Costantino Nivola: A Sardinian in New York

From rural Sardinia to Fifth Avenue, via Milan: Costantino Nivola’s life reads like a manifesto of the twentieth century. The son of a stonemason, he trained at the ISIA in Monza and later became art director at Olivetti. In 1939, he fled Fascist Italy for New York, where he moved in the circles of Pollock and de Kooning and became friends with Le Corbusier, sharing a studio with him for four years.
Triennale Milano, which Nivola knew well from his participation in 1936, now devotes a major exhibition to him, curated by Cecilia Alemani. More than 200 works explore his world, from graphic design to monumental sculpture, revealing an artist who fused the ancient heritage of Sardinia with American modernism.
At its heart is his most celebrated invention, sandcasting: a technique that emerged while playing with his children on a Long Island beach, shaping sand to create reliefs in plaster or concrete. Nivola brought the process into architecture, most famously in the spectacular Olivetti showroom on Fifth Avenue. For him, art was never meant to remain inside a museum: it belonged in cities, homes and everyday life.