giovanni Barucchello, Nado Canuti, Pasquale Di Fabio, Novello Finotti, Sergio Floriani, Paolo Pratali, Giovanni Soccol, Tito Amodei, and Walter Valentini. In 1989, he participated in the XXXIV Mostra Nazionale at the Civic Gallery of Termoli, curated by Enzo Santese. That same year, he exhibited in Sottosuolo del linguaggio, curated by Filiberto Menna and Francesco Gallo, at the Ezio Pagano Gallery in Bagheria. In 1990, he showed his work in the group exhibition Ausonia at the Di Sarro Center in Rome. During these years, Leto also expanded his artistic vocabulary. He developed the series Pozzi, Triangoli, Rombi, and Cerchi, which further challenged the traditional notion of painting as a "window onto the world." His work was widely exhibited in Italy and abroad, drawing the attention of critics such as Vittoria Coen, Sausen Faisal El-Samir, Luciano Caramel, Francesco Carbone, Emilia Valenza, Lucio Barbera, Guglielmo Gigliotti, Paola Nicita, Toti Carpentieri, Angelo Dragone, Monica Mantelli, and Marcello Palminteri. Enrico Crispolti featured Leto in La Pittura in Italia – Il Novecento / 3: Le ultime ricerche, published by Electa in 1994. In 1999, Flash Art (issue no. 215, April 1999) listed him among the 100 Best Italian Artists of the Last Forty Years, alongside Piero Manzoni, Pino Pascali, Alighiero Boetti, Luigi Ontani, Jannis Kounellis, and Maurizio Cattelan. Later, in 2001, Il Giornale dell’Arte (issue no. 195, January 2001) included him in its Best of 2000 list, alongside artists such as Jeff Koons, Fausto Melotti, Ed Templeton, Luciano Fabro, and Marisa Merz. In 2004, the Municipality of Bagheria dedicated a major retrospective to Leto at the Renato Guttuso Museum – Villa Cattolica, with a catalog featuring essays by Enrico Crispolti and Anna D’Elia. In 2005, he exhibited in Paris at L’Echange - III Salone Internazionale di Arti Plastiche e Figurative, alongside Carla Accardi, Renato Guttuso, Antonietta Raphael Mafai, Mario Schifano, Pippo Rizzo, and photographer Ferdinando Scianna. That same year, the G. Bargellini Museum of Art of Italian Generations of the 20th Century in Pieve di Cento acquired two of his works for its permanent collection of artists from the 1940s generation. Leto’s works are housed in prestigious collections, including the Renato Guttuso Museum in Villa Cattolica (Bagheria, Palermo), the G. Bargellini Museum in Pieve di Cento (Bologna), the Civic Contemporary Art Gallery of Sulmona (L’Aquila), and the Museum in Bagheria (Palermo). He continues to live and work in Bagheria.
