The "Gruppo 70" period (1960-1968)

The most momentous innovation, after the "pipe" period, was undoubtedly his rediscovery of the human figure, which once more entered the foreground of Antonio Bueno's painting. Between 1959 and 1962, the artist devoted himself almost exclusively to monochromatic compositions5; this kind of research culminated in an exhibition in collaboration with P. Manzoni and P. Scheggi, which he always said was "the first monochromatic exhibition ever presented in Italy" (1962). His first monochromes were mostly black, and employed the imprint technique (using sponge tampons mostly); less frequent were his reds or whites, whereas most of the monochromes produced around 1967 were white. It was probably to this that Giorgio de Chirico was referring when (in the second edition of his Memorie) he accused Bueno of "leucophilia"

Beyond his occasional collaborations with Scheggi and Manzoni, during this phase, Bueno also got to know and work with other artists of that generation, who, like himself were working in Florence. From 1959, a group, which besides Loffredo, included Vinicio Berti, Gualtiero Nativi, Alberto Moretti and Leonardo Ricci, came into being : "Nuova Figurazione" [New Figuration]. This fellowship, as Bueno so diplomatically wrote, presenting a collective exhibition at Florence's "Strozzina" (in 1961), did not intend "to question the validity of modern painting, the conclusive outcome of which was informal" but simply "to discover within the nebulae of informality, which mingles within its broad vortexes all the remains of previous experiences, the concretisation of some more definite nuclei". Shortly afterwards a "back-up" gallery, "Quadrante" (situated somewhat inconveniently on the third floor of a building on Lungarno degli Acciaioli) was made available, with Antonio Bueno actually acting as director.

The intention of Bueno and his colleagues was to form, rather than a definite and homogeneous school, a kind of front, an "alliance" of the more advanced tendencies present in the Tuscan capital of the time, with the purpose of reacting against academism which, in various forms, dominated the city, unopposed. The "Quadrante", during its three intense years of activity, presented exhibitions of the highest quality, involving some of the avant-garde's most illustrious names and the critical expertise of Argan and other illustrious scholars; of particular note was the international exhibition of the "Nuova Figurazione" organised by Bueno in 1962, under the patronage of the Florence Municipality, on premises at Palazzo Strozzi . All of these activities placed Antonio Bueno - after years of practically total isolation - at the centre of the most vivid artistic polemics, while bringing Florence back into the limelight as a primary art city, a thing which the city, probably, no longer desired. At any rate not many appeared to appreciate the efforts made. Ignored by the local press, which never reviewed even one exhibition, the "Quadrante" team continued to work in an atmosphere of indifference. To attract attention towards its activities it launched its own periodical bulletin, "Il Bollettino di Quadrante".

However, by now, Antonio Bueno felt himself totally at ease playing the part of promoter and provocateur, and the chilliness of the Florentine environment could no longer curb his untiring activism. In 1963 he was one of the chief advocates of a new rassemblement of artists, the "Gruppo '70" devoted to multimedial and inter-disciplinary research; their address was care of Florence's Feltrinelli book-shop. The "Gruppo '70" included, above all, the old "Quadrante" team (except Berti and Nativi, increasingly more inclined towards informal painting), and was tempered by a mixture of tendencies which went so far as to welcome contributions from musicians like Giuseppe Chiari and Sylvano Bussotti, poets such as Lamberto Pignotti and Eugenio Miccini and several other areas, for example Sergio Salvi and Achille Bonito Oliva. There was a close relationship (if not a veritable affiliation) with the contemporary "Gruppo '63". While the latter was a literary avant-garde movement, that of Bueno and his associates aimed at broader inter-artistic collaboration, regardless of disciplinary boundaries, and (often going beyond or disregarding traditional pictorial methodologies) taking an interest in sociology, the theory of communication and "visual poetry".

From the beginning, the group's common intent led to a form of "technological" art, that is, art using materials from the everyday consumer world of commerce, publicity, journalism ; materials which, rerouted from their normal functions, were ransomed from an aesthetic point of view and promoted to the status of anti-intellectual mass appreciation.Other explicit references to the pop-art universe are to be found in expressive schemata of clear cartoon inspiration7: Bueno contributed towards collective works such as Homo technologicus and Preistoria contemporanea [Contemporary Prehistory] which went in that direction. These were three-dimensional "show-pictures" set up in stalls similar to those one sees at a fair ; by setting a certain mechanism in motion, some large marionettes began moving, speaking and interacting with the public. The purpose of this kind of device was explained very clearly by Antonio Bueno in the short presentation leaflet accompanying Homo technologicus (presented for the first time in 1964 during a "Gruppo '63" convention at Reggio Emilia):

The principal cause of the "crisis" of modern art resides in the flagrant contradiction existing between the avant-garde which seeks to avoid contamination by strictly bourgeois market interests and the brutal fact that it is that all things considered very market which conditions it. There are far too many examples of works born with revolutionary intentions which […] after purchase were , by magic, transformed into objects used to decorate luxurious homes. This leads to the frequent need the avant-garde feels to change its course brusquely in the illusion of recovering its innocence and independence. The only way to escape this vicious circle is not so much to propose an avant-garde which subverts current aesthetic factors, as to subvert the economic relations which condition all modern art. My intention in creating the work called Homo technologicus , […] was to create, rather than a unique piece to offer to a sole collector , a show-picture available to the vaster public, ceding not the property but the use of the painting. This is why the work contains a device whereby whoever puts a coin into the appropriate slot may "consume" […] the show, not only pictorial, but musical and poetical, "contained" in the work, otherwise neither visible not audible. The definition 'show-picture' in itself indicates the need to bring together in the same work that of the painter, the musician and the poet too ( who, in the case of Homo technologicus are, respectively, Giuseppe Chiari and Lamberto Pignotti). Furthermore, I think that the very style of such an experience differs substantially from market-object paintings.

The "Gruppo '70" continued its work until 1968, periodically holding exhibitions and events of various kinds in "case del popolo" [Italian Communist Party cultural centres], and public libraries all over Italy . Antonio Bueno managed , in any case, to work outside of this particular ambit. In 1965, for example, he made a series of cartoon-pictures accompanied by texts by Emilio Isgrò, as well as examples of "audio-painting" using a typewriter; 1966 was the moment of the "Fata" [Fairy] anti-award (ironical parody of the "Strega" [Witch] award) , an operation planned and developed with Umberto Eco, with a view to castigating and fining artists who had won undeserved prizes. In 1966 too, in close collaboration with his colleagues Loffredo amd Moretti, Bueno devised a form of "painting by the yard", carried out on endlessly long rolls of canvas which were cut and sold at so much per inch; this singular exhibition was set up at "L'Indiano" gallery in Florence and the takings devolved in favour of the victims of the recent flood. The old idea of running a modern art gallery of his own, which remained one of Bueno's dreams to the last, was temporarily achieved during this period also: once more with the collaboration of Loffredo, the artist managed to set up a gallery in Paris, the "G 30". This was a kind of practical joke, a bluff: a "G 30" gallery never really existed , or rather, it existed but only sporadically and clandestinely (the premises consisted in the backroom of a tailoring establishment run by Loffredo's brother, loaned to them occasionally). Notwithstanding its curious nature, the initiative yielded some tangible fruits : in the fleeting "G30" gallery (thanks to the interest taken by Bueno and Loffredo) Rasai's very first Paris personal was held in 1969.

On all these unceasing and polymorphous activities, whether single-handed or in company, Bueno (it is important to say) made no profit. The energy and ideas he contributed to the avant-garde were in no way rewarded, except by expressions of esteem, critical appraisal: for his living expenses it was necessary to procure other means. As already pointed out, Bueno had to lead a sort of double life. During the day, for example, he travelled all over Italy with provocative and clamorous exhibitions, in order to appear innovative; at night, however, he had to shut himself up in his little Florentine studio and steal time from sleep to produce, quietly, more saleable and financially profitable paintings. The epoch of patronage, of portraits on commission to be painted post haste and against his will was, thank goodness, over; now, even the mundane and complacent side of his production contained precise elements of originality.

In this ambit, his most appreciated and popular works focussed on feminine faces and figures which the artist painted, from the fifties on using an increasingly new stylisation. These faces appeared at first only sporadically as a backdrop to the pipes and other objects which featured in the work of the period. From about 1958, when the "pipe" phase came to an end, the faces became the sole protagonists, and Bueno began a long and fortunate series of "variations on a theme" . At any event, for a long time he continued to consider this aspect of his production improper feeling suspicious of his limpid and easy figurative ability. For a long time he judged this production of "minor" importance, and avoided presenting it or exhibiting it at venues of a certain significance. Two examples confirm this attitude: in 1964, called on to take part in an itinerant "España libre" exhibition (for artists in exile from Franco's Spain) , he contributed only his "imprints"; in 1968 at the XXXIV Venice Biennale he took part with a series of monochrome reliefs only (introduced by a text by Sanguineti entitled Musica humana per Antonio Bueno [Human music for Antonio Bueno])