The exhibition "CONTEMPORARY NOW / Form, Sign, and Colour" will be inaugurated on Saturday 17 February 2024 at 5.30 p.m. (ending at 8 p.m.) at the GAMeC CentroArteModerna exhibition spaces in Pisa, curated by Massimiliano Sbrana, on the Lungarno Mediceo at no. 26, in which a group of well-known and appreciated international artists will discuss the theme of informal and abstract art.
The Informal stood and stands in strong polemic with everything that, in some way, can be traced back to a form, be it figurative or even purely abstract. The Informal, therefore, explicitly denies all form and with it the rational knowledge that derives from it. The two fundamental components of Informal are specified in gesture and matter. The former is strongly emphasised, as Dada had already done, as it is considered the only truly creative moment. Art is therefore not the painting executed but the act of executing it. And if art is to perform a gesture, the artistic value lies in the gesture itself, no longer in the product of that gesture. Hence the gesture can be any gesture, not necessarily a pictorial gesture.It can be a symbolic gesture, such as cutting a canvas, or a gesture of provocation, such as putting one's signature (an artist's signature!) on the naked body of a model or, again, a gesture of protest, such as making more or less shapeless blobs. Matter, finally, suddenly finds itself in the foreground. It is in his choice and in that of all the possible combinations of different materials that the artist manifests his 'CREATIVE ENERGY'. A rough sack, a shiny scrap of steel, a soft piece of rubber, a cold neon light, a sharp splinter of glass, are nothing but artistic acts. In this sense, art becomes, above all, choice, and this new vision broadens its field practically to infinity. Everything, then, can become art, just as it is possible that nothing actually is.
Abstractionism, on the other hand, arose from the artists' choice to deny the representation of reality in order to exalt their own feelings through shapes, lines and colours. A fundamental point of reference is Wilhelm Worringer's 1907 text Abstraction and Empathy, where art is interpreted according to the artist's intentionality. Form is understood as the result of the encounter between man and the world, alternating between empathy, i.e. approaching reality, and abstraction, i.e. rejection of reality. The term 'abstractionism' is therefore often used to designate all non-figurative forms of visual artistic expression, where there are no footholds that allow the painted image to be traced back to any representation of reality, not even mediated by the artist's sensitivity as in the case of the Impressionists. However, in some meanings 'abstractionism' means (in a restrictive sense) only the pursuit of pure form by means of colours and geometric shapes, as in the works of Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers, Mauro Reggiani and Mario Radice, while other non-figurative experiences are referred to by their own names, such as Informal Abstract Expressionism and the like, Kandinsky started from expressionistic painting with the accentuation of colour to a completely abstract painting without recognisable figures (his first abstract watercolour is from 1910).
Here are the artists featured in this exhibition:
Abbagnara Marco, Antar, Beccaro Bruno, Bracciotti Michele, Brunn Munch Tove, D'Agord Monica Anna, D'Agosto Daniela, Galiardi Giovanni, Gammarota Annarita, Lorusso Antonietta, Marin Luca Maria, Mordeglia Fabio, Pacini Omar, Pannunzio Maria Teresa, Pasquali Gisella, Pidello Caser Bruna, Poli Giovanni, Ricci Laura, Romero Loredana, Sbolci Renzo, Schiavo Louis, Semino Claudio, Tarabella Marzia, Zanoskar Jana.
The exhibition will continue until Wednesday 28 February 2024 (free admission).
Opening times: 10 a.m. - 12.30 p.m. 4 p.m. - 6.30 p.m. (weekdays); Sundays 18 and 25 February 2024 4 p.m. - 6.30 p.m.; closed Mondays.
