Dimensions: 26,4x19,3x1,1
Pages: 143
ISBN: 9788895618210
ABC-ARTE continues it path of research and in-depth analysis of the theme of painting in the 1970s with the major European avant-gardes and their protagonists. In its endeavour to contradict the death of art and its reflections on the raison d’êtreof art through the specific act of painting, Analytical Painting successfully established itself internationally with new proposals and a return to the poetry of colour and material.
After the book La Pittura in sé/The Painting itselfby the collective of artists consisting of Pino Pinelli, Ulrich Erben and Claude Viallat, that on the personal exhibition of Giorgio Griffa entitled Esonerare il mondo,andFifty years of Painting on the personal exhibition of Tomas Rajlich, this one compares the parallel trajectories of three artists who have been protagonists of the historical experiences of Fundamental Painting and Radical (or Analytical) Painting.
Giorgio Griffa has a way of painting that puts the emphasis on features that are considered essential such as colour, space and composition. His canvases are free, not confined by the stretcher, ready to conquer the space. In this immediate, essential and luminous representation, Griffa traces lines that go back to the long memory of humankind, kept alive thanks to painting as the link between present and past knowledge.
Rajlich founded the avant-garde Prague group Klub Konkretistů in the wake of the international neo-avant-gardes such as Azimut in Italy and ZERO in Germany, while in the Netherlands he was able to confront the theories of the neo-avant-garde of the Nul group. His works, which are solidly anchored in a quest for the roots of painting, stand out for a materiality that is both symbol and metaphor of physical substance and carefully controlled gesture.
The painting of Jerry Zeniuk first found appreciation in the 1970s after he took part (together with Tomas Rajlich, Jaap Berghuis, Jake Berthot, Louis Cane, Gerhard Richter, Robert Ryman, Kees Smits and others) in the landmark 1975 group exhibition Fundamental Painting in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Colour is the fundamental element in Zeniuk’s painting; physical and visual beauty is the goal. According to the artist, colours are not only bearers of emotions, but their interaction is capable of reflecting social and, more generally, human relations too.
The artists documented in this publication are eloquent examples of an approach that that has gone beyond the artistic developments of the 1970s to become, in its evolution down to the present day, a singular and definitive experience. The thread that connects them is fidelity to painting in the specific essence of the medium, free of all theorisation, to achieve a lofty and resolute degree of mentalisation and operational concentration.
Giorgio Griffa, Tomas Rajlich, Jerry Zeniuk. Absolute Painting
Inauguration Friday 3 May 18:30-21:30 hrs
3 May – 14 September 2019
Admission: Tuesday to Saturday 9:30 – 13:30; 14:30 – 18:30
Sunday and Monday by appointment
ABC-ARTE
Via XX Settembre 11/A Genoa
T.010.86.83.884
