From his earlier, abstract pieces Gianfranco Notargiacomo has moved toward a wholly unexpected figuration, one which has nothing to do with the figurative classicism currently flooding the Italian scene. His previous work is characterized by a convulsive gesturality, in which foaming and dripping light greens, reds, and purples are contrasted with nervous surfaces of dark blacks and grays. Notargiacomo has now abandoned the abstract gesture, and the image clearly appears—a precise, readable object. The reference, however, accords more to a type of abstraction than to one of realism, for the

Nunzio Di Stefano’s work, previously little known, moves through the fields of painting and sculpture, drawing ambiguities rather than firm certainties from both. Here he showed 11 large painted sculptures, vaguely naturalistic plaster forms which allude to tree bark detached from the trunk, to seashells of abnormal size, to chips of corroded stone. The analogy to nature is basic. Di Stefano’s procedure is one of impressions, traces, and marks; he does not work in full relief or through the exploration of volume, but smooths the skin of sculpture. Evoking a body that slips out of sight, he lets