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Valerio Adami
L’uovo rotto, 1964
Acrylic on canvas
200 x 300 cm
L’uovo rotto, 1964
Acrylic on canvas
200 x 300 cm
Press Release
Valerio Adami
Opening: September 21, 2016
September 22 – November 12, 2016
Opening: September 21, 2016
September 22 – November 12, 2016
Valerio Adami has been a recurring presence in the history of Studio Marconi, from his inaugural exhibition in 1965 up until 1992, when the exhibition space became the Giò Marconi Gallery (where the artist exhibited twice: in 1995 and 1997), then again at the Marconi Foundation, with shows in 2007 and 2009.
This extensive monographic show marks the great artist’s return and traces his work from 1956 to the end of the Nineties.
Born in Bologna in 1935, Valerio Adami lives between Paris, his adopted city, Monte Carlo and Lake Maggiore.
After his early studies at Felice Carena’s studio, followed by courses with Achille Funi, he graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1955.
His travels have led him to live and work in Europe, the United States, Latin America and India.
Recognised as one of the greatest Italian artists of the postwar period and the recipient of major international awards for painting, Valerio Adami was initially influenced by the expressionist painting of Oskar Kokoschka and Francis Bacon.
He also drew on the visual culture of American pop art, experiencing and conceiving painting as a mental tool for transforming the world in order to achieve “an integral representation of our reality”. (Emilio Tadini, 1965)
"From the time I saw him create his paintings from photos he found in the news... I realised we were dealing with a great painter: not a painter of the present or of current events, but a painter clearly attempting to master, even to destroy, the every day – or better, 'send it flying in pieces'.” (A. Jouffroy, 1966)
At first he shared with Matta and Magnelli the destruction of forms and the fundamental relationship between painting and drawing; later, with de Chirico, it was extirpation, a vision both dreamlike and absolute, with elements taken from various eras and an unsettling nostalgia for neoclassicism and myth.
In this way Adami gradually developed his very personal style, where subjects taken from everyday life contrast with harmonious backgrounds of pure colour edged in black and totally devoid of chiaroscuro.
Over the years, the wealth of experience, culture and knowledge he gained in the course of his numerous travels, worldwide exhibitions and encounters with international artists and intellectuals, transformed his art into something entirely different from the early days.
The fragments of detonated bodies typical of the Sixties were gradually recomposed, and his painting became increasingly filled with solemn, classical figures.
This extensive monographic show marks the great artist’s return and traces his work from 1956 to the end of the Nineties.
Born in Bologna in 1935, Valerio Adami lives between Paris, his adopted city, Monte Carlo and Lake Maggiore.
After his early studies at Felice Carena’s studio, followed by courses with Achille Funi, he graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1955.
His travels have led him to live and work in Europe, the United States, Latin America and India.
Recognised as one of the greatest Italian artists of the postwar period and the recipient of major international awards for painting, Valerio Adami was initially influenced by the expressionist painting of Oskar Kokoschka and Francis Bacon.
He also drew on the visual culture of American pop art, experiencing and conceiving painting as a mental tool for transforming the world in order to achieve “an integral representation of our reality”. (Emilio Tadini, 1965)
"From the time I saw him create his paintings from photos he found in the news... I realised we were dealing with a great painter: not a painter of the present or of current events, but a painter clearly attempting to master, even to destroy, the every day – or better, 'send it flying in pieces'.” (A. Jouffroy, 1966)
At first he shared with Matta and Magnelli the destruction of forms and the fundamental relationship between painting and drawing; later, with de Chirico, it was extirpation, a vision both dreamlike and absolute, with elements taken from various eras and an unsettling nostalgia for neoclassicism and myth.
In this way Adami gradually developed his very personal style, where subjects taken from everyday life contrast with harmonious backgrounds of pure colour edged in black and totally devoid of chiaroscuro.
Over the years, the wealth of experience, culture and knowledge he gained in the course of his numerous travels, worldwide exhibitions and encounters with international artists and intellectuals, transformed his art into something entirely different from the early days.
The fragments of detonated bodies typical of the Sixties were gradually recomposed, and his painting became increasingly filled with solemn, classical figures.
What has remained unchanged, however, is his starting point: drawing.
Adami follows a virtuous process, first through the drawing and then the painting, in which associations of ideas, classical myths, references to literature, music and film, and distant memories of personal experience converge.
The drawing divides and organises the space; it establishes a hierarchy, a positive and negative, bringing order and structure. Lines and shapes emerge, intersect and unfold as they acquire new identities in an imaginative flow reminiscent of Joyce’s stream of consciousness.
"The line, which is the essential element of drawing, the creator and generator of forms, is subjective... it flows, it multiples endlessly, and endlessly it tells us about its journey (…).
Hence it is a narrator (...). Yet the line itself does not speak: to tell its story it has to invent forms that are able to do so." (Octavio Paz, 1990)
“Without the precious seed of drawings, there’ll be no harvest of paintings (...)”, said Adami, offering us a poetic and eloquent image of his creative process.
This “circular path” which exists between drawing and painting in Valerio Adami’s work is the focal point of this exhibition of about 70 works, displayed chronologically over four levels: ground floor, basement, and first and second floors.
The exhibition includes paintings dating from the Fifties: L’asino di Empoli and Ballata popolare (1956), and works from the Sixties and Seventies: L’uovo rotto (1964), Il miraggio (1965), Henry Matisse che lavora a un quaderno di disegni (1966), La vetrina (1969), L'università di Lipsia al tempo di Nietzsche (1972), the triptych Intolerance (1974) and Etude pour un dessin d’après Glas (1976), based on the drawing inspired by a Jacques Derrida text, which over time has become an icon of “deconstruction”.
Among the mature works from the Nineties will be Marathon (1990), L’ora del ballo (1991), Amplesso (1995) and Fortepiano (1997), alongside drawings that either precede these or in many cases were executed at a later stage.
Two bilingual volumes published by Skira and edited by Amelia Valtolina accompany the exhibition: Valerio Adami 1956-1963: The Years in Milan, and Valerio Adami 1964-1999: The years in London, Paris, New York, Mexico City...
These retrace, step by step, the artist’s long creative path and include a rich anthology of texts and documents that suggest new directions for examining and evaluating Adami’s complex and prolific body of work.
The exhibition also continues at Studio Marconi ’65 with a nucleus of drawings and graphic work.
Adami follows a virtuous process, first through the drawing and then the painting, in which associations of ideas, classical myths, references to literature, music and film, and distant memories of personal experience converge.
The drawing divides and organises the space; it establishes a hierarchy, a positive and negative, bringing order and structure. Lines and shapes emerge, intersect and unfold as they acquire new identities in an imaginative flow reminiscent of Joyce’s stream of consciousness.
"The line, which is the essential element of drawing, the creator and generator of forms, is subjective... it flows, it multiples endlessly, and endlessly it tells us about its journey (…).
Hence it is a narrator (...). Yet the line itself does not speak: to tell its story it has to invent forms that are able to do so." (Octavio Paz, 1990)
“Without the precious seed of drawings, there’ll be no harvest of paintings (...)”, said Adami, offering us a poetic and eloquent image of his creative process.
This “circular path” which exists between drawing and painting in Valerio Adami’s work is the focal point of this exhibition of about 70 works, displayed chronologically over four levels: ground floor, basement, and first and second floors.
The exhibition includes paintings dating from the Fifties: L’asino di Empoli and Ballata popolare (1956), and works from the Sixties and Seventies: L’uovo rotto (1964), Il miraggio (1965), Henry Matisse che lavora a un quaderno di disegni (1966), La vetrina (1969), L'università di Lipsia al tempo di Nietzsche (1972), the triptych Intolerance (1974) and Etude pour un dessin d’après Glas (1976), based on the drawing inspired by a Jacques Derrida text, which over time has become an icon of “deconstruction”.
Among the mature works from the Nineties will be Marathon (1990), L’ora del ballo (1991), Amplesso (1995) and Fortepiano (1997), alongside drawings that either precede these or in many cases were executed at a later stage.
Two bilingual volumes published by Skira and edited by Amelia Valtolina accompany the exhibition: Valerio Adami 1956-1963: The Years in Milan, and Valerio Adami 1964-1999: The years in London, Paris, New York, Mexico City...
These retrace, step by step, the artist’s long creative path and include a rich anthology of texts and documents that suggest new directions for examining and evaluating Adami’s complex and prolific body of work.
The exhibition also continues at Studio Marconi ’65 with a nucleus of drawings and graphic work.