La Soglia della Pittura/The Threshold of Painting
Enzo Cacciola, Vincenzo Cecchini, Marco Gastini, Riccardo Guarneri, Giorgio Griffa, Paolo Masi, Claudio Olivieri, Pino Pinelli, Claudio Verna
Opening: Tuesday 20th June 2023, at 6.30 pm
From 21st June to 21st September 2023
Monday to Friday, from 3.00 pm to 7.00
Curated by Glenda Cinquegrana
Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting is glad to present the collective show by the title The Threshold of Painting, where a selection of works by artists belonging to the Italian Analytical Painting movement, such as Enzo Cacciola, Vincenzo Cecchini, Marco Gastini, Giorgio Griffa, Riccardo Guarneri, Paolo Masi, Claudio Olivieri, Pino Pinelli, Claudio Verna, are presented. The title of the show hints at one of the fundamental themes which draw together the artists in Analytical Painting, that is, the research on the materials in painting, which places them halfway between painting and conceptual art, between bidimensional painting and space, between painting and photography: the threshold is indeed the border between genres pushed to the limit by analysis as the hallmark of the movement. Analytical Painting is an art movement which developed in the 70s as a clear response to the cultural climate consecrating Conceptual Art as the artistic language of the period. Established between 1970 and 1978 with the definition of Pittura Pittura or Nuova Pittura, when it focuses on the syntax itself of painting and the related concepts of space, sign, colour, medium, it’s based on the full awareness that painting can renew itself starting with the latter. Besides belonging to the European scene with similar results as French Support-Surfaces and German Geplante Malerei, Analytical Painting is inspired by the idea of a fluid movement formed by artists who, besides having in common the participation in important exhibitions such as Documenta in1977 and the Venice Biennale in 1978, share the same poetical vision. Even here the word “movement” must be used as a threshold word to indicate that field of Analytical painting which is vast.
Enzo Cacciola (Arenzano 1954; lives in Rocca Grimalda, Alessandria) after his debut at Galleria la Bertesca in Genova, in 1974-75, he develops his personal style which, in the period of the asbestos, uses as painting material concrete, which interests him for how it takes part in the process. Initially interested in the relationship between painting and photography, Vincenzo Cecchini (Cattolica 1943, where he lives and works) develops his poetics which, remaining on the threshold between painting and photography, is a reflection on the space of the painting meant as a projection plane and site of the imperfection. Marco Gastini (Turin 1938 – 2018) in the mid-70s characterizes his research by using plexiglass as a medium for the brushstroke where the trajectory of the lines is built more by absence than by presence. One of the most rigorous and consistent in the study of the principles of painting is certainly Giorgio Griffa, who even demolishes paintings as a medium and reduces brushstrokes to a mere trait. On the contrary, the painting of Guarneri (Florence 1933, where he lives and works), is the result of carefully planning the pictorial space of the painting together with accurately diluting the colour, among geometrical shapes and poetical reductions.
Meanwhile, Pino Pinelli (Catania, 1938), has focused, since the 70s, on the dissemination of colour and of monochrome, on the interaction between painting, meant in objectual terms, and the wall. Colour in Pinelli’s work has emanating qualities very close to Klein’s. Finally, the quest for a tactile effect, where “the reading of the colour requires a long pause in which the chromatic tone grows releasing perceptive vibration data,” according to the words of the artist himself. Paolo Masi (Florence, 1934, where he lives and works) has turned into a painting medium cardboard, a recycled material on which he uses colours developed to their infinite possibilities. Plexiglas chosen as a box that protects this humble material amplifies light. Among the founders of the movement, Claudio Olivieri (Rome 1934 – Milan 2019) works on a colour painting, which, between light and shade, is made of revelations and concealments as coexisting poles of a painting practice that chases the idea of limit, of black light. The stacking of layers where the use of a spray gun succeeds in creating refined forms of chromatic perception in which the painting becomes an accessible threshold only by looking at the depth of the space. Finally, Claudio Verna’s quest, departing from the avant-gardes, develops his own consistent research on the interaction between colour and the surface of the painting.
