A Journey from Matter to Pure Form
Arnaldo Pomodoro, Nanni Valentini, Mario Schifano, Jerry Zeniuk
An exhibition project in collaboration with Studio Arnaldo Pomodoro, Archivio Nanni Valentini, Archivio Mario Schifano, and Jerry Zeniuk.
For Miart 2025, ABC-ARTE presents a journey that moves from matter to its sublimation into pure form, bringing together four artists from different generations: Arnaldo Pomodoro, Nanni Valentini, Mario Schifano, and Jerry Zeniuk. Despite their distinct languages and approaches, their works share a deep investigation of materiality and its relationship with time, space, and perception.
The sculptures of Nanni Valentini and Arnaldo Pomodoro mark the beginning of this journey. Valentini works with ceramics in an essential and archaic language, transforming earth into a vibrant surface that evokes the stratification of time. Pomodoro, on the other hand, shapes bronze by carving into it, creating openings that reveal a dynamic tension between structure and dissolution, between presence and absence.
This material dialogue connects with Mario Schifano through a selection of monochromes, works in which color is reduced to the essence of a single tone while maintaining a strong physical and gestural presence. Schifano’s painting is dense and layered, with a surface that becomes corporeal, oscillating between abstraction and living matter.
The journey naturally evolves into the works of Jerry Zeniuk, where painting is freed entirely from the weight of materiality, becoming pure light and perception. His fields of color vibrate on the canvas in a balance of chromatic tensions, evoking a spiritual and sensorial dimension.
Together, these artists construct a narrative in which matter progressively transforms into pure form, exploring the boundaries between the tangible and the intangible, between the concrete and the metaphysical.
