Salvo (1947–2015) began his career in the 1960s with early experiments involving photomontage, text and engraved marble. His conceptual practice was reconceived in 1973, when he turned decisively to painting as its unlikely vehicle. In his singular body of work, Salvo returns again and again to the same archetypal locations—Mediterranean landscapes, Classical ruins, factory districts, snowy mountainscapes and villages—each holding a universal familiarity. Through this gesture of repetition and refinement, the specific geographies of these recurring motifs dissolve, pushed to a point of “maximum tension” until they break free. What remains are pretexts for experiments in color, form and light. On the occasion of Berlin Art Week 2026, Sprüth Magers is pleased to present La città, an exhibition of paintings that dwell in the city. The presentation in the Berlin gallery’s Window space celebrates Salvo’s fascination with the urban as motif—and, within it, the nocturnal as the condition that enables the interplay between architectonic form and his articulation of light, refracted into ever-deeper registers of color.

About Salvo