A Romantic Conceptualist

Nespolo’s work during 1960s was neither purely conceptual nor merely visual as it would later become. Rather, it was a hybrid production, endowed with the salient characteristic of transversality: that of being the result of art’s gradual dispersion in culture. Nespolo has always characterised his production almost as if it were a “reflection of acculturation” (see Trini 1968) emerging from the artistic practice itself. Such mutual permeability between art and culture can also be assessed in the light of the blend of conceptualism and a more plausibly romantic attitude (see Heiser 2010). In the following pages, I will focus on these aspects in order to present the reasons that lead me to consider Nespolo, like many other artists active in the second half of the last century, a romantic conceptualist.